has never been more crucial to military operations from gps guided munitions and navigation to missile defense and communications. the air force has extended its streak of successful national

security space launches to 65. the forces around the globe could not succeed without the satellite based capabilities provided by the air force 24 hours a day 365 days a year. third, the air force's nuclear stewardship, the stand-up of the global strike command and the future consolidation of the 20th and take their forces in this command is a historic marker that will add lines, the clear lines of authority and accountability to the services nuclear mission. these institutional reforms will also help keep this critical expertise alive and valued within the service and its officer corps. the activation of another new b-52 squadron further illustrates our commitment to america's strategic deterrence. old told more than a year of introspection and hard work is starting to show some results. steps on the path to institutional excellence in a mission where there is no room

for error. and finally i am pleased to announce that source selection authority is returning to the air force for the kcx refueling tanker. with a draft request from both proposals to follow. i don't need to belabor the importance-- [applause] idoni tuba laborer the importance of getting this done soon and done right. my office will continue to have a robust oversight role. we are committed to the and integrity of the selection process and cannot afford the kind of letdown, parochial squabbles and corporate food fights that have bedeviled this effort of the last number of years. i have confidence that the kcx selection authority is in good hands with the services leadership team and secretary donnelly and general schwartz. indeed the air force is fortunate to have a deep bench

of senior flight officers including four combatant commanders, as many as any other servers including the first air force officer to lead southern command. i depend greatly on their expert advice and strategic vision. old told the foundation of america's air power and the 21st century rats verse on a barrage conversable mix of capabilities, tactical and strategic man and unmanned boze cyberspace to outer. on the quality and commitment of our airmen, without which all of the most advanced hardware and the world would be of little use. which brings me to a final thought. disorganization properly re viers the memory of leaders like billy mitchell, who advocated for air power between the world wars in the face of cherished traditions and conventional wisdom. cavalry for example was against aircraft because it might scare

the horses. one of my predecessors, the secretary of for the time told general pershing managed to win a war without looking at a plane much less riding in one. another u.s. were secretary baker thought that mitchell's idea of using airplanes to sink a ship was "so nonsensical and impossible that i'm willing to stand on the bridge while that nitwit tries to hit me. [laughter] must have been a hell of a temptation. [laughter] it strikes me that the significance of mitchell and his travails was not that he was always right. it is that he had the vision and the insight to see that the world and technology have changed. understood the implications of that change and then press the head in the face of fierce institutional resistance. the transformative figures of american air power from mitchell to arnold, of let me to boy have this quality in varying degrees.

it is one i look forward in the next generation of air force leaders, jr. and mid-level officers and mco's it would experience the grim reality of ford and the demands of persistent conflict. these are men and women we need to retain and empower, to shape this service for which they have given so much. in this dangerous new century our country faces a fiendish and complex array of threats and our military confronts a bewildering array of taft. to overcome these challenges will call on all the elements that make up america's defense establishment, military and civilian, congress, industry, retired flag officers, veterans groups and military service organizations. to step up and be part of the solution, to be willing to stretch their comfort zones and rethink longstanding assumptions that a wider and greater purpose

of doing what is necessary to protect our company. i believe this is happening in the united states air force. the american people are grateful to airman for having protected us for many decades and we are counting on you to do what it takes in the years ahead. my thanks again to afa for the opportunity to speak with you today and for everything you do on behalf of our country and our air force. thank you. [applause] ♪ >> thank you mr. secretary and thank you for green to take a few questions. your recent announcement, but your announcement concerning the kcx takes care of 50% of these

questions. [laughter] the first one concerns our nuclear forces and you mentioned the stand up of global strike command and as we continue our efforts to reinvigorate the nuclear enterprise, what could you share with us on the status of the nuclear posture review and what impact it might have in terms of major changes for our air force? >> the nuclear posture is well underway and i would say we are beginning to see what some of the likely conclusions are. i would say that it is clear, at least to me, that it is important for us to continue to make investments and i think larger investments, in modernizing our nuclear infrastructure, the labs and so on, the expertise in those

places to have the resources for like extension programs and in one or two cases probably a new design so that it will be safer and more reliable. we have no desire for capabilities. that is a red herring. this is about modernizing and keeping save the capability that everyone acknowledges we will have to have for some considerable period into the future before achieving some of the objectives significant arms reduction and eventually no nuclear weapons at all. all recognize that is a considerable distance in the future and we have an obligation to keep this capability safe. i also believe that these capabilities are enablers of arms control and our ability to reduce the size of our nuclear stockpile. when we have more confidence in

the long-term viability of our weapons systems, then our ability to reduce the number of weapons we must keep in a stockpile is enhanced, so i see this modernization effort if you will as a vehicle and and and abler of arms control and stockpile reduction. >> thank you sir. this concerns our efforts to build up partnerships with regard to air power and you see a continued expansion of the efforts of building partnerships with the air force's like iraq and others? >> yeah, i think this is an area where the air force is really stepping up both in iraq and afghanistan and frankly their ambitions for air power in my opinion probably exceeds their capabilities in the near term so i think the air force has taken a very smart approach to this in terms of helping them walk before they run, or fly in

simpler, easier to maintain aircraft rather than the kite and aircraft right away, and this i referred to in my, in my remarks about the need to develop some capabilities that where we can actually more easily hand over to them and aircraft that they can use and one that is easier for them to fly and maintain, at least as they are getting started in building these capabilities. >> this one this sort of a follow-up to that concerning air power in afghanistan and that our nato air forces and our air force have experienced considerable success in our efforts there. what is your view of the use of air power in afghanistan and what you see coming down the road in the future? >> as i indicated in my remarks it is even more important in

afghanistan that it is, then it has been and iraq, if only because the infrastructure is so much more primitive than in afghanistan. the absence of paved roads, the absence of roads altogether, the size of the country, the isolation of many of our forward operating basis, the isolation of our units as they operate out in the field valley by valley, mountain by mountain, so i think the demand for air power in afghanistan will only grow and obviously as we have nearly doubled the size of u.s. forces in afghanistan in the last about year and clearly the demand for logistical support has increased dramatically. let me just, just highlight something with respect to the afghanistan that, where i think the air force has really stepped up to the plate and done a remarkable job, and that is

since last january, moving our medevac capabilities in afghanistan from around two hours down to on average at an hour and in many cases much less, and given the size of the country this is a remarkable achievement, and i think you can hardly imagine the impact that that has had i think on the morale of our ground troops in knowing that the air force is for them like that. i was told when i was out there a few weeks ago in visited, as i mentioned, a couple of the units that are doing their rescue operations, we have not had a double amputee survive those wounds in afghanistan until this kind of additional air power came along, so that is the kind of difference is making.

and now they are being safe. >> the nexon concerns the area of cyberand you commented on 24 their force and would you also comment on the stand up of u.s. cybercommand and your expectations of how the services will organize and present the full range of capabilities to this new command? >> i think all of the services have readily embraced the reality that this is important, and it the vital to us for the future. each of the services in establishing its own cyberorganization such as the 24, all i have asked each of the service chiefs to consider it as a first priority filling the billets in this cyberschools. we were not filling all of those billets and clearly the demand for trained people in each of the services in this area is critically important. i think everybody understands this is a huge potential

vulnerability for us because of our dependence on electronic world for communications for everything we do. and come i think cybercommand really is the recognition of the need that the u.s. cybercommand as a subunified command under stratcom, i think there reason it is really important is the need to integrate the different elements from exploitation to defense and so on, all in one place so that we have a unit of effort in this respect, and then working with the individual service components. so i think we have made a lot of institutional and structural progress over the past year to 18 months and getting ourselves better organized to deal with a threat that is only going to grow in the future. >> sir, this is a follow-up on that. you describe what we are doing within the department but how well operations in cyberspace be

coordinated between the department of defense and other civil and national agencies? >> well, i am sort of speaking a little out of turn here. because i can't speak for the administration as a whole so i will just give you a personal opinion. i think the notion of being able to replicate nsa for the civilian side of the government is wholly unrealistic. we lack the human capital as well as the dollars to be able to do it and frankly we lack the time to be able to do it. we just couldn't create another nsa r.a-- n/a your two. this is a tanner 20 your project so i think the concerns of people of all of us concerned about civil liberties and so on have to be taken into account. my own personal view is that one way to do this would be to

double the debbie secretary rice undersecretary of the department of homeland security and have that person also be a civilian deputy at nsa, and then figure out a way to put some firewall than that makes sure that the authorities that we have that we can use for going after foreign threats do not spill over into the civilian world. but, clearly the need to address this issue and the vulnerability of the doc, world in this arena i think has to be addressed and better sooner than later. >> thank you sir. the next question has to do with their growing reliance on space and our services and certainly our nation and the world continue to rely heavily and even more so on our space capabilities. what are we doing to address the potential threat to our space assets that it been hearing-- appearing of the the last several years? >> this is a worry for me and especially once the chinese

demonstrated their anti-satellite capabilities. they are working on them. clearly the russians have some capabilities in this area. others may have in the years ahead and maybe in the not too distant future so i think we have to look at it in a couple of ways. how can we make what we do put in space more survival but also what kind of alternatives can we develop in the atmosphere to be able to provide at least short-term substitutes for space assets should they be denied to us, and i would tell you we are not, we have made some good progress but we have got a long way to go in this area. >> the next question look to the future. would you care to expand a little on what you see as the department of defense's top three or four challenges as we look to the next five or ten years? >> i think the biggest challenge the department will face is

sustaining the programs that we have an a very straight in the budget environment and an environment where the government is strayed-- facing gigantic deficit. i always used to save the u.s. defense budget if you crafted over the past 30 or 40 years would look like the ekg obay fairbairn plating heart and the truth of the matter is a radical of send downs are about as an efficient way to do business as there is. so am i pitch basically has, give us whatever the rate of growth, try and give us a steady rate of growth that we can plan on for years at a time, whether it is 2% real growth or inflation or whether it is 3%, whatever that number is. give us some predictability because i think everybody in the room that has managed programs

know you can do a lot of you have got predictability in the wood is coming next year in the year after that. so i think that is the biggest challenge that we are going to face. we obviously have a challenge in particular of the war in afghanistan, and as i said i think that is entering a decisive phase over the next year or so. i think trying to organize ourselves and our thinking and our programs in a way that provides more the maximum possible flexibility or versatility across the widest possible spectrum of conflict is a challenge we need to face. we don't have the money to have a lot of single mission niche capabilities. we need to have platforms that have applicability in a number

of different areas. there will be some where we have to have a niche capability, but and we have to preserve those. the f-22 is a good example of that, but by and large we need to look at procurement in the future to say, can this help us in a number of different forums, a number of different kinds of complex weather at the high-end of conventional conflict or in a regular conflict. >> this question also looks to the future. you describe the challenges. what you see us the things that give you the greatest hope for our future? >> that is really the easiest question of all. it is the men and women in uniform. they are all amazing, and they are principally the reason that i came to this job and principally the reason that i stayed in this job.

>> thank you mr. secretary. thank you for your leadership. thank you for those kind words about our great airman and thank you for being with us today. we would like to present u.s. small token of our gratitude, a photo of our great air force memorial that was taken on the day that it was dedicated. [applause] ♪ ♪

>> the erinn space conference hosted frank mckinley who is chief of the national guard bureau. this is about 25 minutes. >> let's take our seats. as you know the last session ran a little long and general mckinley has got to rush off with a meeting with the secretary of defense in the pentagon so we are going to move as rapidly on. something about putting a bunch of generals together and giving them a microphone, they just go on and on. this session is really a great one for afa. it is my honor to introduce general mckinley. he is the senior uniformed national guard officer responsible for developing and coordinating policies, programs and plans affecting more than

half a million army national guard personnel. use the first four-star head of the national guard. he is a great friend of afa. he was a region and state president for afa, and if we get enough time, he is agreed to take questions from you so please join me in welcoming general craig mckinley. >> thanks mike, appreciated. [applause] just oscar of for a second to say thanks for being here. i know many of you are here with an educational experience and learning as much as you can and professionally developing yourself and i think that is great. as mike said ivan the opportunity of the chapter in the state and the region and serving as an afa director at one time. had some great experiences with john shot gy saw earlier. worked with don peterson and now with mike, some great leaders and on the elected side of

course, a key, james smith, holly crawford and bob so for those of you who are sampling the fair here, you are around some very very great leaders who have done an awful lot for both industry and the military and again off script i mentioned earlier that i am privileged to be the fourth chief of the national guard bureau who wears this color uniform. eight previous chief in the national guard and former director of the air national guard is john conaway and i would certainly like you to stand and be recognized. thank you very much. [applause] we have got a great stable of pass directors of the national guard who have worked very closely with the air force and the air force association throughout the years. course general conaway goes back and general mckinley followed him from south dakota. general shepherd followed him from massachusetts. general weaver followed shepherd

from new york. general james from taxes and then i had the opportunity to follow danny for a few years and i worked with john cotton hugh as i alluded to in my remarks, is the former chief of the navy reserve. we have a very collegial and concurrent group of reserve chiefs to meet a lot and we work now with dennis mccarthy, who is the office of the secretary of defense of theirs and we had some really strong advocacy in the building from all the service chiefs and from our civilian leadership, so for all of you in the room today and those of you who have served in the national guard, those of you who are start-- serving in the national guard, thanks for the opportunity to speak today. i have a short video because i think listening to somebody with a monologue at the podium sometimes does not capture the true reflection of an organization so i have a short video. if it is cued up, please show it

and then we will chat a little bit about it. ♪ >> america was caught by surprise on september 11. it was changed forever when the first plane struck the tower. the terrorist attacks change the way we do war. they change the way we respond to disaster. a change the way we protect our borders but most of all, those attacks change the face of the national guard. >> i was in my office and it came on cnn, we saw the second plane amaya executive there, we both looked at each other and said this is an attack. it is one of those moments that you will never forget. >> he mobilize the whole national guard and he did not do. people call into the army, do

you need me? everybody else in the country was sitting around and watching it on tv. >> there was a certain amount of pride. there was a feeling of personal commitment to the point where we adapted a motto, never forget. >> that motto is something that i think should be relevant to every single american. >> 9/11 changed every but he and especially those people in the guard because it has totally transition our force. ♪ >> when operation enduring freedom began the national guard was ready, as it always is, to respond to the crisis. we work for the united states army and united states air force and our overseas deployments that we waited for their requests for forces then they came in shortly after the president made his decision to

find the perpetrators and to deny sanctuary to those who would contribute to the attacks of september 11, 2001. ♪ >> the 34th rebel infantry division as i think it's still the longstanding continuous service and iraq. dare vision overlapped with the election in iraq and was one step towards one measure of moving towards democracy and freedom. >> the operation of iraqi freedom and operation enduring freedom has change the paradigm of the national guard. it not only makes things safer at home but it helps that country to obtain stability and to establish a democratic and free way of life. >> you know the first indications we have that hurricane katrina was going to make landfall was on friday night. we talked to the government and

we mobilized over 2,000 guardsmen that night. the next day we mobilized 2,000. as soon as we began to get indications of the devastation we managed a total mobilization of louisiana national guard and made a call for massive guard troops from other states in the country. >> it was extremely credible. the soldiers and airmen stepped up and they are totally committed to serving the citizens of our state and they absolutely saved many, many lives. >> the fact is we belong to the system and we are here to protect the lives and protect the property in the events of a catastrophe, whether the man-made or natural disaster. >> it is important that we participate in both the state and federal mission. ♪ >> tennessee guard came over and

volunteered from jumpstart. anytime american-- will volunteer and that this matter if it is in afghanistan, iraq, over the southwest border, katrina, tornadoes here at home. i think wherever there is a need we will see the guard volunteer. >> when a country needs help, they always call upon the united states because they know we are the peace keepers of the world so bosnia, kosovo, all the troubled area in yugoslavia and for all states to play the role and we are proud to see the stability has finally come to that part of the earth. ♪ >> the national guard bureau of i can say without any reservation how proud i am of the contributions of the members of the national guard. their outstanding soldiers and

outstanding airmen. there well-trained, they are well lead, they are professionals, they are dedicated and very patriotic and that is why we are the successful force that we are. >> that is kind of a quick review of current events and we don't define our history beginning on september 11, 2001 and we define our history before we were a nation and then as our nation found itself and build its constitution founding fathers said we should have a militia, we should have governors of our states, territories, appoint the officers of the militia and some members of the national guard kerry to commissions. one in the army and the air force, the federal force of the united states and a commission in the state or territory in which they live. general conaway coin phrase that we are america's community based national defense force. i think it is as applicable today as when general conaway coined the phrase. it is a balance and as secretary

gates talked about we are t-bones force. we do not have all the resources that we would like or necessarily that we need and so the army and the air force are a major resource and we work with secretary donley and pete geren and george casey to make sure that the national guard can fulfill both its mission and the title x rules serving overseas and also representing the governor's of the states, the territories of puerto rico and guam and our district of columbia so that in a nutshell is the constitutional routing of why we have the national guard. the appearance, disagreements are agreements that we have to time throughout history have all been usually round the resource in of the organization and not the value or necessity of the organization. our citizens soldiers and airmen must have the support of their families as we talked about on the panel. we have a unique situation with the other reserve components and

that we have to have the support of the employers. most of our members, both the army guard and air national guard have other jobs for the 75% of our force have other civilian skills and it is ironic that this week the president declared this the national employers support of the guard reserve we can president obama has put out a message on that and i would say with the patriae awards tomorrow night that the reserve are giving out our industry part nitze y no afa turns to for support for we in uniform turn to for support, we thank the employers for contributing their members in this time of crisis at a time when we have been imburses and conflict for over eight years in the nation but that's an air force for almost two decades of persistent conflict so that the citizen airmen, the citizen soldiers participate in these federal missions. you also add on top of that the

natural disaster share, in the horrific attacks on the september 11, 2001 and were living in a new age so we are creating in crafting with our services the 21st century version of what the national guard was to washington and subsequency presidents. i could go on and on. i am not going to do that. i will answer some questions that i've got to close with a letter that i think brings it as close to home for me as anything i have done as chief. i know all of our leadership tried to express their personal thoughts to the members and the families of a fallen. rarely do i get an answer from one of those families but i did in this case. i would like you to listen to the words of a mother who lost a son in iraq. and the father. my wife and i thank you for your kind letter of condolences. we are so proud that eric was part of such an honorable group of men and women, the military of the united states and

national guard. you of an amazing during this most difficult time for garr casualty affairs officer was outstanding and med every knee bhargava captain darrell hault is now our friend and consider him family. second tenet tim bockner as sordid garzon hallman stood by air side during the services. tom len was her son's best friend then came home from basra on emergency leave to escort us and care for us. we consider all of these fine young men as our own now. from the adjuvants general to the private side we were treated with compassion and respect of every moment. eric loves his platoon and prowl the spoke of them and he would have wanted to be the one to die if he had his way. we heard from his corporal last week. he was seriously wounded the day eric was killed and after 20 surgeries he is doing well and looking to come to fort campbell to finish his recovery. we look forward to visiting him.

