For ten years western intelligence has fought a secret war against Al Qaeda, the most deadly and sophisticated terrorist organization the world has ever faced. In the decades since 9/11 the west has employed unprecedented and controversial methods, drone attacks, secret prisons and torture. Peter Taylor the filmmaker has reported on terrorist conflicts for almost forty years and in his words, never has the west felt more threatened and never has the west hit back with such force. In this documentary he investigates whether the secret war has made us all safer. He talks to intelligence chiefs that normally stay in the shadows. In her first ever formal television interview, the formal head of MI5 reveals the scale of the threat and the former head of the CIA maintains extraordinary measures were justified.