our hearts of the elected by these young men and women and i know that you are very proud to be the chief of the national guard bureau. they thanked me for my service and i've got to tell you when you get those kinds of letters in this nation that for which we will probably be in for the foreseeable future, a renewed my spirit. ake renews my drive in my commitment to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, members of our costarred to do this work so god bless you all for being here today and like i can certainly take any questions than anybody might have. [applause] thank you. thanks a lot. >> we have got a small crowd. if you have an abiding question, may be a cadet could ask you to stand and say your question. or i can-- go ahead. [inaudible]

>> the role of the national guard and homeland offense is significant obviously. some of the new 21st century constructs will lend ourselves well to supporting some of the other federal and state agencies that are responsible for that. it was september 11, to guzman that created the department of common security. secretary napolitano is the former governor of arizona and is already reached out to the department defense and secretary gates to see what type of relationships we can have with the national guard and other military forces to ensure the safety and security of our american citizens. the department has said that defending our homeland is our number one priority and we focus all lot on taking the fight to the enemy and denying sanctuary overseas. i want to make sure that we in the national guard contribute equally to the fact that, if god willing we don't have this

happen, if something happens here, we are prepared to handle that situation, which today could be as extreme as a weapon of mass destruction going off in one of our major cities so we have to be constantly prepared. we have to be trained and equipped and organized to fall in immediately, fully respecting the sovereignty of our governors, our states and first responders so we will continue to apply the template that is work for centuries and we will continue to do that work but it is going to take a poll of government approach to making sure each and every american citizen gets the service your she deserves as a taxpayer. >> this one is on a card and it is a pretty good one because we don't think about it very much. could you speak to the fiscal and cultural challenges related to brac total forsen gration in joint the sing? >> you know for 60 years the national guard has existed with its air force in a delicate balance and whenever we have a

base realignment and closure commission then there will be others in the future obviously, this past one that was rendered on september 13, 2005, i remember that day very well, realigned the air national guard and the way that we had not been exposed to before and that was our first signal that this transformation of our air force and the force structure priorities were going to affect our community basing strategy that has lasted to the 20th century. general conaway built and maintained facilities and 3200 communities across the nation. they are small, small footprint, loa infrastructure costs. nevertheless they are facilities so whenever a closure commission looks at every base, we were going to take our fair share of the cuts and that happened out of that base closure commission, the chief of staff, secretary of the air force decided we need to

have the mechanism by which we transfer the capabilities of those organizations into new and emerging nations. that is the total force mission. it is still there, it is still looking at the types of transformation that we in the national guard can do to become as relevant in this century as we were last century knowing as all of our speakers said said that we will be a smaller platform centric air force but we will still carry the same for going as we did when we flew airplanes. >> they are surveillance alert mission, modernization, at 35. there seems to be some holes in going forward. what kind of plants can you reveal to us that, to modernize the fighter forces of the guard going forward? >> the great leaders who served in our air force previously know that one time we had almost 2,000 fighters and air defense command and that was to counter a former soviet threat attacking

the united states after world war ii and into the '50s, '60s and '70s. we were down to six alert sites because the conditions presented themselves to downscale to the point. september 11th changed everything for me because those are my roots. i was in their defender from way back and to see what happened on september 11 concern me greatly. i tried to put myself in the minds of the terrorist to actually hijacked the airplanes and probably there were only three or four of those people who actually knew what their mission was that they but i wonder if my mind they ever thought they would reach their intended target? the greatest nation on the face of the year, surely we would have been able to counter that threat. maybe not the first time but the least the second attack, the third attack and forth. i can imagine in their minds that they ever thought they would actually reach their target. the reason for that is we took

risks. we took risk in the defense of our nation from an atmospheric threat. those threats are still there. the command charged with the responsibility of making sure that didn't happen again has said it has calculus we still need up to 16 alert sites in the tankers that would support them. the a wax on alert that would be needed to see the targets that we ever were attacked and low altitude and the command-and-control pelosi the the first there force that does this for us. as long as the requirements are there we believe they air national guard is the cost division way of providing those resources and those metropolitan areas that defend against the attack critical infrastructure. we are wearing out. does not about politics. it is about the physics of the actual aircraft wearing out, so if we need x number of sites and we need x amount of capabilities

to alert those sites. i would contend general schwartz and general wyatt are working on a strategy to apply a modernization calculus to air sovereignty over. it is going to be complicated. it is going to be difficult. i certainly support general white and general schwartz working toward that solution. members on the hell are very concerned about this and that is why the interest today preserving its many legacy fighters as he can to try to work for the solution to get us to a fighter solution that will give us the greatest coverage and the greatest protection not only aircraft, man aircraft but soon to be at your local theater on man vehicles such as cruise missiles being launched and we have got to be able to see, detect and destroy before they would hit us. >> i have a whole series of these questions but this will be the last one. unless general conaway wants to ask a question to put his colleague on the spot.

would you like to ask a question, sir? [inaudible] both the army and the air national guard. >> did everyone hear that? recruiting trends, forestructure trends lauper down, supporting the national guard. that is why i answered mike dunn question, if i had another dollar i want to invest in recruiting and retaining. i think our most precious resource which is our young american use. we have obviously liked the other services fluctuated up and down, but we in the air guard had a little bit of a problem following brac when many of our people saw that the flying missions were going away and they kind of did not join up the propensity they had been during the '60s, '70s and '80s corps recruiting strength actually went below are end-strength requirements for foreign half years and now cfi, a total force initiatives have brought back

the energy and enthusiasm. on a similar scale the army national guard went from its assigned strength of about 360,000 soldiers down to about 330,000 soldiers so this balance in leaders in this room know recruiting retention is a delicate balance. we have got to maintain our this is because of the economy returns to normalcy, which i certainly help, we are going to have competition for the youth of america. only one out of 100 used today qualify to join. one out of 100 either two mental, physical or other this qualifiers, so that is our target based in we are going to have to spend some serious time thinking about how we maintain this all volunteer force and take care of the families that support the member because we always say we recruit the member and retain the family so if we can do that, into its as successfully as prior leaders like general conaway did we will

be okay but i know air force has always been a service in which you get a lot of draw from high school college kids, but i don't think-- and i certainly don't assume we will get the prior service people that we got when i joined the air national guard after a two or inactive duty. they are staying in the service longer. their more career centric than i was in the '70s of the national guard, the air force reserve provided a wonderful venue not only to capture the prior service menu which we need to have but also to bring in the youth of america. ..

>> and with attorneys general from across the country. to highlight the importance of a combined national effort to try to address financial fraud, financial scams. we have a financial crisis

caused in part by pretty systematic spirit of consumer protection across the country. some of those occurring in the banking system, some outside the banking system. we are committed to try and do a better job going forward at catching those things earlier and trying to provide a better protection. we met today to assess progress on important issue commenced last april to go after foreclosure scams, loan modifications cams. but a few important things about this but i want to underscore. need to move early reactively when you see the first sign that these scam artists start to advertise, start to try and go after people. you need to do that on a coordinated basis because these guys don't respect state borders, don't respect national borders. we do a better job of using i

will call it intelligence that we get from consumer complaints at the national level, the state level. and the reports we get to the banking system that is called suspicious activity reports, so-called stars. we want to look at ways of taking this basic model and extending it outside the area of mortgage foreclosure scams to the range of other practice you see and hear about the other broader consumer areas. and i just want to end by emphasizing that this is critical. is critical to any effective effort to bring about better protection for consumers, but we are going to need legislation at the national level to establish stronger protections for consumers that will be enforced more evenly, more effectively. again, not just within banks but outside the banks. that's why the administration has proposed this new authority placed in one new entity, a consumer financial protection agency, with the authority to

write rules and enforce rules. that will be a critical part of addressing these things more effectively in the future. let me just turn to my colleague here to get a few brief remarks. we will take a few questions to attorney general holder. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. i am pleased to be here today to discuss our continuing joint efforts to combat mortgage fraud and protect the american homeowners. today marks another important step on our ongoing state, federal mortgage fraud initiative. in april we announced with our state colleagues a multi-agency crackdown targeting foreclosure rescue scams and loan modifications and fraud. that initiative has been successful, but we believe we can and we must do more. that is why we've been working hard since april to expand the scope and intensity of our joint mortgage fraud enforcement efforts, and to strengthen and

solidify the coordination between the state and the federal government in this very critical area. when the coordination front, we've created for state and federal mortgage fraud groups working on information sharing, criminal enforcement, civil enforcement and civil rights enforcement. these working groups are each chaired by a state attorney general and an assistant attorney general from the department of justice, and include high level participants from treasury, the ftc, the fbi and state banking authorities. the work of these groups now underway and i am very encouraged by the energy, creativity and determination with which all participants, federal and state are attacking this critical problem. we have been busy on the enforcement front as well. as of july 31 of this year, the fbi has more than 2600 pending mortgage fraud cases under investigation around the country.

this is up approximately from 1600 such investigations into thousand eight. many of these investigations are the result of joint state, federal and local effort coordinated through regional mortgage fraud task force is. to take just one example of a recent successful investigation, late last spring we secured federal charges against five individuals in maryland. their participation in a massive mortgage fraud scheme that allegedly promised to pay off home owners mortgages, but in reality left them to fend for themselves after the defendants elaborate ponzi scheme collapsed. now due to the outstanding work of the federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, that make up the maryland and washington, d.c., task force, these defendants are facing lengthy prison sentences. and forfeiture of their ill-gotten gains. successful investigations such

as these demonstrate that our efforts to attack mortgage fraud must be and they are concerted and coordinated. working together we can send a clear and straightforward message. if you perpetrate mortgage fraud, we will find you and we will charge you, and we will put you in jail. this is a priority for every person that you see sitting around the stables today. i look forward to building upon today's productive meeting, and to continuing our joint work to eliminate fraudulent mortgage schemes. >> there is an incredible attempt at coordination not only among the states but with the federal government. you know, a couple of decades ago we found out that the state attorney generals that if we work together we could accomplish a lot more for our citizens. that's how the multistate group here we are trying to do the same thing with the federal government not. we had a great meeting back in

july with the four departments and their staff that are here today. we followed up and develop for task force. won a civil enforcement, criminal enforcement, information sharing, and the other rights fairland. we've got chairs on both sides. we've got committees and we just recently have gone through sort of an agenda of things that we can do together. so there is a real attempt to have not only the states working together, but the federal government working with us. quite frankly we have never seen before. we think there is enormous potential for our citizens there. one of the things that we focused on today was the foreclosure rescue scams, the loan modifications cams. and the states like always are sort of the laboratories of democracy. what we said from the states is that 20 states have laws now and more as we go on, have laws that say you can't get an advanced fee if you want to modify a loan

or rescue a person for full closure. you have to do the work before you collect it. and that knocks at the heart of these kinds of scams. also, you know, we talk about federal and state criminal prosecution. that there are these operators that move from state to state very quickly. you know, we may shut them down in iowa or in north atlantic, etc. but they keep moving. criminal prosecution is a game changer here. that is something we want to work with the federal government on on as well to chase the game that way. >> with all the stage and attorneys general are you working on various actions in terms of insurance, wickford, at what point are you working on those actions and how well are you cooperating among the various attorneys general? >> anyone want to jump in on that? it to us a little bit of a fair, not too much of the curve.

we started out this task force to deal on mortgage enforcement, and secretary geithner expanded to all kinds of financial issues and financial fraud. but on antitrust level, chris barney is the new assistant attorney general for antitrust. we've had discussions with her. there again, i think you'll be a terrific read working relationship. there are cases being discussed but their confidential at this point. will also work with the ftc on their part of the authority as well. >> think you. >> on the antitrust issue, richard blumenthal, attorney general with data, on the antitrust issue, as you may know, connecticut is engaged in a very active ongoing investigation with rating agencies. at some of the anti-competitive practices that have involved them relating to securitization, as well as other ratings that have been given, and we have been in touch with both the

department of treasury and the department of justice about those investigations. something relevant to the subject that brought us here today, but i would just add to what tom said so well, which is in my 20 years, close to 20 years as attorney general, we have never had a meeting like this. this kind of meeting is unprecedented. to have three members of the cabinet meet with a group of attorneys general simply hasn't happened before. and that fact alone would be worth mentioning as reflecting a spirit of cooperation. but it also was a highly substantive meeting. it wasn't just for show, as tom has mentioned that there was a lot of very productive discussion about where we go from here. and most important maybe is the recognition that we have an epidemic of mortgage rescue scams in this country, but that

problem is simply one species of a larger debt rescue, fraud epidemic. if you listen on the radio, or watch tv, you see them literally before your eyes. and they are operating in visibly in plain sight, and we need to crack down on them, attack them, say to them we will find you, we will find you, we will put you in prison. that's the message to come to today's meeting. a much more aggressive joint approach to investigating and prosecuting these kinds of scams, because they really exploit people's lives in a very tangible way. that is not only heartbreaking to people who deal with these problems, but i think should grasp the attention of policymakers in washington as well.

>> i'm done with the attorney general of maryland. >> i am from reuters. i was wondering if you are also coordinating your responses to the stimulus plan? >> anyone at all? >> that's also on our agenda and we also talked to the justice about that. and justices and the administration have been very clear they want to reach out to the states to deal with any kind of scams or fraudulent use of stimulus money. is a large amount of money. it is very important to our country, and when you generate a lot of money in a short period of time there is a chance for fraud and abuse. the attorneys general of this country have talked about this and will be working on it together to try and deal with those issues. >> and that was tom miller from iowa. sorry. any other questions, comments? yes.

>> mortgage fraud scams go, how much of a threat do these ongoing have on the housing market recovery, if any? what are some specific examples you guys see that are being problematic for your market? >> within our states will have a number of these cases. in maryland for example we prosecuted 23 cases recently. there are hundreds more in the pipeline. i think that was sort of a roundtable how many cases were prosecuted. we're looking at, asking our individual states, are best practices, we talked about in maryland for example we prohibit reconvenes where there is a promise to get back the house, and with a promise we will give you back the tide of. in terms of impact, does anyone want to address that? >> lisa madigan, attorney general from the state of

illinois. to your question, here's what happens. an individual is unable to continue making their full mortgage payment. so they are in the beginning stage of the foreclosure. may end up in foreclosure, and they may or may not know what to do. and they may or may not reach out and seek legitimate help, either from their lender or their service or. sometimes when they do reach out and seek help, they have really been stymied. it's been a very difficult process for them to get through. this information about the financial condition, vis-à-vis their mortgage, becomes available to scam artists. scam artist rejected them and offer them something very enticing. the ability to stay in their home. they will work, allegedly, with the service or, with your lender. and they will get you a modification. that is at least what they tell you. and then they tell you, but, in order to do that you will need to give us a substantial up

front he. that is the scam. they take the money. mar may not ever help you contact your lender, get that modification. most of the time they take your money and you don't get a modification and you find yourself out of thousands of dollars, and potentially two, three, four months later and terms of your payment and in terms of seeking free legitimate help. and so in the state of illinois, similar to maryland and other states, we have filed 28 cases. we have 250 ongoing investigations. we do have a law that prohibits the advanced these. and what we have found is that when you tell these companies, these operators that you can get an advance fee, they oftentimes readily say oh, and we are shutting down. because there is nobody to be made. in this state. and to one of the reasons that we have to come together and work on this, and we have come is because these are just isolated incidents. they are taking place on a broad basis across the country, and

there are literally thousands and thousands of people. so far the cases we are brought those 28 cases, about 2300 homeowners have been impacted. we have recovered millions of dollars for them. it is not only a scam that we are seeing in terms of mortgage rescue fraud, but it is also a scam we're seeing debt settlement countries. so for folks who are struggling with their credit card debt and other debt, exact same type of scam. give a sure money. we will deal with your creditors. we take your money. they don't help you with your creditors, you are further in debt. your wages are garnished. >> what about someone who is in a state doesn't have a van? i think the number was 20? >> i believe it is 23. i know maryland, it isn't only the states that don't have the laws because a lot of these scams operate nationwide.

they operate from outside our borders. and they will use the internet or other ways of communication to solicit within our state are and they are very, very difficult to reach. so there is clearly a need for a national law, whether by rulemaking from the ftc, which is concerning and as you've probably heard the chairman, chairman leibowitz mentioned today, and can be done at the national level through the ftc rulemaking process. and we are supporting it and we will probably like to submit comments, supportively and i think we will. >> that i was probably one of the ones. >> california, they must not have that law? >> california has a law.

my name is roy cooper. i be attorney general of north coletta. >> we will be the last couple minutes of this event to go live now to a discussion of health care with doctor denis cortese. the facility has been cited by president obama and others asimov for healthcare services and cost controls service. live coverage from the national press club here on c-span2. >> i'm here today to talk about the changing health care activity in america. and to really speak a little bit about ideas and concepts, and right at this particular time to strongly urge our elected officials to collaborate and work together to get this important work done for all of us, all of us as people in the united states. the framework your as we take a step back and look at it, it shows that health care in the united states is a bit troubled.

people might disagree with that, but frankly, we are in a bit of trouble. we are watching medicare have problems, finding itself in the next seven years we are told, or sooner. we are also realizing that from the standpoint of measurable outcomes that were not necessarily getting, on average, throughout the country what we are paying for we have heard several previous president of the united states say those exact words. this time we're getting close to trying to tackle that. what we are here to talk about today, and i will emphasize again, is really coming at this from the viewpoint of what is really best for patients. what is really best for people. what is really best for each of you in the audience. because wrestle for talking about somebody different stakeholders, all around the place, but none of the real discussions focus around what is really very best for each of us

and then designed a system to help us opting as we go forward. we are watching what happened in the last month with all the mud and things are going on in all of those meetings around the country. there was a partisan bickering. there were scare tactics, etc. and i'm really here to say let's just take a step back in and take a deep breath. i have been watching people do that yesterday. take a breath and then it and say let's refocus a bit on the fact that we want high quality, affordable health care for all people in the united states. and what might that look like? some of you might have been here the last time i spoke here, and i asked you three questions and i will ask them again. what might look like depending on how you answer these questions. who in this audience would like to be hospitalized tomorrow, even if it is the best hospital in the world? nobody raised their hands. who would like to be sick tomorrow?

not too many hands going up. who actually like to be a patient, patient being defined as somebody who long sufferers or long endures. anybody volunteer for that? so again i see no hands going up. so we answer those questions no to each one, to begin to say we need to redesign, rethink about what is happening in the health care nonsystem in the united states so that we turn it into a system that helps you obtain the answers you ask for. and saying that really changes the trends. in other words, hospitals based on your first question, hospitals are no longer the center of the universe of health care. they are very important and we need them, but they are just part of the team. as a matter of fact, you could even make an argument that the more hospitals we have an morbidity we are opening up, the system is failing. the symbol of success is how many bids are closed. another way to perhaps look at it is the outcome that we might

ask for. so i want to talk a little bit about what you just answered and say break it into two easy pieces. the first is the piece that has to do with health insurance reform. and health care reform. or i caught health care delivery reform. two separate concepts, but equally important because we just say, we want everybody insured and we want to have a different delivery system, more effective delivery system. let's take the easy part first. the easy part first is health insurance reform. i hope you are all laughing, because you know how difficult it is to do this. but believe me, it's the easy part. dealing with getting people in shirt. so we've heard in the speech the president talked about safety and security and insurance for all, and we, we meaning the mayo clinic, strongly supports the need for health insurance reform.

let's talk a little bit about that. we had a story come to us from one of our patients who attended one of the meetings in chicago recently. i thought i would just relate briefly to you. this is a story about, she is now a 24 year-old. she is a graduate student from bloomingdale illinois. and she had congenital heart disease. still does but she had it when she was young. she underwent some operations as a child, but her pared insurance denied some recommended follow-up that she needed in her region. so the denial of the evaluation. eventually after some hassling, got the devaluation. and then she wanted to go to a facility for an additional evaluation that was outside of the network. you've heard that story before. more difficult to going outside the network. she eventually was able to go outside the network but she was treated and received advice and treatment on a chair debases.

insurance copies do not cover that. so that is one concept about health insurance. the second is during college, she lost her parents insurance coverage. she passed a certain age and wasn't covered anymore. so she was a full-time student with no insurance. we have heard that story before. that's a problem for us. and in the third lesson that she summarized it as an adult when she had a job and she was working, she couldn't get coverage because of pre-existing conditions. we have all heard that before. so right there there are three or four examples of a problem with keeping people in shirt and united states. "the new york times" had an article i think last weekend, or the wiki before, about a woman who was covered by medicare. a younger woman but she was covered by medicare because she had renal failure, kidney failure, have been on dialysis, had had two transplants, kidney transplant that i feel. but the lesson here is that she was navigating l.a. for her third transplant. she needed her third transplant.

the drugs are used after the transplant were only covered for three years by the insurance company. that's medicare. it makes you wonder, gosh, you know, it's much cheaper to cover the drug than it is to go through three transplant. so she's coming up to her third transplant. that doesn't make sense either. so when we look at examples of how to save, let's look at it from the patient's viewpoint. there are ways to solve every one of those examples i just give you. i'm not going to go into details how to solve it but i am here to say we need to do this. we need make sure we have the uninsured and the underinsured having access to affordable and portable health insurance. now mayo clinic's position on this particular issue is that we would be doing this idea of insurance as a mandate. everybody should have a. i know there's a problem with mandates. people don't like the words. so let's change the word.

to anything anybody wants. but let's get everybody in shirt. i don't really too much one can argue the issue of is it required or not, that people somehow in the country we ought to get to a stable condition where people have insurance so they don't have to go broke over it and be concerned about lack of access to good insurance. we feel that individuals should own their own insurance. what i mean by that is it is their insured. it is portable. they can take it wherever they need to go so they are not locked into a job because of that insurance. i think they really should own it. so that in limit status doesn't really produce a double whammy of losing a job and losing her health insurance. or, the fact that you are reluctant to change your job because you might laps with no insurance for three or six months. we think the insurance should go with the person and be attached to the person. we think employers should

continue, or i should say should. could continue by buying insurance for their employees if they like or subsidized or by a stipend if they choose to do so. but we are not proponent of this idea of an employer mandate to provide insurance. that certainly employers could compete for employees by offering them health insurance as part of the package. it's up to them to make a decision. that seems to be at the front of the line with the ideas that are being discussed here in washington about health insurance reform. that seems to be at the front stage of it. there is a significant role for government, and the role for government here is, frankly, as a funder, a body that helps people be able to afford the insurance. perhaps with sliding scale

subsidies, and then there's another potential role for the government. and that is to regulate the insurance industry to foster competition. so those basically are the key components of what we are suggesting we should be looking for. as we come down the road. now and a lot of people talk about this idea of a public plan. not a public plan. i'm not here to do discuss it yet. i saw to understand where public plan means. from my own personal viewpoint the public plan that i hear being discussed that is owned by the public is a co-op of some kind. that is real public people living in communities only whatever they are doing to themselves. that is as close as i see the center idea. that is a true public plan. where individuals live out their citizens own and control. if what we mean by public plan is a government run plan, that's

another story. if we're talking a government run plan, i'm not sure what people are talking about there. are they talking about medicare quacks are we talking about medicaid? are we talking about a military system? are we talking about a pa system? are we talking about tri-care which is a very good insurance product that retired people in the military like. is a managed care insurance product or i could no be talking about that. are we talking about extending schip which is another program that is a medicaid like program for children to cover talking about the federal employees health care plan? to the federal government has a whole bunch on the shelf to pick from. i haven't heard anybody give me get to what we are really talking about. so it is hard to take a position for or against the public plan until we know exactly what it would be. however, our advice, our suggestion, now again, mayo clinic, is that we tend to favor a federal employees like model

where there is an exchange, patients can select from a wide range of plans where there is some grading and scalene related to quality. and drugs are covered under the federal program. and have been able to choose that made with government subsidies and they can get a basic product or they can buy up if they would like you're out of their own pocket. that by the way links a little closer to what white and bit, to build a couple of years ago i guess it was, that bill was to float around out there and the idea still exist. so i've not heard the public plan exactly addressed yet enough to know, understand what it would be good or bad for the country. we do know that we need to move forward to go through insurance for. we support all the efforts that are going on now to move towards insurance reform by the house, senate, and the white house. so we are right there trying to score. now i want to shoot to the second part which is the hard

part. and that is what you get everybody insured, if they are cashback everybody insured in a really bad delivery system, or very expensive one, then all we have done has got everybody insured in a really bad delivery system. doesn't mean they are getting high quality care. doesn't mean they are good care and will probably waste a fair bit of money. so when you look at the second component, it is the second component, the idea of high quality, affordable health care that we call value. high-value care. better outcomes, better safety, better service over compared to or related to the amount of money we spend to get that. that is the value equation. we should be looking for high-value health care in the united states, and setting that as our goal. i consider what i just described what health reform is all about. what we really mean by health

care reform, it's the health care delivery reform so we are getting all of us as individuals care that helps get us out of the hospital, keeps us healthy, keeps us working, keeps us in school. and maybe helps prevent people from having who have chronic illnesses or chronic conditions for suffering. how do we do that? how do we make that happen? this is the hardest part. and i think it is a medicine to overall gain -- aim to provide these great outcomes, save for service and lower costs. currently there's a significant amount of regional variation in the outcomes safety and service compared to the cost throughout the united states. we've all heard this a lot and we hear people bickering, and there are attempts to explain the variation. but when we look at that variation is predominantly driven, not totally, but

predominantly driven by the different amounts of things that are done to us as patients. how many days are in a hospital, how many gays are we in icu, how many test to actually get. it varies widely for similar conditions. it is somewhat understandable at times. it make you wonder. when we look at the regions of the country that do produce pretty high-value care and there are many of them, this is not about mayo clinic. there are many and i will list some of them in a bit, but many places in the country that are getting high-value care. there has been some work done to try to figure out what are some of the common characteristics among those institutions, among those regions, among the states that get actually high quality care. and i will just list a few of the common characteristics. it is not a perfect match, but some characteristics that i want people to be thinking about. one, there tends to be a higher

level of a cultural focus on the needs of patients. there there is more patient centeredness thinking going on in those organizations or by those groups of providers that band together in communities, or in states that have created better environment for caring for people to their focus more on the patient. there tends to be a higher level of physician engagement and leadership and change taking care of people. that is a general statement. there tends to be a much higher level of teamwork and collaboration in deciding things, medical decisions, for patients. there tends to be a much higher level of coordinated care. the teams are the integration component, and coordination is how they managed the patient themselves. how appointment are scheduled. do they get follow-ups? the coordinated care is a key component of this. there tends to be a higher rate of the sharing of medical

records and information from one place to another. so these galaxies of good delivery, high-value care is a fair bit more of connectivity about information then there is elsewhere. when you have connectivity of information, you tend to have connectivity of knowledge. so people are able to make much better decisions for their patients. and there is a definite higher level particularly in organizations to get high-value care. there is a much higher level of the use of what we call at mayo clinic the science of health care delivery. in other words, we bring system engineering into the way we take care of people. we begin to systematically look at the way patients flow-through, how do we alumina it wasted had we standardize certain processes so we reduce errors and things like this. there are some common features that we ought to be faltering in the country so that this can happen. now, i will take a quick story

about my mother. a personal story. she died in 2000, but about 12 years before that she began having problems with fever of unknown origin, aching and just didn't feel well. that went on for maybe a year or two. so maybe it was 15 years before she died. but then it sort of reached a head. and one sunday morning she called the. she was in philadelphia and i was in rochester, minnesota. she woke up. she was blinded when i. we have a very clear right and begin to think of temporal arthritis that affects people. is an inflammation of blood vessels and could be very severe. she saw a position that afternoon. put roster was, which was the right thing to do. he did a biopsy next-day to prove about that diagnostic use after year or so you can when the person office to write and verify. and my mother's casey never could get off the steroid. she ended up having a generalized vasculitis throughout her body that affected her lungs and many other organs. she had a drill ebullition.

shia osseo process. can't steroid induced diabetes. she had multiple problems. for about six years, and the philadelphia area she was seen seven different doctors. each one was not necessarily coordinating with each other. for the last two or three years, while shows in philadelphia, she's going into the local hospital, a fine local hospital, roughly once a month, maybe once every two months, but closer to once a month, for a day or two going through the er and all those positions which were trickle in and see her and do a fine tuning. she would leave. but didn't know follow-up. there was no way to get conneaut you care. my brother-in-law is a cardiologist on the stanford university of pennsylvania. and between by brother-in-law and myself, we could not get her integrated coordinated care with the responsible physician as we went forward. people tried but they weren't able to get coordinated care. 1993 my father retired.

i moved to jacksonville to work at the mayo clinic. i encourage them to come to jacksonville. i hadn't seen rheumatologist on our staff. >> she was hospitalized once a month before she died. she was able to work with the nurses and call them quite frequently and get some fine-tuning done. she really came to our clinic. she had the one position in the background, our clinic was only 6 miles away from where she lived. it was a whole new life. she was interacting. i have worked at mayo clinic now for 40 years. i was done to see how good her care was. i didn't believe we could do it that well. we didn't work at a. it was just the way we did it, but the saddest part of all is how much we get paid for all but told her she was to ask rex zero. medicare doesn't pay unless you go in the hospital or see the

doctor. we couldn't design a model of care to reproduce this as a business model in the current environment. so this has to change. this is what i mean by the size of health care delivery. we got really have to do this. so we have some people sitting here at the head table who had similar experiences about integrated cord knitting care, and that's why they're here because they have a big interest in this kind of a problem. now the good news is that there are several places in the country and they do not have to be mayo clinic like. i'm not here to talk about mayo clinic. i dare to talk about integrated coordinated care that is focused on high-value. there are places that do this. geisinger, in pennsylvania, intermountain in utah. marcia clinic in wisconsin. and i can go on. the cleveland clinic and the tone in that list. as far as cities go, there are cities that do this. grand junction, san francisco, la crosse wisconsin, where we

have one of our mayo site clinics there. and gunderson is an integrated group practice. new hampshire, yesterday you heard from the governor of vermont. vermont is one of those dates. wisconsin, nebraska, rhode island, both dakotas. so when we began to think about what can we learn in the country, there are examples we can learn from. what is going on in those places that are producing these higher value care. that's the good news. the bad news is it does not pay. that's the problem. it doesn't pay. the incentives are not aligned. we make more money the sicker you all are. the more time you're in the hospital, we make more money. this has to change.

and my mothers example is a perfect one because it was less expense for her, higher value care. and we can build a business model to make it work. it is a tough one. in a fee-for-service environment which is what medicare is. those organizations that are able to do this have their own insurance plan, on insurance product or they are able to make that work, but for the whole country we need to come up with a way that all physicians can make this work as we go forward. so we are asking people to focus on is what is really high-value care, and the idea, talk about fluorescent light bulbs versus incandescent light bulbs. the incandescent lightbulbs are much less expensive, but they might last several months, depended on how long have your lights on. whereas the fluorescent bulb might cost five times more to begin with. but it may last 10 years. which is the higher value?

and we are saying patients are to be involved in making that decision. so people may just want the $1 bulb, and others may really want now you. long-term value. there's got to be a way to build that into the system. so as we talk about this, we are looking at congress. they are making some suggestions in the house and in the senate. about how to focus on the idea. and/or at several good decisions on both sides and all of the bills that are out there. will come out of all this is not clear, but whatever comes out of it, it has got to have something that moves the country as a goal to pay for value. mayo clinic's recommendation was that we look at medicare as the largest insurance company, it is probably run by congress and the administration. and let's start to pay for in medicare. let's begin there. frankly, we don't need an act of congress to do that, i don't think.

it is an insurance company run by the government. they can move on and say let's pay full value in medicare. are specific recommendation has been let's set a goal that in three years, medicare is paying for value. in those three years in the running, let's create a process where we define what we mean by value. we start setting up the metrics, the outcome safety compared to the cost. let's start being transparent about where everybody is on that scorecard. and did three years start paying. you might say that is an overwhelming task but it isn't overwhelming if medicare says we're going to do that but let's do it for the most expensive three to five medical conditions that medicare has to do with. just three to five. that will be high blood pressure, stroke, other things at a very common, heart disease. the top five. that top five covers roughly 60 to 80 percent of all the expenditures that medicare has right now.

if we throw in, let's also look at three to five procedures, most expensive procedures. high-volume, most expensive procedures. what are those quek hip operations and the operations, for instance. if we just did that, focus on the b6 the 10 conditions, define the outcomes, and we can define outcomes for every one of those, safety, easy to measure. service, patient satisfaction already being met and the outcomes by the way already exist. they have these sorts of things available. we have, the iom has statements in that regard. we've got leapfrogged at a number of groups that has come to consensus on what we would measure and begin to pay for at least those. so what we are asking for is the vision to say we want to get there in a reasonable amount of time here and we think right now that we've got a big chasm to cross over.

and this chasm is people insured and getting value and health delivery system. you can't really cross a 20-foot chasm in two, 10-foot jumps. we think we have to come to grips with both. you don't have to get them all six the first year, but we have to say now that in three years we're expecting to be paying for value or in five years we're paying for value. we've got to get there and make a commitment to them. so to publish these things we think that lawmakers are on the right step, right direction, and we are here to support and we continue to give our opinions about what patients might really want out of care as we look to the future. i will stop there and take some questions. thank you. [applause] >> okay. you didn't let minnesota among the states providing high-value

care. what should a state where you are based do differently? >> we are in that list that i just didn't list it. sorry. [laughter] >> but we can do more. just to be very quick. we've got providers that provide excellent care in duluth. several groups in minneapolis, and in the rochester area. and we can do more to interconnect and distribute the knowledge that we have shared and learn together. we already do it fairly well. we have some interactions quite regularly with the other providers. but to do in a formal way that is efficient, electronic and we have a name for it. we actually have a program that we are developing to make this work, but how do we actually connect all of this. there is a group in the country that has taken this on from the public domain that is led by patrick. is called a national coalition for health information. it's just been launched that it has been launched, but people are just beginning to hear about to foster this interconnectiveness.

>> mayo has pushed for higher medicaid reimbursement rates for hospitals. how do you expect health care reform to affect those rates? >> no, we have a push for high rates that what we have pushed for is that when we look at the way payments are made, there's been a consistent pattern the last several years that the decision will be to continually reduce the payment rates by fixing in the prices, and such a way that we're not keeping up with inflation. okay? what we are saying is we understand that may have happened, but let's make that reduction not across the board. but let's link it to some measure of value. so that you end up not getting the good ones. so we are not necessarily saying pay more. we use the word reward, but reward would be to cut the good ones. because the goal, the ultimate aim of everything we're talking about is to define value, seek it out and identify it.

eldership, let people know, and make sure the high-value providers in states and organizations stay in business. that is the goal is to stay in business components. and friendly, anybody who has run a business realizes to stay in business you don't need to make big profit but you need to at least make a two to 3% margin to keep her activities dynamic, be able to recruit people and maybe even grow a little bit. so that is the goal we are asked him to asking for. we are not saying pay for more. we're saying make sure that the providers are paid more. if you see what i'm getting at. i'm not saying pay them more but make sure they are paid more. because you've got to have that lever there because if you have the lever a line with what we want, if you do the payment lever a line with what the delivery system wants to give to patients, they will self organize. they will find a way to get there. and that is the real message.

>> do you think eventually that doctors will be required to accept medicare payments? >> don't know if i can answer that question. when you say required, i wonder if what they mean is doctors will be required to see medicare patients, period. or all medicare patients that want to come and see them. because right now we are required to take medicare patients. i mean, payments. we cannot not take it. so i'm struggling with it because it is a fixed-price. we are told that we will be paid when we take care of the patient. we are paid with the government says. we're going to be paid by them and then they also said how much in addition we can collect on the patient. all of that is set by the government. so we are already there. the only thing that some providers are doing is they make it a little more difficult for medicare patients to get appointments, because once you

start getting more than 20 to 30 percent of your business as a provider, more than 2230 percent of your business is medicare, you begin to find you have to shift costs areva elves to help offset the lack of a good level of reimbursement you need to care for those folks. it makes it harder for medicare patients to get access. so doctors to have that ability. they don't have to see the medicare patients, as i understand it, but will we ever pass a law that says doctors have to see medicare patients? i can see it happening. i don't see it on the horizon but it is possible. >> you mentioned that medicare could make some of these improvements is so. should congress metal at all to modify medicare. >> congress medals with medicare all the time. this issue i just described about the transplant patient, for medicare to come back and say, and i understand they have said it before, that the intelligent thing to do is cover the medications.

that takes an active of congress. congress have to say that is okay. they are into the micromanagement of the operations. they are acting like a board, but there into management decisions. the sgr changes, the sustainable growth rate changes with regard to what we will pay doctors next year. january 1 there is a schedule of 21% reduction for payment to doctors. congress will probably act again on something and stop that from happening. matter-of-fact, and the baucus bill i think they give him a point by% increase and the next year they will do a 25% cut. so congress is in the business all the time doing it. so i'm asking congress to do is to just take a step back, take a breath, and say to the secretary of health and human services, in three years we want to see medicare pay for value. and stay out of their business. let the secretary get there. which means close the door to

lobbyists, because what i'm talking about will be painful for everybody. you've got to close the door to lobbyists to get there. [applause] >> it seemed like everyone in the health care system has been asked to sacrifice and operate more efficiently except for the insurance companies. you think we can achieve true health care reform in this country without requiring the insurance companies to cut costs and operate more efficiently? >> know. [laughter] >> any prospect of requiring young medical students to take courses in wellness education to prevent the self-inflicted terribly expensive illnesses affecting so much of our society? >> yes. that is an interesting question. the young medical students would love to be doing this. we get these people, because i do teach in our medical school,

and when their first coming in, they are enthused about really doing things to help people. we wash it out of them by the time they're finished the residency. because all the cases that they get all the dynamic exciting things are all done in the hospital. you watch on television. you see all of it. the mundane stuff of keeping people well isn't flashy. it isn't there. so absolutely there is interest and we need to change the way we do education in our health care system right now today. all the academic medical centers need to change the way they select people when they come into medical schools. they have to be people who are used to thinking in teams. have an approach to an not what they memorize, but how they handle knowledge, where is it, where is the best device we can get. and not feel that they have failed if they don't know the answer. the only time you fail is when you don't find the answer, or you don't seek out advice to

defeat into. we need to trade him to work with nurses and other nontraditional providers. that is in the concept that we are trying to propose that we introduce into medical schools, this idea of the size of health care delivery. out do physicians work with others to improve the way care is delivered. and that requires a huge change in our whole system but we are a proponent of that also. >> with regard to align incentives, how do you see the vendors participating differently? for example, the people who provide joint implants? >> you mean to make the joint implants? okay. i want to generalize that to the idea on the device manufacturers and drug manufacturers and biotech and that sort of thing, genomics, all of the group that are out there creating new knowledge.

new discoveries. what role can they play to improve delivery in the health care system? well, if we believe that in this century that individualized medicine is going to become more important. what i mean by individualized medicine is that each of you in the audience is different than the next person next to you, and you are all different than the. and yes, a do drugs or pharmaceutical or new diagnostic tests may come out. and it may begin to identify that this medication or new drug will work in five of you, but not the rest of the 150 of us. that individualized medicine. in the old model the fact that the drug only work in less than 3 percent of the people means it was worthless. can't sell that. no big blockbuster. it's not going to help everybody. but in the new model, we need to accept the fact that incremental

value is produced when we look at individual level. the challenge is for manufacturers to join with the physicians in a way that they do comparative, effectiveness research on an ongoing basis to find out where the incremental value is for their new discoveries. it may be good for 5 percent of the people, and if it is we should throw it out because if it is good for 5% it is better than not. so when you look at the use of tamoxifen, the idea of using that kind of medication for women with breast cancer. what was that what new genetic testing for those people who receive it, there is a percentage that cannot metabolize tamoxifen correctly. so giving them that medication which will help sell products, is of no value even though it is cheap. because it doesn't work. so something that is cheap that doesn't work is still no value.

however, the more expensive new medication that has been discovered happens to work for those people. and that 5% or 10% or 20% should get that new drug. because it is effective for them. >> should most or all physicians be salaried and in groups? >> i will take those into points. first, the sadr issue everybody raises. the answer on salaries is no, many of the examples i gave you. those doctors are not on salary. mayo clinic we haven't used the salary mechanism and that helps us reduce to the extent we can to conflict of interest and conflict of commitment that our physicians would you windier make decisions. so they don't have to operate on you if you don't need it. now there are lots of other models that get really good outcomes and those doctors are on salary. some of them have incentives at the tendency for those incidents is the incentive is linked to quality or linked to patient

satisfaction. have it link to something that relates to value it will be asked for and that model. so doesn't have to be salaried. the issue about being in groups i think the answer to that is yes. i think physicians will have to be in groups at the go forward because we need to have some kind of a team approach. now, listen to me carefully. they don't have to be physically in groups. we have an electronic environment where people can be virtually working together. i can tell you i have a physician network of people that i work with around the world. getting opinion, getting second opinions. they ask advice, and we are all doing it electronically. it is either by telephone or nowadays with the blackberries. we can do that everywhere. so the physicians need to be thinking of themselves as being a member of a larger body of people where they can go to to get knowledge. they can do that electronically. whether that is in their community, whether it is in the region, in their state or it is national. doesn't matter.

but they need to start thinking teamwork and team approach. and the same is true for nurses and all the other nontraditional providers that we alluded to before. >> should neurologist and presumably other doctors be permitted to do their own mris? >> that means owning them. if that is what they are alluding to. i have a personal feeling about the. this is a personal feeling. mayo clinic doesn't have an official position, but my answer is no, they should not. i know all of us feel that we are not affected, all of us meaning doctors, they were not affected by conflict of interest but it is really difficult it is difficult to look to patient in the eye and say you don't have a conflict. it just doesn't seem the right thing to do when you're a professional. i note many doctors will disagree with you but i've answered this as my own personal feeling.

>> what kind of reaction have you gotten from lawmakers to your suggestion about focusing on high-value and medicare? what are the arguments they're making against it? >> that is an interesting question. we have been at this now for a couple of years, and i would say looking at calais looking in the audience also. but this is a wide open and receptive area that we've been running into as we have talked to people. they are actually not try to understand more. they are asking for ways to do it. they are asking the right questions. what do you mean by value, what are the outcomes. i assess safety and service to. to many other groups are saying we can't measure outcomes. too many people are saying we can't measure quality. i completely reject that it is measurable. they are asking, okay, they're saying how do we do it. and we are getting in examples and their many other groups giving examples. the dartmouth group and others. they are all talking about these kinds of concepts with folks, so i think we have come from where

we were one year ago, a significant way down the road that people are actually open to the idea. we are seeing it in legislation that they don't all know exactly what that means. it's not clear just yet, but the institute of medicine have been having meetings about what is tight and how to define a good many folks are discussing that. so i see your receptivity and openness to it. this is an opportunity for us to move through that door and do the hard work to get there through the next two or three years. the arguments against it, i frankly don't hear them. maybe because i just shut my ears, but i actually don't hear. i don't see how anybody can say that we don't need and want better outcomes, better safety, better service and lower costs. i can't imagine anybody argue against that without laughing. >> have you ever been to congress? [applause] >> does the mayo clinic support h.r. 3200, the health reform

bill? >> okay. the h.r. 3200 is a bill that has not been passed. it is not done. the subcommittees have reported out. some suggestions and i think there needs to be some melting there. there are components in the bill, by the way, mayo clinic doesn't back build, just leave the. our official position. but when we measure it against the standards, that i just talked about, there are clearly elements in that bill. several elements in the bill that moves towards a pay for value type model is our number one measurement that we are looking for from the mayo clinic perspective. there are element in the bill moving towards an insurance set of reforms and there is something related to what might look like the public plan or what have you. that will all get washed over the next several months because you got the senator and what they're going to do, and they were going to get together. to go to a conference committee. we will keep our eye on the ball that we get something that comes out of all of this that is focusing on now you.

both pieces of legislation, that is so far just propose, to focus on duddy. they don't go as far as we would like to. we have given our opinion about moving it further if we can. and with regard to how we get everybody in church, that's going to have to play out in the political realm so we're not here to back. we're here to give examples and ideas on how to get there. >> what role do you think medical malpractice place in the rising costs of health care? >> well, i think it is a significant role from two standpoints. one, there is money that is being spent in that environment that to some degree might well be wasted. but that's not the biggest cost as i look at it. the biggest cost in the medical malpractice tort arena is that as a system of health care, which we don't have in the united states, but we don't really have a system. we lose a lot of burning

capabilities through these malpractice cases. it can destroy careers of individuals who have made mistakes. and because of that, individuals can to protect themselves by may be doing more testing than they might have otherwise. but in addition, when something does happen, when a mistake happens, everybody goes to cover. go to ground. gets quite. we don't share it. when an airline has a problem, the employees are required to report new mrs. within 24, 48 hours. so that an engineering group will study it and try to figure out what we could learn and distribute that information throughout the airline industry as quickly as they can, which could take several months. in our environment, and health care, in which 98000 people a year are hurt by medical errors alone, some people say it's a lot less than that. some people say it is double. the point is it is more than one

airplane crash per year. it is more than one, 747. as a matter of fact, thousand people is about one, 747 crashing about every day and a half. we would never tolerate that. but in our environment, because of the malpractice tort in iraq, there is no reporting. there is no mechanism that we can learn so that many of us in practice have found that one vision of the country has been doing something 30 years before that have eliminated problems that the rest of the country doesn't know about. we don't distribute his. others have heard me talk about this before. this is the biggest problem and the biggest price we're paying because of this tort environment. i am not saying get rid of malpractice. i am saying create a safety reporting mechanism where people can actually report errors and near misses that others can analyze and understand. and exchange for that is some kind of a safe harbor where you go into an arbitration environment, arbitration, not tort. where patients actually get the

payment that they deserve, but we at least learn something out of all this as we go forward. right now we lose a huge opportunity. >> okay. this comes from a patient, walter of chicago, illinois, who says he was treated at saint mary's hospital last april and spent over three weeks at the rochester clinic is spring. on the reform mayo advocates for health care, would everyone with this basic coverage be able to get treatment at the mayo clinic without $5000 deposit or $2000 copayment? >> well, first of deposit part absolutely. depending on the insurance product, sometimes as for deposits. most of the time we don't. it is rather rare that we actually asked for deposit. as far as the copayment that depends on the injured company and how the benefit package is designed. the answer is yes, we don't have any contracts with insurance

companies that require patients that come to us. every single patient who comes to see us is doing that of their own choice. frequently, they are coming out of networks and independent to pay more. we would like to see a reform that could come to the mayo clinic. so i am hoping the reform will be able to answer the questions here as he was alluding that we're going to give it some of those problems. >> what is the racial of the highest to lowest doctor salaries at mayo? how does that compare to the country at large? are changes mass necessary to attract primary care physicians? >> there are three questions of there. the ratio between our lowest and highest is about two to one. roughly. maybe two and a half. i would have to think about it but it is pretty close in that ballpark. so that the fact of the matter is what we do in our organization is, and we do a market assessment of organizations that are like us.

that's how we set our salaries. we set our salaries roughly around the 70% range, 70 to 80% range of those benchmark organizations that are like us. the way that works is i'm going to get in trouble when i go back to mayo clinic because people don't understand, we can to pay our primary care and pediatrics a little more than they would get otherwise. and we can to pay our higher pay people a little less than they would otherwise. so a bit compressed in the middle. that would be hard to manage because of the competitive marketplace is sort of driving things upwards. so that is a little bit on that. the other one was -- second part is. >> how does this compare to the country at large? >> frankly, i think overall our salaries are a bit lower like i said at the higher pair and our primary care is a bit higher on that. >> how to attract primary care physicians? do have changes to attract primary care physicians? >> i think the country does need to do that.

that is a country statement. we have a large primary care practice. most people don't know we do that for all of our communities, and actually we are in another 65 communities in iowa, minnesota, and wisconsin here we are providing local primary secondary tertiary care right in the community with group to doctors and hospitals. it is a challenge sometimes to attract those folks, but it is even a harder just to get people to go into medical school and come up with an interest in going into primary care. so clearly there has to be more respect and more recognition of the value of primary care as we go forward. >> this comes from a psychiatrist who is actually pay to spend 30 minutes at a minimum with a patient talking to a patient about their health. how can this be provided as a primary care service? >> psychiatry or the 30 minutes of? >> the 30 minutes it.

>> at our institution, when a new patient comes to our physicians, we schedule one hour with a physician to spend with those patients. and they can go longer if they need to pick there is no really limit on how long they need to do that. our follow-up visits are routinely about half hour long in the way we schedule it. we feel the most viable thing that physicians can do when they are relating to patient in the outpatient setting is to have adequate time to sit down and talk to them, get to know really what their problems are and their concerts. because it is frequently not their condition. it is frequently something around a condition that is related to it, and to spend time getting to know the families and understand what really their desires are. and our ability to protect that has been under threat ever since price controls when into medicare in 1983. and we are fighting very hard to protect that.

is time with patients is where the real value is generated. so i'm glad she's got a half hour, but we schedule our routine internal medicine, primary care, they are all the same. >> we are almost out of time but before i ask the last question, we have a couple of important matters to take care of the. first of all, let me remind our members of future speakers. on september 28, ken burns, documentary filmmaker will be here to discuss his new production on national parks. on october 8, john potter, postmaster general of the united states postal service will give us the state of play at the postal service. and on november 13, chick filet founder and chairman and president his son dan, will address a national press club speaker series luncheon. and it is a father and son team discussing their companies unprecedented sales growth and a

struggling economy. second, i would like to present our guest with the much coveted national press club mug. [laughter] >> thank you very much. [applause] >> i have to point out that for dr. cortese, that is the third in a series of bugs that you have gotten. for the final question, how do you best measure physician outcomes for end-of-life care? >> i think the best measure for that is to ask the family how they feel things went. at the end-of-life. this is a very difficult time for everybody. the only way, some of our results show that we are pretty efficient in the end-of-life care. when people have asked what have we done. all i can say is we don't do anything to make that happen. we don't manage for it. we don't look at it. we didn't even know.

others have told us that. we were surprised at what we do just get to know the families. our physicians understand the problem. they didn't know the patient, and we do what seems to make sense for them because our core value truly is the needs of the patient comes first. what ends up happening, apparently what others have looked at it, is we end up having those people in the hospital fewer days in the final two years of life. in the icu, wait a few days. two procedures, fewer procedures. somehow the knowing of the patient and interacting with them and understanding what their wishes and desires are you end up with perhaps a lower cost scenario here croquet. however, you've got to ask the family were they satisfied. was the families as i. was a patient satisfied. did they really get what they want. so i would measure, i would say in time the most important measurement we're ever going to have is really going to be the service components of what we do for people and begin to measure that and ask questions, what do people really want. that's the way we try to do it.

>> thank you. i would like to thank you for coming today, dr. cortese. i would also like to thank national press club staff members melinda cooke, pat nelson, joanne booze and howard rothman for organizing today's lunch. also thanks to the national press club library for its research. the video archive of today's luncheon is provided by the national press club broadcast operations center. our events are available for free download on itunes as well as on our website. nonmembers may purchase transcripts, audio and video tapes by calling (202)662-7598, or e-mailing us at archives at press club.org. for more information about the national press club, please visit our website at www.press did or did. and i can do very much. we are adjourned. [applause] . .

>> on behalf of the committee please pass along our appreciation to the great soldiers and marines under your commands throughout the world and to their families. to their dedication and sacrifice. as he enters into a second term, admiral mullen will focus on an array of challenges. while the security situation in

afghanistan is difficult, we still have important advantages. the afghan people know the future that the taliban seeks to impose. another strong building block for a successful outcome in afghanistan. it is the afghan military that is a motivated force of proven fighters and is highly respected by the afghan people. if we take the right steps to help ensure that afghanistan does not revert to a taliban-dominated government that once again provides a safe haven for al qaeda to terrorize us and the world. the obama administration's new strategy announced in march refocuses on securing the afghan people and partnering with the afghan security forces is an

important step in forcing the spread of insecurity. the change in strategy has led our forces, in the in other words of general mcchrystal to hold and treat them as equal partners in success. his guidance to the troops goes on to say that the success of the afghan security forces is, quote, our goal. to achieve that goal, i believe we should take several vitally important overdue steps. first, the insurgent of numbers and strength of the afghan security forces. we need to expand the afghan national army and afghan national police well beyond the current target of 134,000 soldiers and 96,000 police

personnel by 2010. most of the members of this committee urged four months allege in a letter, the establishment of a goal of 50,000 afghan troops and 160,000 afghan police by 2013. hopefully that goal will be adopted. and the target set for the end of 2012. our own military and afghanistan has repeatedly pointed to the need for more afghan forces. as colonel bill hicks former commander put it, quote, the u.s. forces growing down here, but the afghan force is not growing nearly as fast. we have people who are bleeding and dying, and we need to look hard at how we generate afghan forces, end quote. the marine company commander captain brian put this way,

quote, the lack of afghan forces is absolutely our achilles heel, closed quos. -- quote. senator hoffman and i visited earlier this month, our marines outnumbered afghan soldiers by 5 to 1. we've been assured that there's no shortage of volunteers to reach. we will need more trainers to achieve this. we ask general who is in charge of the american effort to train the afghanistan security forces to assess what would be required, including nato and u.s. trainers to meet that timetable. in the mean time, we should also press our nato alliance much harder to provide more trainers. a larger afghan military will require more equipment. to be a major urgent effort to

determine these requirements, and to transfer equipment coming out of iraq to afghan security forces to meet their requirements. a plan for that needs to be developed immediately. we also need a plan for separating local taliban fighters from their leaders. in iraq, large numbers of young iraqis who had been attacks us switched sides and become the sons of iraq. a similar prospect exists in afghanistan. afghan leaders and our own military leaders say that local fighters, most of whom are motivated not by ideology or religious zeal can be brought over to the government side if offered the right incentives. general mcchrystal has said there is significant potential to go after taliban fighters and leaders and offer them

reintegration. we can draw on the afghan leaders to adopt and implement a plan without delay for turning some enemies into allies in afghanistan. such a plan requires assurances of protection and nonretribution as well as jobs for the afghan army and police. the positive impact of such an effort should be taken into account and considering the need for additional u.s. combat forces. excuse me. the afghan people want to provide for their own security. in a tiny village in hellman providence, the three of us met with the elders of the council. 100 or so men sat on the floor

and talked with us about their future and their country's future. when asked how long the united states should stay? they said quote, until the minute you make our security forces self-sufficient. then you will be welcome to visit us, not as soldiers but as guests. providing the resources needed for the afghan army and police to become self-sufficient would demonstrate our commitment to the success of a mission that is in our national security interest. while avoiding the risking associated with a larger u.s. footprint. i believe the steps should believe urgently implemented before we consider a further increase in u.s. ground combat troops on what is already planned to be deployed by the end of the year. i release the balance of my statement to the record and call on senator mccain. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i join you in welcoming

admiral mullen and thank him for his service and his family for their support. admiral, i believe that you and secretary gates have done a great job, and obviously, you are extremely well qualified for a second term as chairman. and we're grateful for your long years of service to our country in uniform. at your last hearing in july, 2007, i made a statement then and things were certainly not clear as to what we were going to do in iraq. i said there are no easy choices in iraq. and the temptation is to wash our hands of this messy situation. to follow this impulse will spell catastrophe, withdrawing would turn iraq into a failed state, and entire sanctuary in the heart of the middle east, we have seen a failed state emerge

after u.s. disengagement once before, and it cost us terribly. pre september 11, we can't make this fatal mistake again. despite our successes in iraq and in the hard understanding we've gained about what it takes to defeat an encourage -- insurgency we must have the same debate again today with respect to afghanistan. in all do respect, senator levin, i've seen that movie before. i'veen encouraged over the past year by the statement and the actions of the president and the priority he's placed on achieving success in afghanistan. in march the president acknowledged that the situation in afghanistan is quote, increasingly perilless, and the

future of the nation is linked to the future of the neighbor pakistan. the terrorists said, we will defeat you, unquote. the president approval of increases troop strength was needed then, and i believe even more necessary now. i've also been impressed, admiral, by your commitment of that of secretary gates to the success of afghanistan. you've been clear that defeating the afghan and pakistan taliban is a necessary component of the president's strategy. general mcchrystal as we has completed an assessment still standing in the way which clearly will be a requirement for increases for the troops. i want to emphasis every day we delay in implementing this strategy and increasing the number of troops there which we all know is needed, puts more and more young americans who are there, their lives in danger.

i don't think we should do that. soon general mccrystal recommends, i hope we don't delay the decision that we know are being sought by general mccrystal, working with general petraeus. the acceleration in the growth of the afghan security forces, and increase of the number of trainers we should provide. i agree with that approach. i strongly disagree with a wait-and-see recommendation that we should deploy no additional to afghanistan until this action has been taken. i believe that this position would repeat a nearly catastrophic mistakes and set back the vital war effort in afghanistan. the lesson of iraq is that we make little progress nearly by

putting afghan volunteers through a training force, of course, and we leases them into combat. in fact, when precisely this approach was tried in iraq, iraqi units collapsed in the face of attacks. it took measureship at every level, including partnership and joint operations with u.s. forces that built a capable iraqi security force. similar leadership at all levels is required to build the military and pave the way for our successful exit in afghanistan. to do this, we will need more u.s. combat forces in afghanistan, not less or the same amount as we have today. vital areas in fen are controlled by taliban and its surrogates today. it will require the u.s. forces to shape, clear, hold, and build in this area.

if we wait until the army has increased in size, and capable of carrying out all of these operations on its own, it may well be too late. admiral, as i express these views, i am mindful on the stress and sacrifices being made by the men and women of the armed forces and their families. admiral, i think i speak for all senators in thanking you for your personal efforts to address the welfare of our wounded warriors and implement more effective policies aimed at eliminating bare barriers to seeking help to prevent suicides and do better in evaluations and responding to disabilities suffered on active duty. i also want to express my appreciation for the efforts you are making to improve our acquisition process. we have a long way to go. and as the secretary has indicated, our weapons systems

must impose greater cost on our current enemies than on us. and recently in past legislation i hope will further our efforts in that direction. i hope we'll hear more about today about what steps needs to be taken to improve the requirement process and the acquisition process. i urge secretary gates and you to continue to advocate in the strongest terms for the weapons systems we need for the readiness and effectiveness against our current enemies. thank you. >> thank you, senator mccain. admiral mullen. >> chairman, distinguished members of this committee, i thank you for hearing the testimony today. i also thank the president and secretary gates fore confidence in me. it's been my pleasure to serve for the past two years. if confirmed by the senate, i will remain steadfast in the execution of my duties.

i am joined this morning by my wife debra who, as you know, has steadfast in her commitment. not only during my term, but throughout this long military career, we have shared. i value her counsel and her company. more critically, i know i would not be here and i could not have endured the challenges presented to me over the course of 41 years without her love. i would add to that the love and support of our two sons both serving today on active duty in the united states navy. they have the two of the 2.2 million sons and daughters of america i strive best to represent. no decision i make is done without thinking about the impact on your troops and families. the truth is our people have been stretched and strains by eight years of combat, in two theaters of war. no to mention the steady beat

demanded by the secure commitments around the world. this manifests in three ways, stress, marital and family difficulties, and an alarming number of suicides. we ought not to forget there has been trooped killed since 9/11 or wounded, each one a noble sacrifice. with wounds we never see, the nightmares we never know that are suffered. these wounded represent a family's life forever changed. as do you on this committee, i am committed to improving the care we provide, now and into the future for all of these casualties and their families. and yet for all this and this change, our people are the most

resilient i have ever seen. they have endured much, yes, but they have also learned much and grown much. consider iraq, we're only three short years ago, many people will given up on the effort. today there's no question that it is much, much better. and the iraqi security forces are increasingly more able to protect their own people. violence per siss and al qaeda still threatens. we are now in a position, the iraqis are now in a position for us to continue drawing down our forces due to large part to our great military men and women. we have made great strides in wounded care, particularly on the battlefield. we've become more nibble on acting on intelligence. our army has restructured far more force. the maroons have refined a new

concept of maneuver warfare. our navy has taken back its riverring mission. and our air force is revitalizing the nuclear role. but the biggest area of learning and growth has been in the counterinsurgents. indeed, i believe we are today the best force in the world. having learned to do so many valuable lessons over these last eight years. as i noted, we didn't get here without great sacrifice in blood and treasure. our knowledge came another a heavy price. and now that we have shifted the main effort east in afghanistan, where the taliban insurgency grows, we must apply that knowledge to the best of our ability. that is why i support a properly resourced, classify pursued, counterinsurgency effort. the president has given us a clear mission, disrock,

dismantle, and defeat al qaeda and prevent afghanistan from becoming the safe haven again. you can't do that from offshore. and you can't do that by just killing the bad guys. you have to be there where the people are, when they need you there, and until they can provide for their own security. this is general mccrystals' view, and it is my view. and that of general petraeus and the joint chief. now, not every lesson from iraq will apply. but the big ones will, connect the people, political process, enable them to provide for their own security. the enemy in afghanistan is not the insurgence, the enemy is fear. if you can remove the fear under which so many afghanistan live, if you plant it with good governance, then you can offer them an alternative to taliban

rule. and if they have an alternative, they will choose it. to be sure, the president's strategy is regional one, recognizing the ideology shared by al qaeda and taliban knows no bored enand this area remains the violent islamic fundamentalism. and afghanistan resistance to extremism, free of such will help bolster of efforts of neighboring pakistan to become the same. on the other hand, if the taliban succeeds in governing at the state level as many local areas, al qaeda could reestablish and the internal threat to pakistan by extremism will only worsen. so how best to prevent it? how best to provide for afghanistan security and governance? ultimately, it should be provided by the afghan's

themselves. as you rightly pointed out last week, mr. chairman, i share your view that larger and more capable afghan national security forces remain vital to that nation's viability. i share your view and have stated publicly that the path to achieving the president goal is through our training efforts there. we must rapidly build the afghan army and police. and i agree that we must develop more and better ways to peel away those not committed to the insurgency and reintegrate them back. but we cannot achieve these goals without recognizes that they have man power and time intensive. more important than the size of the afghan security forces is there quality. more important than the orders they follow is the leadership they exude. and more important than the numbers of taliban we turn are the personal lives they themselves turn around.

sending more trainers more quickly will give us a jump start. but only that. quality training takes time and patient. it is not fostered in a public hurry. i do not know what resources general mechanic crystal may ask her. i don't know what he really needs. we'll get to all of that in the becoming weeks. but i do believe having heard his views and properly resource count insurgency probably means for forces. and without question more time and more commitment to the protection of the afghan people to the development of good governance. we can get that -- we can accomplish the mix but we will no resources matched to the strategy, civilian expertise and

the continued support of the american people. we need to remember that we have other missions. and as we draw down in iraq and work towards afghanistan, we must remain ready to deter conflict elsewhere, to improve the capacity of the ally and partners and prepare for a broad spectrum of challenges both conventional, and unconventional. again, thank you for this opportunity. and thank you for all you do on this committee to support the men and women on the military as they protect our interests in their very challenging times. >> thank you so much for your statement and great service. let's try a first round.

has general for afghanistan. >> no, sir, he has not. >> has a decision before made as to whether to commit additional u.s. forces to afghanistan beyond the 17,000 combat troops and the 4,000 trainers that the president approved in february. >> no, sir. >> has the recommendation been made by you relative to sending additional troops. >> we made the recommendation based on the assessment. but not having received the request, we made no relation to respect to forces. >> and how many of the 17,000 combat forces and the 4,000 trainers that were previously committed, how much of them have arrived in theater, and when will the balance arrive?

>> the balance will be there by the end of the month. the last group is really the -- at end of the arrival, the training mission, the 4,000 soldiers very quickly. >> you've testified, admiral, that the step in regaining the initiative in afghanistan to succeed there is to build the capacity of the afghan security forces, the afghan army and police, and empowering them to provide security for their own country. is the afghan army respected by the afghan people? >> it is my respect. >> are they committed fighters? >> they are. they've been fighting for a long time.

>> how many additional trainers is it going to take to build the army to 250,000? >> the rough estimate is somewhere between two and four thousand in terms of overall trainers. >> that additional to what's there now? >> yes, sir. >> what is there now? >> trainingwise, it's about 6,000, 6500. >> how many of those trainers should be supplied by nato. >> as many as possible. there are some very capable countries in nato at training both police and the army, we would like to see them step up as much as possible. >> and when you gave a number for additional trainers for the army, did that include additional -- does that include additional trainers to the police or is that a separate number? >> no, that's inclusive. >> okay.

on the equipment issue, would you agree that as we withdraw equipment that a major priority should be transferring to afghanistan the equipment to build the capacity that the afghan security forces to provide? >> yes, sir. >> and what is being done in that regard? >> well, your question when you came back off that trip caused us to focus and see exactly where we were. i met yesterday with general petraeus, and general mccrystal where we discussed this. there are some 2,000 plus humvees in kuwait which are being refurbished. and they will be put in afghanistan. the required focus on this to make sure we are moving them as rapidly as we can.

it's also tied to their ability to absorb this and train to it. >> and is that review going to be conducted to determine what other types and qualities of equipment will be needed and usable? >> right. we're doing a full scale review in that regard? >> when will that review be completed? >> i think we'll know in the next couple of weeks. >> can you make that available to me? >> yes, sir. >> is this going to take any additional legislation? >> no, sir. i'm not aware of any right now. >> general mccrystal has spoken, you would too i believe, about the great potential for the reentry gaited the taliban fighters and getting them to switch over to the government side. now there's a lot of differences between afghanistan and iraq. but one of the similarities

could be that the taliban fighters to switch from enemies to allies could be put in place. number one is the plan going to be developed to put into place the young afghan fighters? >> yes, sir, there's a british general by the name of grant working who did this in iraq, and is now working for general mccrystal. as initiated, he's put in place a program to do, to focus on mid level and lower level fighters who would like to turn themselves in and do so in a way, obviously, in which they are both protected and they have a future. in that regard similar to sons of iraq. >> has that plan been worked out

with afghan leaders? >> it includes afghan leaders in its initial inception which we're really at beginning of right now. so we're not far down the road. >> what's been the delay in jetting that done? >> i -- it has not been an area of focus. we haven't had someone there to focus on it. >> so this committee, i think over 2/3 of it signed a letter back four or five months ago, and the question of the size of the afghan forces, we pointed out that the defense minister called for an army of 250,000 to 350,000 soldiers. the minister of interior in afghanistan supported the strategic increase in the size

of the army. we urge you to declare a target for the army and the police to those levels. and i'm just wondering what has been the delay in adopting goes for the increase, given what our people on the ground say. which is their presence and as partners is critical. what has been the delay in establishing the larger goals? >> i think if there's been any season for a delay, it's where we are now in terms of our overall numbers. which is 93,000 in the army about 90,000 in the police. an the timing of your letter came right at about the time we were making a leadership change out there.

general mccrystal has embraced the requirements for those forces to grow them more rapidly. and i am sure that that will be part of the output of the assessment if you will. because we're all very committed to making that. . and i would assume that result we will establish those goals. i wouldn't expected them to be far off from what we recommended before. >> thank you. >> thank you. on the this issue of relying on the buildup of afghan army, we tried that for several years in iraq. as you may recall by april 2004, the suspect of the defense reported that there were 208,000 iraqis on duties or being trained for security units.

same amount of attacks of sunni and shiites, and the army collapsed. we succeeded only after we instituted a practice of leadership, including joint operation with u.s. combat forces at every level that we saw market improvement in the iraqi forces. are there any responsible scenario that trained afghan security forces can handle the bulk of the fighting? >> no, sir. >> if we followed such a course do you think the situation in afghanistan would improve or get worse? >> i think it would probably continue to deteriorate. >> thank you. general mccase stall -- excuse me admiral, general

mccrystal's strategy has been closely held and is currently under review in the pentagon and white house. the assessment contains no resource requirements or request for additional troops. but it is instead being described as a new strategy for the president's consideration and endorsement. if last march, didn't the president adopt a new strategy for afghanistan with considerable fanfare? >> yes, sir. i think the description of general mccrystal's assessment than it's a new strategy, and in fact we uses those words, but his views of those words is focused on the implementation strategy for the president which is the baseline for his review. general mcchris stall's

assessment assesses the strategy -- the implementation strategy required to execute the president's strategy which he rolled out in the end of march. >> his is not a new strategy. thank you. obviously, a strategy in order to succeed requires an assessment of resources needed. requirements right? >> yes, sir. and resources, vital component of that is man power? and personnel? >> yes, sir. >> help me through why we have a restatement of the president's strategy which was announced in march and yet there is no recommendation on what the important strategically and

domestically, why would it takes weeks and weeks to make an evaluation and reach a decision? >> the process that we are going through is assess it for the president as well as for nato. it's a rule assessment. and quite honestly, the traditions on the ground are tougher than he has thought. we have been a year out of afghanistan. he found it tougher. and the importance of the fullness of that assessment and what it was going to take to implement the president's strategy to include, you know, a second part which is okay here's how you found it. these are the resources that i need. he's done intensive analysis. and my execation is they will be

submitted in the very near future. and the administration wants time to review it in terms of what general mccrystal found, and one of the things that is very important to me is that whatever the strategy is and right now it's the 27 marks is that we properly resource it. that's where we are today. i will anticipate he will submit that request in the very near future. >> and as you stated this month, and i quote, time is not on our side. >> no, sir, i have a sense of urgency about this. i worry a great deal that the clock is moving very rapidly. and there are lots of clocks as you know. but the sense of urgency, and i believe me, share that with general mccrystal, who is

focused on the changes and afghan people, he is alarmed by the insurgency, and he is in a position where he thinks he needs to retake the initiative from the insurgents who have grabbed it. >> thank you. but then i am frustrated and curious as to why the president's spokes people yesterday should take it takes weeks and weeks. we're restates a strategy. we know what the resources are. and that are required, and yet it would take weeks and weeks. meanwhile, both weeks and weeks go by. and without the new strategy and the implementation of it or excuse me the implementation of the resources recommendation, there are more americans who are at great risk and that is

really, really bothersome. and already in media, there's speculation that the president doesn't want to make an allowancement on troop increases because of the present debate on health care. i believe is that the president can do both. let me finally ask, what do you anticipate the level of fighting to be as we get into the winter months here? >> well, each winter the fighting recedes. but last winter it was more than the previous one. and in discussions with general mccrystal, there's a term that we use, and have used in afghanistan, which is the fighting season. but in fact we don't believe there's a fighting season. we think it's a 365-day-a-year

fight for the people and for their support. and for them to be able to be put in a position to be governed by their country and the institutions in their country. so much of the combat was quite frankly in the winter, it is just as important to be engaged with the people. >> and the sooner we get the needed resources, the sooner we can turn this situation around. mr. chairman, i would strongly recommend that we do as we have in the past and ask general crystal, and general petraeus to come before the committee and testify. i thank you. >> thank you very much, senator mccain. senator lieberman? >> thank you. first, let me thank you for your

extraordinary service to our country. i think you've done a great job. you haven't always given us the answer that we have been looking for. but that is exactly what we expect you to do. and you've shown great leadership here. great grace under pressure is the way i will put it. so i will support the president's renomination. your wife has urged me to think twice. unless, i'm going to go forward, yes. in the opening statements of senator mccain and levin, we see the dimensions of the beginning of a very serious national debate about our persons in afghanistan. it's an important national debate that has to happen here in congress and hopefully throughout the country. and in some sense it is a debate that has not yet occurred in all

the time we've been in afghanistan. our support of the war in afghanistan was a natural response to the attacks against us at 9/11. and then after we went into -- so there was almost total of support of that. after we went to iraq, afghanistan in many ways, including in the debates here in washington, became the other war. it was even so during the campaign last year where the differences for president. senator mccain and senator obama really had to do with iraq, and both agreed afghanistan -- in fact senator obama was strong and saying it was the central front. the war of necessity. we could not muddle through and now to president obama's credit as far as i'm concerned he's followed through on those statements.

particularly with the announcement and the deployment of 21,000 additional american troops to back up that deployment. now i appreciate the clarity. what general mccrystal has asked to do is not develop a new strategy. because that's been done. it's to give us strategic assessment of where we are now and what we need to succeed and in some sense for us to with that assessment and the resources that are necessary to carry it out would be a change in the strategic decision that president obama made earlier this year. the the strategic policy we're following does learn from the lessons of iraq. although this is a different

battlefield. the good news here is that there's no decent even as we listen to the different positions that we articulated about the need to succeed in afghanistan. both because it would be inexcusable to allow the taliban to regain control of that country and bring back al qaeda. which of course planned the attacks on us of 9/11, and training for them from their. it's also true and i want to stress this. and you've said it yourself here. i think quite eloquently. a failure in afghanistan would have, i think, a devastating effect on our efforts to stabilize neighboring nuclear pakistan. it's just no question about it. we start with those similar goals and it seems to me the question now is how do we

succeed? chairman levin has offered an alternative which is to go with trainers who have additional combat troops. senator mccain has said we need them now, we need more of them, and as quickly as possible. ands i agree with senator mccain. i hear you to say this morning that based on the strategy that the president adopted, the new strategy adopted in march, and the strategic assessment that general mccrystal has now given the president and you from the battlefield will you have not seen the -- that your conclusion is that we need to send more combat troops to afghanistan. >> i said in my opening statement that it was clear to me we will need more resources.

to execute the president's strategy from the end of march. and i really await this admission which i think is going to occur here very quickly to evaluate specifically what that means. and to look at various options. so it is -- maybe i can get a better answer on why we weren't doing a program like the one graham is now in charge of. we very badly underresourced afghanistan for the better part of four or five years. and i've spoken about a culture of poverty there. there's been interpreted to focus on the poverty level in the country. that isn't what i meant. and certainly that is a problem. but we have a culture of poverty there amongst us in terms of

being underresourced, an economy of force for extensive period of time to get to the point that we didn't have to create a program like that. and not that we didn't think it would be needed. and so the totality of that underresourcing is something we're just coming to grips with. and it's not as simple as trainers, or not as simple as combat troops. it's are you committed? that's how the afghan people look at it. that's a regional area that is the epicenter of terrorism and they want -- every time i go. and i'm sure it happens to you as well. when you're in afghanistan or pakistan, the question is that on their list is are you staying or going? >> are you staying or going? >> are you with us or not? >> right. and my concern is that if we just send trainers and don't

send more combat troops particularly it's clear that general mccrystal has requested them, then i believe the afghan and pakistan people are going to decide we're on our way out. and they're going to make some judgments based on that and take actions that will not be what we'll want them to do. do you agree? >> well, i am very concerned about that. the afghan people are waiting on the sidelines for how committed we are. and quite frankly so are the people of pakistan. >> right. >> and i said in my opening statement, i believe in a fully resourced counterinsurgency. these are lessons from iraq. we have learned they have been very painful and quite frankly we need those lessons in a timely manner applied right now with the level of deterioration that we've in a afghanistan particularly over the last three

years. >> again. last question, the momentum, what general mccrystal said, is not on our side. and ending more trainers and more combat troops gives us a much higher project of regaining the initiative in this critical battle. >> the issue of regaining initiative is absolutely critical. i spoke to him yesterday. he emphasises that each time that i engage with him. >> final question:isn't one of the lessons we learned from iraq that the sons of iraq turned away from al qaeda in our direction after they were confident that we were not leaveing, in fact, we were going to surge our troops. is it true that any effort to brake break away local taliban who are not islamic fanatics requires us similarly to

convince those local taliban that we're committed to this fight. and if they come to our side, they are going to be winners, not losers. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> excuse me. senator sessions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you admiral mullen for your leadership and service and all of the people that serve under you, your leadership, they've put their lives on the lines for the american policy that this congress has directed them. and sent them. we do need to listen to their advice about how to be successful. i know troops in afghanistan is a bitter field to me. i do think that senator mccain and others have made the case in iraq. and they've made it at a difficult time that we needed to

strengthen our presence. and if we did, we could be successful. and things went better that we could have expected at this point in iraq. and i'm trying to think of that we need to listen to that wisdom again. but i do believe that every area of the world is different. i think afghanistan is a different degree than iraq. but there are a lot of lessons that we can apply there. i don't go into details about that today. but i do look forward from hearing from general mccrystal, and we can fulfill our roll in this process to exam the facts and venture that we're supporting good policy that will be successful. admiral mullen, you signed off on the president's budget this, i supposed it's fair to say.

is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> well, i don't. and i'm worried about it. what is the personnel increase that we expect to occur as a result of this budget? how many troops? 30,000? how would you -- >> one that is, i think you're asking about is an increase of $22,000 for the army. temporary increase over a period for about three years. what is addresses is the need to make up for losses which are occurring principally in our large units. 350,000 now it's the number of soldiers who are falling out before deployment that have about doubled since the war started. and so we're rushing other people into these brigades.

that 22,000 will greatly reduce the churn in a time where we are transitioning out of iraq. we don't know what our final level or our level in afghanistan is going to be. as we work to giving the overall requirement that increase from 1-1 to 1-2. but principally, it's focused on getting at the churn that's in the system. it's not going to add any additional capability. that's why it is that. >> we authorized the legislation up to 30,000. >> yes, sir. >> so you decided on the defense department decided to do 22. does that mean we will have 22,000 more people on the payroll? >> over the next, i think it's going to take about an additional 15 next year and 10

with 7 more after that. and then literally to get back done you have to start coming down pretty fast. >> so you don't see this as a permanent thing? >> well, i've -- >> i'm inclined to think the personnel is needed today. i support that. i am worried about the soldiers and redeployment rate. but i just got to worry me to another -- in another area is that the amount of money once you fund this new surge of troops and you get a 3% increase in your budget and certain costs go up here year and maintaining your personnel and all of the matters from energy to whatever in the defense budget, that procurement and research and development are the things historically we see that get

squeezed too much. we have an obligation, this president has an obligation, this congress has an obligation to fund the development and procurement of weapons today that we may not see in the inventory 5, 10, 15 years down the road. to you -- isn't it fair to say that we should be concerned and very observant about the impact of this tight budget for the defense department on procurement and research and development? >> well, a lot of my life has been programming and budgeting. and the work, and i work very closely with secretary gates to submit the budget. i'm very supportive of the decisions hard as they were for programs or running out of control, way overdue cost

increasing, et cetera. : and yes, clearly -- and i am concerned about increasing personnel costs. when i was the head of the navy, 60 to 70% of my budget went to personnel costs, that's military, civilian, and direct support of contractors who helped us in carrying out our mission. and that's gone up. and healthcare is a big part of that but it's not exclusively that. so i think one of the biggest issues we have actually in the defense budget is how do we control that? how do we come to grips with those costs? and that's very difficult. particularly when it takes up so

i have operations, that's another big undertaking and then what is left is procurement and r&d, so when a budget gets tighter, clearly that is where the pressure is going to be felt. and we do have to watch that. at the same time, i think the budget focuses on the first fall, people. if you want me to bet in the future that is where i would put my next marginal dollar. second it focuses on the war. and then obviously it focuses on what we see in the future. and we try to bring it in balance, not on do the future i am mindful it is a lot tighter than it was and we have to be very vigilant about the things we do, the things we buy and things we don't buy. >> thank you. i know you understand as a senior top uniformed military

leader in the country, you have a serious burden in that regard, and also i hope you will examine the impact of this very tight budget. i think discretionary spending, seven, eight, 9% increase this year, not counting the stimulus. the military got very little, almost nothing out of the stimulus and only 3% increase in the dod total budget. so i hope that you -- and i expect you will evaluate that and let us know to what extent some of these decisions impacting adversely the military of the united states. will you do that? >> i would add as budgets have, op over the last decades one of the characteristics that involves is we become less disciplined in our prioritization. we become less disciplined and our analysis because there are resources that don't have to be

justified as much as when there is additional pressure. so we've got to bring all of those skills back to the forefront in order to make the right decisions. senator mccain talked about that, and senator levin, both this acquisition legislation, which is very powerful. now we need to get at that. we need to execute it. we need to make hard decisions, and we don't need the perfect solution. i don't need the hundred% solution each and every time i am developing something. i do need high-end stuff, there's no question about that, and it's very expensive. so all those things are in place right now and we take that very seriously. >> thank you. senator reid? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and admiral, thank you for your service to the country and your family. you have fled with great not only vision that decency and i

appreciate that very, very much. let me just as a first point, i would think in trying to resource afghanistan, the first place would be within centcom. is that your emphasis, to see if there are those in centcom and those scheduled to go there should be diverted into afghanistan? >> we have done a great deal of that already inside the footprint the president has approved for afghanistan to move resources and intelligence reconnaissance surveillance ground convoy, ied, counter ied capability to focus on force protection. the mrap requirement as well. so we are very focused on moving people and capability from iraq to afghanistan. and general odierno has been terrific looking at his risk

understanding with the need days and has been supportive. >> this seems to be incentives on increased trainers and for the record i think there is as you point out, increased need for enablers. where do we stand in terms of the enablers there in tains the platforms? >> those that general mcchrystal has asked for for this year are on the way. basically through the end of this calendar year. >> but he will presumably ask for additional? >> dad again clearly will be part of this request, i just don't have the details. >> one of the areas that has plagued us through presence in afghanistan is lack of unity of effort. first command and control problems. second there is i think a lack of coordination between operations and counternarcotic operations, and then there's a certain lack of coordination

between afghan security forces and isaf forces and armed forces, and then also conventional forces and special operations forces. can you comment -- there's no silver bullet here, but unless we get these issues improved dramatically, increased resources will help as much. >> i agree and general mcchrystal made this one of his top priorities, focused on the people, partnered with them and really the other one is to fix the unity of command. he is clearly going to put the level of the senior person in battle space in charge of all forces including the special forces. we are standing up as a three-star command, operational command if you will, tactical command. but general rodriguez is standing it up. it will stand by the 12th of october and we are on track to do that. we all agree that the command and control has been far from

ideal and these steps and others to make sure our unity of command and unity of effort is very divisible particularly to the afghan security forces, who will working closely with. so he is making major changes to address the issue. i don't think it will ever be perfect, but it will be much better than it has been. >> regardless, i think of the presence of u.s. forces the limiting factor seems to me to be the forces not only the long run but the short run. and the way we operate now typically is we are in helmand with american battalion one afghan company, but the impression i got from the commanders on the ground is unless there is an afghan presence, it's hard to operate tactically and psychologically and symbolically you send a very wrong signal that this is our war, not their war. >> the chairman pointed out the stories that came out when

marines initiated their first operation and general nickel essay and talked about what i would call is about eight and-juan ratio. certainly we have got afghans present but they are very thin and that gets to the issue meeting to build up those forces. >> let me just on one point, when we discussed upon return the training of the afghan army, are we training -- are we trying to train an army with italian brigades, division staff or -- because this emergency focusing on infantry companies and command which you could probably produce much more quick than talented staffers. >> it is general mcchrystal's intent, i will take the fourth and beatty second as example, break down into platoon sliced units and focus that platoon at company level specifically. there will be training and certainly at the company, battalion headquarters level, but the main effort is going to be that level. >> the civilian surge, to be

blunt military forces can buy time, but the success there ultimately may be some kind of political accommodation, and right now the government of afghanistan is dysfunctional. in kabul and not even present outside of kabul. is this civilian surge going well? is a function of resources should the dod kick in the mauney? i know secretary vilsack for example wants to send more agricultural people but he wants you to pick up the tab. >> the best i know there is no shortage of the funds to do this. and i like it to iraq. i mean, we are -- we are surging. it is not happening fast enough. it's got secateurs clinton's detention, ambassador holbrooke's attention. there are a lot of people working on it. we are just not a government has been constructed to do this

quickly. and there is a plan, and i think we are a little bit behind that plan to surge up words like five or 600 to be there in the spring, but it's the spring day are not there now. there are additional civilians who have arrived. there has been a major change in the embassy. but it's not happening as rapidly as it could and we can't do it without that help, first of all, and secondly you talked about governance. i consider the threat from lack of governance to be equal to the threat from the taliban. and we are both of those things have to be addressed. >> presidential election is going to a conclusion. to what extent will that affect the situation with an afghanistan in your view? there is a possibility that there could be serious crisis of

legitimacy that would impair the judgment to function at all. is that a factor that we have to consider? >> i think the legitimacy of the afghan government at every level, not just the national level, that's where the election is, is a real concern. and their needs to be a level of legitimacy the afghan people see in their government whether it is local to national. and there is a great question and right now the elections are no help. we need to get through these elections, see what the results are, see who we are dealing with, what does the government look like and move forward accordingly. but the issue of legitimacy is a huge issue. >> thank you. >> thank you. senator gramm? >> thank you, mr. chairman. we all appreciate your service, and i feel he will be confirmed, hopefully with everyone's vote. just think you have earned that. quite frankly, this is an

opportunity to look into assessment about iraq and afghanistan. and football season is here at home, and i'm trying to think of an analogy from senator lieberman's question seems like we are on the defense in afghanistan is that fair to say? >> i feel that's probably fairly characterized. >> okay. and iraq, we are on offense? the iraqi people -- >> well, i mean -- i'm not sure -- clearly, we are on a path to success with them -- i think in that regard we are certainly moving the right direction. >> you think we are inside the 20? [laughter] >> i'm not sure i would say 20. but we are moving towards a red zone. >> okay, good. that's good. there we go. get something i can understand here. the combined afghan security forces and all coalition forces at this moment are not enough to

reverse all lost momentum; is that correct? >> from what general mcchrystal ziz -- what i said earlier about foley race was counterinsurgency we are extremely concerned about the momentum the afghans have. >> how many -- akkadians of them would be no, the combined coalition forces and afghan security forces are not enough to change the momentum. >> they have not so far. >> so there's to paths we can take. we will send more coalition forces and to the training. now let's flesh that out how many tanks did the taliban have? how many airplanes? >> none. >> how are they doing this? >> they have watched us. they're very good at it. it's their country. they know how to fight. they choose when to stay and when to go. they are not --

>> do they have popular support? >> more than anything else, they are intimidating the afghan people, and no, they are not held in high regard by the afghans. >> so they are not held in high regard but they are winning so that makes me conclude something has gone iraqi in afghanistan and the biggest threat in my opinion is not taliban. it's the government's. the only reason they possibly could have come back is because there has been a vacuum created is that fair to say? >> i would agree. >> and that vacuum is a combination of poor governance and lack of troop presence would you agree? >> it is clearly of lack of legitimacy in the government at every level. but people don't get services from their government. >> let's find some common ground. we could send a million troops and that wouldn't restore legitimacy in the government. >> that is a fact.

>> as to civilians, i just got back from the visit and i appreciate all of aarsele and over there from different agencies. they are very brave but quite honestly they can't go anywhere. you could send 10,000 lawyers from the state department that deal with a rule of law program but they are sitting on the base because if they leave the base they will get shot, do you agree? >> yes, sir. >> the only way they get off the bases have a military convoy. is that right? the same people driving them down to meet the tribal leaders are basically the same people treating the afghan army and police forces is that right? they are the same people fighting at night when they get attacked so i just want our colleagues to know the security environment in afghanistan from my point of view will prevent any success until we change the security environment. how long would it training of an afghan groups to change the

momentum in your view if you just did it with afghan forces? >> i figure will take two or two years. >> what will happen in that two or three year period in terms of the security environment? >> if we are just training i think the environment would see it deteriorated. >> it seems we have one more shot at this, is that right, at oral colin? >> we are looking at a big shot right now. >> do you understand you have one more shot at all? >> yes, sir. >> about 55% of the american people in the polls say they do not support staying in afghanistan. what would you tell them why we should? >> i would say it is the epicenter of terrorism right now. it's very clear that in fact al qaeda is diminished while it is living in pakistan and this is a pakistan afghanistan issue. they are by no means dead. it is a very serious threat.

and we allow the taliban to take control and run afghanistan again. i think the likelihood they would return to that safe haven would be high. and i am very concerned about the deterioration of just in afghanistan but also pakistan. >> do you believe we have the right strategy with appropriate resources to win? >> i believe we have the right strategy. requests will come. what i said earlier and i will recommend in the future is this is how you properly resource the strategy. >> the point i am trying to make to the american people -- you are a leader. you are telling us if we have a strategy we believe in and the light general mcchrystal needs we can win? >> we can respond to our troops believe that? >> yes. >> now the rules of engagement i have been informed by some colleagues over there that if an

insurgent is captured under the isaf rules of engagement, the nato rules of engagement they can be detained for 96 hours before they have to be released and we are landed the tactical interrogation during the 96 hours. that basically is how you do it. not much more. has this resulted in a catch and release dynamic? >> there is concern about that, although since you came back i have discussed this with the leadership. there is an option to vote inside of a -- isaf. i am much more -- we have much more intelligent and you can argue this both ways intelligence for the special forces as a result -- >> they are not under this rule. and they should be under this rule. >> however, there is and this is

general mcchrystal, portability by the longer term detention in terms of being able to identify who has been captured and who isn't. with the afghan people. >> and i agree. if i could make -- mr. chairman i want to wrap this up for in iraq we had 20 something thousand iraqis in the camps, is their right? >> yes, sir, and actually we are going to close the camp momentarily. >> it did help clear the battle station to have breeding room to get some of these folks out of anbar so we can do our job. the balance we are trying to achieve is not to put everybody in afghanistan because that is counterproductive but make sure the bad ones don't come back after 96 hours. i look forward to working with you and general mcchrystal and i think you've done a heck of a job and there is no easy way that there is to outcomes, either win or lose and i think everybody wants to win. we can have differences how to get there but i believe we can

win and lost. thank you, mr. chairman. specs before mr. gramm. senator mccaskill. >> admiral, i am going to go back to a familiar subject which is contrasting. i know we are and logcap iv. let me start with this. can you today or at a later date tell me exactly how large is the contract and oversight on logcap number four? >> i would have to get back on the details. >> how about who is the number one military commander responsible for oversight of logcap 4? would be at top of the chart? >> well, really in afghanistan would be general mcchrystal. who raised the senior officer specifically designed, specifically assigned that

responsibility i don't know. >> i think it's possible if we could get the information as to and theater who is the command staff on contract oversight on logcap 4, and in civilian, who is, and what interaction are they having with this new contract in command? >> well, i mean, i can only say as a result of obviously some very difficult lessons from iraq we are applying them directly in afghanistan. more both focused on the same numbers of people who are assigned to make sure these contracts are not just left fairly but executed as we want the details exactly who is doing that and how much we have and what the proportion is i would have to get back to you. >> also to the extent that you can today or for the record read

sure -- reassure us that you are being more aggressive than they have been in terms of the oversight of security personnel at the base camps. clearly we had after a lot of discussion about the secure contract said the embassy in kabul june and the subcommittee on eight were gone on contracting oversight, we had those pictures frankly not only is it a matter of embarrassment but as you well know the pictures circulate quickly. among our enemies. and it contributes to an image of america that doesn't help in terms of fighting this war in the department of defense to make sure that never happens. but i will also tell you when i see an incident like that i start looking in my own house to make sure i am okay and we are

doing that right now to make sure that possibility doesn't exist. we have a great deal more focus. we are -- we look at the contractors who are there very frequently to make sure -- is a large number of afghanistan, some 70,000 right now. we don't want it to go any further than it needs to get we are in many ways dependent on them. so i will be happy to get back to you with more details on our review as a result of what happened the state department contractors which has been part of prudent response as far as i am concerned. >> as you know we have the highest percentage of contractors and conflict in the nation right now. never before have we been at this level. the interesting thing is looking around the difference of iraq and afghanistan in terms of the makeup of that contract in force. and i would like you to try to

put your finger on the difference in that in iraq the vast majority of people that were hired contractors with third-party nationals. in afghanistan it is afghani. in march and i don't know that number is right now, in march the number of afghani contractors was equal to the number of troops. is about a 52,000 to 52,000. the vast majority of the contract in force in afghanistan are afghanis. can you explain to me with the difference is there and why you think that the contractors, and i think that the war is the one that has most of the contracting so far on logcap 4. what is the difference? is the summer substitute for sons of iraq? >> this is very clear strategic shift to focus on and died, and its 52 -- the number on salles at the end of june was 52 million.

or a library, 52,000 out of 71,000 so it is about two-thirds of the local and quite frankly the strategic guidance there is invested in this country and invested in the people and in that regard it does have the same kind of impact that sons of iraq does. >> are you asking the contractor's higher afghanis? >> i think the guidance is to do that if they have the capability. i couldn't tell you what the contract says in terms of their requirements. but clearly the results are exactly that. >> i would -- to take a more extensive look at this double line with the other locations, all i would be very interested in knowing how this came out and if indeed this is part of the strategy, i think it is something we need to be aware of how it is working because clearly, i mean, if we are fighting taliban, i just want to make sure we have a of

clearance. these people are coming into our bases, they are doing the food. you know, they are constructing. we had bad things happen with electricity and shall worse in iraq. i mean, i am glad that we are using afghanis, but it does concern me on the security and we are taking steps necessary to make sure we inadvertently are not inviting some of the enemies of close and personal. >> i have heard -- i certainly understand your concern and i have heard of no examples of that. i actually discussed this when i have been in afghanistan and the the feedback i got was again it is going to be afghanis first if they have the skills to do this. and that is where the contractors are headed. certainly those in charge are aware with the possible threat could be and i know there is a very -- i know there is a

vetting process. but i am not any more first now. >> i would like to be more comfortable about the vetting process and i am cynical because i saw the lack of oversight and i trust that you are trying. no one has talked about recent allegations about the pakistani army and what is going on in the swat region as it relates to extrajudicial killings, and my time is up. so i will leave that question to the next round or you're perhaps another member. i am interested in your take on that. >> thank you, senator mccaskill. senator collins? >> admiral mullen, how are you? >> good. >> good. let me begin by thanking you for your extraordinary service. we are so fortunate to have you at the helm and i want to echo

the praise of my colleagues and i will be voting for you in the position that you hold. >> thank you. >> the counterinsurgency strategy requires the unity of the military and. we have heard and will continue to hear a great deal of discussion over the critical issue of whether or not we should send more combat troops to afghanistan. but there has been relatively little discussion of the civilian side of the counterinsurgency effort. and that concerns me. when i visited the camp last month with my colleagues, i had lunch with a group of marines that had ties to my home state,

and they told me they cleared the taliban at great cost intering casualties going village by village, and it was hard work but they were successful, and they were proud of their success. but they told me that their frustration is after they clear the taliban out that there is no follow-up that the civilian capacity does not come in to build the institutions that everyone agrees are essential to provide an alternative to the taliban. and that has led me to conclude that we are not focusing enough on the civilian side. i left afghanistan on certain about the road ahead in terms of more combat troops. but all i am certain that we need a surgeon the afghan army and i am certain that we need a

civilian surge. when i was and helmand province i learned that we have thousands of marines. we only have like 800 afghan troops which infuriated me, and we only had dozens of american civilians. perhaps there were more nato civilians. what should we be doing to surge the civilian side? do you believe we need to place more emphasis on a civilian serge? >> there's been -- there's been a great deal of emphasis placed by all of us but in particular secateurs clinton and ambassador holbrooke, deputy secretary lu etc, and so there is a great deal of focus on this. i -- as i look at the numbers it

is a matter that the machine just can't turn them out very quickly. and i share your concern although i was with the same marines a month before and i was actually taken aback by the civilians who rolled into the villages literally right behind -- the next day. so it's very spotty. some places we can do it and some places we can't but we have to have that and what in said happening is if the civilians aren't there we do it and those are the same village as i am guessing the marines are doing that until they are relieved and that is an going to change and that is what we did in my back so we are in some version of that right now. i think a lot more focused, they will get there more quickly than we did in iraq. the president's strategy was the 27th of march. general mcchrystal got they're the 13th of june. one of the challenges we have right now is we are just getting the pieces in place of the

president's strategy. ambassador holbrooke has worked across an array of requirements to try to get the rest of the comprehensive piece of this strategy going, but it is just starting to get -- we won't know where we are with that quite frankly probably until the spring time, the first burst. >> but it's complicated also by the rampant corruption in afghanistan, and if we are going to have an effort after the marines have cleared a village to prevent the taliban from frustration is a task made more difficult by the widespread corruption and the shadows over

the legitimacy of the recent presidential elections? >> yes, ma'am, there is no question. the afghan government needs to at some point in time appear to actually be, have some legitimacy in the eyes of its people and the core issue in that regard is the corruption peace. and in many ways it has been a way of life for some time and that has got to fundamentally change. that threat is every bit the threat the taliban is. >> exactly. and we need to treat it that way. >> yes, ma'am. >> finally, admiral, i am going to submit for the record a letter that really disturbs me that awfully received from john brard who is a retired marine whose son was killed in afghanistan. and his son was the marine who

specter became so controversial, and i am so grateful to secretary gates and you and others who tried to convince and successfully the ap to not publish that horrible image which would be the last image that this family has of their beloved son. but mr. bernard, who as i've said is a retired marine himself, wrote me just a few weeks before his son was killed in afghanistan, and he expressed serious concerns about the rules of engagement. he told a that he felt it put his son and others needlessly at greater risk and that in our commendable and very american attempt to prevent civilian

casualties that we were facing our troops at far greater risk. i am going to send you the letter so that you can read. i promised mr. bernard at the funeral i would do so, and i hope that you and general mcchrystal will look seriously at the concerns he raises about the the rule of engagement. i can't tell you how tragic this was to have received this letter and then what this father feared most indeed happened a few weeks later. so i would very much appreciate your reading his letter. >> if i may, i thought what the ap did on that was unconscionable to that family. >> i agree. >> and the issue of rules of engagement is one we all take

extraordinarily seriously. the directive, i mean we were in my view putting ourselves in a very bad strategic position in terms of being able to succeed the number of civilians we were killing, and i don't think we've really understood that. i think it took too many incidents for us to get that right. general mcchrystal no is that. we also believe getting this right in the long run will actually result in fewer casualties. that doesn't mean risk isn't up higher now given the challenges we have in the direction that mcchrystal has laid out. so i understand that. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator collins. senator begich. >> mr. chairman, thank you for being here and i know it is confirmation hearing so let me make this quick comment on that and as i think you have done a good job i am looking forward to

the next two years supporting you. now that's off to table and we move onto other issues. i actually want -- senator collins dropped an interesting point. i have a call last night from my father in law who is a retired colonel, served in vietnam and had the exact same concern. so as you receive that letter and if you do respond in a formal way, i would like to be shared on that if i could and see how -- it was interesting and in the 20 plus years in the military but his concern was we are engaged or we are not. we are not half way in and we have to make a decision what we are going to do so i would be very interested in your response on that. which leads me to a bigger issue. back -- i have gone to afghanistan and pakistan and it is a very on opening experience

to say the least. but back in the spring of this year, general petraeus was here and i asked a specific question and i know you said in opening comments you can't answer ratios but i want to put this on the line and then maybe your response in general and that is based on his own ratios of 20 counter and surgeons per 1,000 population, and ai brac it was much higher toward the end, 24, 25 range, give or take per 1,000. if you use that ratio based on the populations from our own data we have on the population, even with our surge we have now with the goal of afghan troops and police, all of the other security personnel are going to be short under that ratio 350,000 if we use that ratio. and that was general petraeus's

ratio. and the concern i have is iraq is a different environment geographically and otherwise. afghanistan is much different, harder as is well defined. so, how do we get there? that is a huge number, and then the second part of the question is what are our allies going to do and what is their role going to be? i keep seeing you diminish on the responsibility which concerns me especially from alaska we have lost 12 more troops in the last 90 days. and dozens of casualties. so i would be interested in first those two questions. >> let me take the allies first and i will come back to the ratio if that's okay. actually, the allies over the

last year and a half have increased the members fairly substantially. compared to the numbers we had, and i just think all i am enough of a realistic to believe it is not going to increase -- we are not bring to get tens of thousands of more troops should we have a request from them from our allies. but they have -- they have quality capabilities. they put several countries, nato countries, put more forces and to support security for the elections come and there are 41 countries that have military civilian capability in afghanistan supporting this mission. >> can i interrupt you for just a second? have they the combat line -- that is my point. >> but they have actually put some. i mean, the force of the security forces -- there is the

question are they going -- will they lead them there after the elections. but they actually over the last couple of years put and a significant additional number from their perspective. and i think that's important, and as this resource request comes and i think nato also has to deal with it as well and look at what they can do so the training peace they do pretty well, both police and army may be an area that can add additional capabilities. this is really in peace as well. so we would look to that. so they have gotten better. from my point of view they are more committed but we are ever going to see an extraordinary admission of resources come from our allies. secondly on the ratio piece, the

20:1000 -- first bullet is a guideline. if you the map with forces we have right now they were not close to that. you can also, and i think general mcchrystal but sit here and tell you his biggest concern is the east and south. that doesn't mean we don't have challenges in the north and west. but so we need to be careful with this. we use it as a guideline, not as the absolute answer -- you're not 51 you don't have a chance. we don't believe that. but clearly, we need to keep that in mind as we move forward and look at where the threat is and see what the the ratios are roughly which we do. so as we look at the request that will come in and ask for resources to support his view of where he stands certainly will have that in mind but we are not there in the classic sense right now we are not there, we are not close.

>> i would say we are not there even in those high intensity areas. that is my concern. let me follow-up on a couple other things. the way i see this, i am anxious to hear general mcchrystal's recommendations, but this is a two-part. its civilian, its military, it's a combination. and will his recommendations look at the whole spectrum or just about combat component with a little bit of notation with regards to the civilian component because so much of the state department participates in that? how will that approach come -- >> you're describing the second way is how you describe. he will address the military side and in our review certainly at the pentagon as well as through the administration we are very specifically looking at the broader requirement as well. >> so you will get the bigger

picture -- >> the state park is, but certainly the administration -- the white house is looking at the integrated view of all of the requirements. >> and last because my time is up, wind -- i know you said in short order, how do you define that? in time that he will give the recommendations? >> i said that is why wouldn't -- >> that is why i am asking. i noticed that question wasn't specifically answered by each person. >> submission i think the next couple of weeks. >> and then from there you and the president -- >> will go through the same process. secretary gates and i -- and this is a process we get used over the last several years i will reveal what the chiefs will reveal, petraeus will endorse it. first, bring it into the chief's. we will be essentially look at it and then we will take it secretary gates and he will make the decision and we will move it across that time. >> thank you very much. my time is up. >> thank you, sadr begich.

senator chambliss. >> at marvil mullen, i went to thank you for your commitment and your service to the country, and also the service of your family and commitment of your family. this is a difficult time we are in. you are on from home a lot and with strong support of your family we wouldn't have the commitment from you, so we thank both of you. i want to get to afghanistan but first i want to ask a couple of questions about iraq. we obviously just celebrated the eighth anniversary of september 11. we are getting close to the eighth anniversary of going into iraq. and these are difficult times still in iraq is pretty obvious that is the case even though we are downsizing. first of all downsizing on track to use the potential changes in the schedule reduction and

forces? >> no, sir, we are on track and focused on the elections in january to provide security and i am sorry, support for the iraqi security forces between now and then and we have had levels -- we have had violent incidents at all violence is not on. al qaeda is not on and so one of the things i do worry about is making sure that i spend enough of my time that we don't lose focus because we have come so far although i think most of the effort between now and the end of 11 as political. >> we have been training police, military personnel in iraq basically since we got there. i remember with general petraeus early on in the conflict where he was in charge of the training we are now seeing that spike and balance you talked about with a downsizing of american troops. would the american -- would be

iraqi security and police assume the challenge given to them when we pulled out of the major area? >> by and large, yes, sir. the attacks a couple of weeks ago in baghdad certainly got everybody's attention. to his credit i think prime minister maliki reacted strongly so the security forces, they saw that as a wake-up call. they have adjusted very quickly and what i get when i talk to general odierno specifically and general petraeus about that, they are very satisfied with the adjustment. >> with afghanistan in that same day and you indicated there would be another two to three years before you think that the afghans security police and military our cable of providing any kind of meaningful defense. how do you see the difference from the trading in iraq and the training in afghanistan? >> i think that it's -- basically it is focused in a way

that we know what we need -- we know what they need to learn to read it is a huge challenge because of the literacy rate with the afghan soldiers and police. it is single-digit level mine or 10%. yet we have a program with the army where we put that in place to increase their literacy level. we haven't done that with the police. we are just starting to do that with the police right now, so we know that is going to be a requirement. i have much more confidence in our ability to train and get the army to the level they need to get and execute operations which they are doing right now even at the 90,000 that exist right now. i am much more concerned about police, was an iraq at about the same point in time where we never thought we would make it with the police from the ministry to out on the field and

about 2007 which was a couple of years after general petraeus started work it finally started to turn so that is why i say two to three years but i don't think from a trading standpoint we are done. if i were to look at iraq that was 2004 you were talking about it is now 2009, and so there will be a longer term requirement and yet these forces we are generating the army and the police, they are in the fight pretty quickly so we don't have to wait until then. it's just i think it is going to be about that plank of time before we -- before they will be a will to take a grip, and i worry about as violence increases our lesson in iraq was the police and the security forces got worse. just because it was violent and my expectation is we are probably going to have to go through some of that in afghanistan as well. >> you answered my next question

of the illiteracy rate as you and i discussed in the office a couple of weeks ago that what i understood the literacy rate to be was about 30% and both you and general petraeus kind of deflated me, that was bad enough but you indicated about 9-10%. whatever it is -- >> it is very low. >> which means at some point in time when we think we have achieved military success, we still have to look at the other side. when we leave there has got to be some kind of economic foundation left for the afghan people to be able to survive. with a literacy rate of let's assume it is in the teens or 20%, that means 80% of the people in the country. what do we do? how do we leave that country any state militarily that they can

survive? >> i think first of all they have got to have security. that is just the necessary condition. they have got to have enough good governance to be able to survive, and that includes things like rule of law and institutions that provide things for them that just are not there right now, goods and services, but it also has to have some level of economic underpinning and i don't underestimate the challenge their house well. it's one of the fight for ten poorest countries. so there's got to be some economic improvement and not unlike iraq or just about any insurgency or counter insurgency it is a three leggitt stultz and you have to be able to do security and development, create jobs as well as a level of governments. >> mai tais up, but we've talked

with general mcchrystal last time he was here about the national guard from the parts of the country going into eckert cultural areas and providing rather than military security cover, agricultural training services. is that program still -- >> it is. i can't remember how many brigades or states but it's six or seven states that continue to do this, to provide agricultural expertise out of the guard and it has had a big impact and we are going to continue that. >> thank you very much, admiral. >> senator akaka. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and hello, admiral mullen. i want to thank you very much for your outstanding and dedicated service to the nation over these years. you have show and outstanding leadership as the chairman of

the joint chiefs and also i want to congratulate you on your nomination for continuing to serve this position. and also i want to add a welcome to your lovely wife, deborah. >> thank you, sir. >> i am interested in the afghanistan momentum. we have been fighting in afghanistan now for about eight years. we are facing a more sophisticated and resilient insurgency than any time since 2001. mauney question to you is what could be the effect if we fail to quickly regain the initiative and reverse the momentum in afghanistan? >> i worry a great deal about it essentially becoming a failed state and a safe haven.

while maybe the midterm affects that house on pakistan, and the president's strategy, and i strongly agree, it is a reasonable strategy. it involves both those countries even though they are both sovereign countries, they have links de bickel links that go back through the ages and there are other countries i think need to be paying all lot of attention to this as well. india being a specific one. and it's very difficult to predict here. it is actually i think what has happened in afghanistan as difficult as it is has contributed to the diminishment of al qaeda evin and pakistan. and so it is the combination of efforts in both countries i think that is so important to get at what is the core goal of the strategy which is al qaeda.

i don't know for sure, but i worry a great deal that if a taliban retakes afghanistan that in fact clearly the option is there to recreate the safe haven where they are comfortable. and in the long term affect i think could be disastrous for us in our national interest assuming al qaeda is somehow able to both plan and execute a tax which they are planning to do today. >> as you mentioned, pakistan begins to play into our strategy. the administration's goebel in afghanistan and pakistan -- let me quote, district of the scandal and defeat al qaeda in pakistan and afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future, and of quote. admiral, assuming that we are able to defeat al qaeda, how would you propose we accomplish

the next part of the goal of preventing the return to afghanistan or pakistan? >> i think if the country of afghanistan has a strong enough government and a strong enough security force they can prevent them from coming back. and that doesn't include, at least clearly it doesn't include the taliban under their current leadership. i also -- in the defeat al qaeda peace, and does focus on al qaeda, but these terrorists and extremists particularly in recent years have become much more of linked class a yes it is al qaeda but it is also the taliban and t tipi, jay eub, gm, and all of them have the same kind of outlook. now each one of them does not threaten us directly as a

country but the totality of this epicenter in terms of the terrorists who were there is one that i am extremely concerned about led by al qaeda. >> our military continues through shouldering her huge burden in the middle east and south central asia. it seems the number of dewitt forces in afghanistan will remain high and there are reports there might be requests. and so, that concerns me about military residencies. if we continue the current base of operations, how would you assess the readiness to counter future threats abroad? >> at current levels which include a plan to draw down in iraq, we actually will start to

increase the dwell time which is nominally for the ground forces particularly the army 1-1 and the marine corps because we go three additional battalions, they are coming out of iraq now. the marine corps deployment level ratio, i'm sorry, beltline is actually about one to 1.5 for the need units. there are some units whose ratio is 1:one so we will increase that will time. that will happen over a period of two or three years with the army as well. general casey says about 2011 or 2012 estimate of the levels don't go about assuming we come out of iraq and levels in afghanistan don't go to hide that he also would be able to increase that. that by some recuperation time which we need for the troops and families for our gear as well but it also allows us to start training for other missions. so we clearly accepted

additional risk globally focusing on iraq and afghanistan that is how we would move forward. i would be first and foremost concerned about just the recuperation time for the troops and families, and while at the same time getting ready for those additional possibilities. >> admiral, all i applaud your continued efforts to be a strong advocate for wounded warriors. during your speech you stated times of the essence when it comes to finding better treatments for traumatic brain injuries, and of quote. what more can be done to better treat the dramatic brain injuries? visiting what i would call centers of excellence, certainly in the d.a. world that i was recently up in boston and i was struck at the advancements that are being made there by the boston va and

the relationships in the community with harvard and boston university, and other institutions, educational and research institutions, which are contributing. and i know secretary has this as a priority as well. i think that the department of defense and the v.a. must work as hard as we can together to service and then funded these things. some of what i saw there, there were studies going on for three or four years, that actually has some good information. so what are we doing with them. we've got to kn >> for three or forayers. and i bet that could have some good information. what are we doing with them. we have to know what's going on. and we have to execute and take it and do something with it. i believe we're on the beginning stages of this. eight years into war nonetheless

they were really starting to get a full spectrum that addresses these issues. i think we need to do this throughout the country. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, admiral. thank you for your great service to our country. i want to recommend my support for your reconfirmation. with the tough things thawer involved with, and of course you're in the middle of it all. i know a bunch of the focus has been in afghanistan, as it rightly can be. i want to see it succeed in afghanistan and be able to put together a strategy that would allow that to happen. to me that i think means

preventing terrorist organization from being able to create safe havens and also making sure that we have a well trained afghan army and police force that can maintain security. that's why i'm concerned about the last tuesday nbc with the army unit -- with my intention that was reported that highlighted how the u.s. forces are not allowed to search private dwellings. afghan soldiers search afghan residents. they are reluctant to the coalition in the more dangerous aspects of the mission. and it went on to say that while the u.s. soldiers searched a wooded area, this nbc report stated it's so risky, bombs are hidden in the afghan soldiers refeast fuse to go in.

that's what i found troubling. i guess my question is:is this report an isolated case? does the afghan army refuse to perform dangerous missions? >> i'm not aware that they do. their representation is such that they are good fighters. and our relationship is very strong. thank you. you're speaking to the directive of direction that general mckirhen put out and i know mccrystal concurs with this. we were doing a lot of damage by entering those homes. and strategyically, we were really hurting ourself. but i am not aware of your -- of a rampant kind of incidence that you just described where the afghan army isn't in the fight.

and in fact, it's not an army story, but it's a police story. i think in the last couple of months, i mean the afghan police have had upwards of 150 plus of their officers killed. sometimes they have also sacrificed greatly. all the problems that we do have in the police, and there are plenty, and extraordinary number of sacrifices as well. i haven't gotten that kind of feedback. i can check and see if it's different. >> it was a news report. but i guess to to the border question as we place more and more burden on the afghan army and the afghan police to perform just to have the level of confident that they will perform up to our expectations. we will begin to hand off and continue to provide security. >> all of the feedback i've gotten is yes, that doesn't mean we don't have challenges. i think, and i hope the report

is only isolated. but i think the report speaks the complexity of the challenge of training and executing and getting them into the fight. and it is an enormous complex environment, mission, et cetera, but i'm not just aware of any kind of incidence like that that you described. >> okay. let's shift gears for just a minute. there was a 2009 article in the "new york times," the headline led the u.s. could expedite a nuclear bomb. it said that american intelsi agency, i know there are conflicting views about when that capability will exist. i'm interested in your thoughts about how quickly iran could develop a nuclear weapon if they decide to make a rapid sprint to

that end. >> those time frames generally run for me one to three years. what you're talking about with that article is great what i call a break ute capability, in other words they develop enough of the technology and then they make a decision to go and from there it's a period of time. and as you indicated, and i think the article indicated, there are various of views. but it is -- everybody is sort of in that ballpark, one to three years. so it's not like it's a long way off should they decide to do that. my personal belief is that the iranians are on a path. they want to develop an outcome for the part of the world that is pretty unstable.

advance questions with regard to current negotiations that the proposed range of 500 to 1100 vehicles and limit of 1500 and 1600 warheads would be sufficient to maintain the deterrence. i guess my question has to do more with the delivery vehicles, do you mean to suggest that the u.s. would be able to maintain a nuclear umbrella allies at a level of 500? >> i'm very comfortable as 500 to 1100. it is a range. that's where the negotiations are. at some level coming down, i get pretty uncomfortable with our ability to do that. that's ideal with the negotiator and obviously what our strategic deterrent should be. what i am equally concerned

about is the need for us as a country to best in this capability in the industry for the future which has been under invegassed in or not invested in for a significant period of time. we can't have -- we can have a deterrent force that the technically deterrent and liable. >> has d.o.d. done an analysis at the low end? >> yes, sir, we have. >> is that something that will be able to congress. i'm not sure i have to -- >> okay. >> i mean pretty much anything is if you want. i have to -- it's been a few weeks. i have to go back and look at it and see. as you know, we're right -- our country is right in the middle. the administration is right in the middle of negotiating to get

to following by the end of this year. >> right. and i'm just making, obviously, that has suggest -- requires significant forces for the structures. >> i understand that. >> and so if you have to have bombers, something would have to be eliminated. the department is careful. >> we know where the break points are. or analytically we've looked at this. we know where tough decisions have to be made as you come down in decisions about the triadd ordy add or even in the lower levels would be could be very, very expensive. all of those things are actually very comfortable with respect to that. >> well, i'll be interested with following up with you that's something that would be available for us. >> thank you admiral. >> thank you, senator milk

higgin. >> thank you so much for being here. thank you for your work, for your service, and to your wife debra, and your sons, i thank you so much for your family sacrifice. it means a lot, i know. i do think that you are well qualified for a second term. thank you for doing that. i wanted to ask you about afghanistan. i think that succeeding in avenue requires partnership built on the strong relationship with the afghan government. national security forces. it's essential that our strategy is protecting the afghan people from the taliban which we've talked about, enabling the afghan government, antecapacity of the afghan national security forces. as the secretary gates has indicated, we must ask afghanistan that has the appropriate intelligence, and internal security capability to sustain the long-term opposition

against the taliban. our troops and resources in afghan must be used to build trust with the afghans, move to the next phase of count insurgency tactics, and enable the afghan government to conduct development and reinstruction operation. our u.s. troops have obvious perceived not as the problem but rather as part of the solution. as it department been discussing with the special operation to execute the afghanistan strategy? specifically, the theater special that's needed to train the army and police and the strategic special operations forces needed to conduct the combat operations under the domain of the joint special operations standard? >> we think that clearly the afghan special forces are a very capable group of -- or part of

the afghan military. so there's great emphasis there. as we move forward, i think in the strategy there at the mccrystal review of the president's strategy, is he should command there, the priority to focus on the afghan people and also to train and equip the afghan forces at large for the army as well as police is a top priority. we have not -- because he hasn't submitted a request yet to say given this these are the forces that i need. but i am confident that in the totality of that request will be embedded a request for certain amount of special forces to get in exactly the issue this you're talking about. and that will come in great part out of jay and among others and out of tampa and not totality of

our special forces who are as pressed as any part of our military. and what they do. so it will be, i believe, as i look at it right now, a very important part embedded in the fullness of the counterinsurgency approach because these forces are. so i'm confident that this request will come in. we just don't have it yet. >> let me ask you a little bit about pakistan. i believe that the stability of afghanistan is dependent upon the stability of pakistan. and i believe that the pakistani government is beginning to recognize the past insurgency in the area is a threat to pakistan'ssoeverty. we -- pakistan's sovereignty. we need to protect it against some more dangerous elements.

and unlike the s.w.a.t. region, it's mountainous that is not for trained army. we also need to work with the pakistan government and military to deny the safe may bees for afghanistan taliban high command currently based in the pakistan providence. general mccrystal assessment deals with our civil affairs, can you provide an update on the department strategy along the afghanistan/pakistan border? a particular note is based. and major general is the regional commander in re east. >> there's a lot that has changed in the last year in pakistan with what the pakistani military and the front have achievened.

and i think it's important to recognize that. because a year or two ago there were many people who were very skeptical that they would do anything. and they've had a big impact. hasn't been perfect. we are there to support them where they are asking for our support. that said, it's only going to go as fast as they want it to go. i've been there 13 times. it's very clear to me that they appreciate the support. but it's going to be at this pace. even though we would like, many of us would like to see it happen more quickly. he has two front threats. the pakistani militaries also, they consider their principal threat to be indian, not these extremist. they are increasingly concerned about the extremist, which is why they've addressed them. he's trying to train his forces which a year ago or two years ago they didn't do much of, he's

rotating and, and he's had some significant, positive impacts on this. en and in addition to the the question, i'm concerned about the region north of there which is for afghan taliban in and out killing our people and afghan's citizens. there's a fairly dangerous border. i think it will be for the foreseeable future. we've had success in diminishing al qaeda leadership and it's not as strong as it was. but it's still very lethal and still very focused on us as a country to do some planning to execute attacks against us and other western interests. so there's been progress. but we still have a long way to go. from the overall strategy, we're still invested.

we think that's an parent long-term relationship. they still ask the question are you staying or going this time? not unlike afghanistan. as far as i'm concerned because it's not about the $1.5 billion as it is the five-year commitment. so our strategy is i think much more comprehensive with pakistan than it used to be. that said there are limits of the sovereign country, and they are in charge of their own country. >> thank you. i see my time is out. thank you. >> thank you senator hagan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to add my thanks to you and your sons and wife for all of the years of service. also to the appreciation for the integrity and forthrightness brought to this job. i can tell you it's appreciated

on this side of the river. there's been a lot of talk about afghanistan, and i'm going to ask some questions on that. before i do i would like to point out that as, you know, we're doing this defense review and it's very important with the new administration is, and i hope that we don't lose on either of the river on the larger aspects that in the term ground commitments that can affect structure and not play out. and in some time, i have two questions that i would like to say a record on that. one of them relates to the navy. the other regards missions. and i will see that for the

record. with respect to discussion earlier about whether this is new or ongoing, the most important point i want to achieve is whether this is valid. whether we have obtainable goals that are nearly articulated. whether those goals have an end point. so that we know when we are done in the military and what you are to achieve or what the administration says it is. that's the historical president. -- precedent. we've had a lot of talk today

about for better or worse the iraqis have a strong central government, and they also have for a very long time had a national army, hundreds of thousands of shiites are known to have died in the war fighting in the army of iraq. this is a different solution with respect to the afghan. i'm wondering if you would comment on that or lack thereof. >> i worry a great deal about -- i think the history is you must pay attention to the recently interacted and the things that we have learned. which has bridged lessons as well. it's a country that has never

been governed. i don't argue for a strong central government. i think it is important that there is governance available to the people. the totality of the governance that i would look at for the future would be from sievage level of relatively weak government in terms of establishing some semblance of government for the future. i hear the occupying force. it isn't necessary how big, or what you do and what you have. my readings are in the history of afghanistan, the largest army was somewhere between 80 and 90,000. your goals with respect to a

national level force are at what level? >> right now for the army 130 -- >> at national. >> military combined would be about 2 -- 240 -- 230. >> in the absence and affiliation with the national government, what is the challenge that building a national military police force? >> i think the challenge is huge. the only thing i would say that as a percent of population, the goals that are out there, not just the goals you made here tied to the chairman's letter are within -- they are within the math. as a percent of the population. i think you raise a good point. i don't underestimate the challenge of recruiting a force that could do this at the national level. i -- the army has seen as the

one noncorrupt institution the country has. and it has pretty high regard for the people. and they are also a force historicically. >> with a great warrior mentality. >> we run the risks, as i mentioned, general petraeus, and general mccrystal, of allowing ourself to be defined by something that we can't totally control. this is something that concerned me. you're familiar with this raid that took place within in the past 24 hours? >> i've seen the press report. >> in concept, this was american special operations coming in over the horizons presumably off of naval ships. taking out an element of al qaeda, and returning back to its

point of origin. which to me, the target was inappropriate, the target was inappropriate to use against terrorists. wouldn't you agree? >> globally, we are focused. but i need to do in a closed section. >> it points to a lot of people who have served, and a lot of people who have written about afghanistan. and they share that the maneuverability is the most effective way to conduct operations that you have to defend or occupy, the more vulnerable you are. and i know the count argument of the populous. it would seem to be that the --

from what i've been hearing, and reading with respect to the level of activity of al qaeda in afghanistan is low. and we have to be pretty careful in terms of how we lock our people down. >> general mccrystal every -- emphasized what you are talking about. but clearly, he wants -- he does not want his people in con tonement. and he's made that very clear. >> thank you, senator udall. >> good morning. let me touch on three subjects to do my best to use my time efficiently on

don't-ask-don't-tell iraq. you right by pointed out that the law of the land was don't-ask-don't-tell, and it was the pentagon's job to abide by that policy. we have to look at you for personnel recommendation as we are on the verge of holding the first hearing practices. i would welcome your thoughts and would ask if you would consider stating your thoughts in writing before that hearing later this fall so that we can have the benefit of your thoughts. >> sure. >> thank you for that. i want to commend the chairman to consider moving in that way. to iraq, national meeting in january, some talk about a ref ran dumb of a presence of our troops there. i would like your thoughts on

what generals and others are preparing if that were to be on the ballot and where to pass. >> well, this was a possibility last summer, spring/summer. and it fell out. it was moved to the right. it's obviously refasted great concern on the part of both ambassador hill. and there's obviously a -- as part of the political spectrum that is there that i think is such a dominant part of how iraq moves ahead. the outcome with respect to whether this actually gets voted on or not. the referendum occurs or not is critical. we were on a plan and glide slope right now that we think makes a lot of sense. it gets us through the elections. and then we coming down dramatically starting in the 35

to 50,000. clearly the iraqi people and the iraqi government are in charge of their country. there's a referendum that we're going to leave, we'll leave. we don't -- from the military view right now, think that's high risk. and the one that we are on is one that we are much more comfortable with. >> thanks for the update. i think we will prepare for some of those. let me talk about afghanistan in an interesting connection. i want to turn to debra. she may have done for for our future insurgency efforts than anybody. if any memory is right, she encouraged you to read the book. i know you've gotten to know him. he's pointed out the culture differences than in some ways own of our greatest weapons is

cultural sensitivity, and every country represented here. he noted and you noted in some remarks that western fast food culture is not well suited to that part of the world. he's in afghanistan, middle east. results are measured in decades and generations rather than the minutes it takes to build the relationship and time to foster mutual respect. do we have that time? i remember talking in baghdad. what are the different clocks tells you about what's happening in kabul and here in washington? >> well, i'm greatly worried about the time that we have. and that's why i have such a sense of urgency about getting this right. it's why i recommended very specifically that's why i recommended general mccrystal be put in the leadership

position. i don't think we have a lot of time. at this time it's -- i feel we must take time. because there's such a vital part of the world long term from the stand point of our national interest. : to start to turn this thing around and then at the same time, i think we have to have a long-term relationship that allows those young girls, when i went out there to open up that school, to grow up and make a difference as they raised families, and as gre greg would, you give guidance to your sons, you're not going to go out and do that. >> the heartening core of that effort is the he willers in that community, in other words, the men understand the potential if you empower women in those couple tours and at the same time it's a very patriarchial structure. thank you, debra, for what you've done to help us in these important national security efforts.

my final question is, the footprint debate we're having about afghanistan and i know secretary gates expressed a concern about being >> my final question is the footprint debate we are having about afghanistan. i know secretary gates expressed a concern about being seen as occupiers as well as partners. and he said an increase footprint becomes part of the problem depending on what the nature of the footprint, the nature of those troops and the interactions with the afghans promotes. and occupier perspective, partnership perspective. what are your thoughts on this request for an increase footprint? >> i think i'm in no circumstances can we be seen as an occupier. we know we are not. that is who we are. we have never been. we haven't done it anywhere. but that's not, you know, that

message has got to be understood by the afghan people. and i think general mcchrystal, as i indicated earlier, said it that he was much less concerned about a footprint that he is about what he is doing with the. so what are you actually doing to engage the people to let them know you are on their side in the way they accept that. and we're in too many cantonments we were not integrated with the. we weren't living with them, and the message was one of occupation. on the part of many. again, the afghan people don't like taliban. they don't want to return to that rule. but they've still got questions about whether we are staying long-term, not just the combat side of this but whether we are staying long-term and we will be with them. before we left them, they know that. so it's really i think what

you're doing with the forces that are there as opposed to the size of a footprint. >> i see my time has expired. thank you again for your service. i look forward to working with you as we continue to make the case to the american people with three or four, maybe even just to clickable point about why we have to be successful in afghanistan. thank you. >> thank you very much. senator udall, and again, thank you very much, admiral, for your service, for your edge is today. i think that the colonel and cabin i quoted before kind of put the issue very sustainably for me, which is that we got to look hard at how we generate afghan forces, and the lack of afghan forces is our achilles' heel. that was dramatically brought to our attention when we were in helmand province, the ratio of forces was five to one. five marines, one afghan

soldier. totally unacceptable. no one's talking about removing all of our forces from afghanistan. the question is whether we go beyond at this time and make a commitment at this time to additional combat forces beyond what has been already put in motion. that is an issue worthy of debate. it is part of a much larger picture, as you have indicated here this morning. this is not just a picture of one part, this combat troops, additional to what is already commitment or not. there are many other issues in terms of the resources that may be requested. we look forward to your review as the chairman of the joint chiefs taking i presume an independent review with your other chiefs, or what other recommendation is presented to do. you obviously put a great deal of stock in the mcchrystal recommendation when it is forthcoming, but you will be getting her own independent view

to the secretary of defense. and he will be giving his recommendation, i presume, to the president. is that the way? >> yes, sir, the process. >> so we're going to stand adjourned. we will move as quickly as we can obviously with your nomination. it's i'm sure going to get a very strong unanimous vote from this committee. would've already heard anyone speak out on it. we can see no reason why we can't proceed very promptly to the court. there may be questioned for the record but if there are we would hope they would be filed within the next 24 hours so we can get this done probably. we thank again your wife and family. i think each one of us have touched upon their service as well as your own. and we are grateful for all of it. >> thank you, chairman. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

>> next month take a rare visit inside the supreme court as we talked about the role, traditions and history of the court. >> he said he wouldn't come in here. the reason justice brandeis wouldn't come if he said this building is so elaborate it would go to their heads. maybe he was right. it's become over time a symbol of the court system third branch of government, and the need for stability, rule of life which is what america stands for.

>> supreme court week starting october 4 on c-span. as a complement to this original production c-span offers free teaching resources on our judicial system. go to c-span classroom.org. >> in san francisco, national intelligence director dennis blair said that today's information gathering and sharing could have prevented the september 11 attacks. posted by the commonwealth club of california, this is an hour and five minutes. >> good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the commonwealth club of california. you can find is on the internet at commonwealth club.org. i'm gloria duffy president and ceo of the club, and i hold the gavel for this evening. we very much appreciate the support of united media sponsor, "the wall street journal," and an editor from the journal, john is here with us as our moderator

for the evening. at a time when the u.s. intelligence community has been both reforming itself to be smarter and more modern, and has been at the center of an emotional national and international debate about method for obtaining information from terrorism suspects, we are delighted to welcome to our podium a man at the very center of these crucial issues. dennis blair was appointed by president barack obama as the third u.s. director of national intelligence this past genu 29th here this is a relatively recently created position that supervises the head of the 16 intelligence services of the u.s. government. including the cia, the defense intelligence agencies, and the intelligence agencies within the departments of energy, state, justice and other cabinet departments. he not only coordinates these agencies but serves as the principal intelligence adviser to the president and the national security council.

a rhodes scholar and graduate of the u.s. naval academy, admiral blair is a sixth generation naval officer. who has served in many theaters and positions, including commanding the u.s. to the carrier uss kitty hawk. his naval field career culminated in his role as commander of u.s. pacific command, or think back, as it is not, prior to his retirement in 2002. earlier in his career in the mid 1970s, director blair was a white house fellow and later directed of the joint staff at the pentagon. the organization supporting the joint chiefs of staff. his intelligence background includes serving as associate director of central intelligence for military support. as director of national intelligence, mr. blair has continued the work of his predecessor in updating the method of staffing the intelligence community and making its activities as transparent as possible, given its mission. he has already made news prior

to tonight's talk here at the club with a pre-release of his remarks in which he makes public some specifics about the intelligence community's budget. please give a hearty welcome to national intelligence director, dennis blair. [applause] >> well, thanks very much, doctor duffy, for the introduction. it is an honor to be invited to speak at this historic venue. good evening to all of you. towards the end of my remarks, i will give you some details as doctor duffy mentioned what made news today. we released our national intelligence strategy, and there are even copies i bought along that are available in the room and it will be a pop quiz at the end of the evening. but after i talk a little bit, i would love to take your questions and turn this into a

dialogue. i have been to l.a. with the commonwealth club over the years. you are lofty and ambitious mission to be the leading national forum open for all of the impartial discussion of public issues important to the community in the nation. and when you add your motto, find the truth and turn it loose in the world, which i saw on the bulkhead as we came in, it's no wonder that you have been so influential as you develop such a fine reputation. most people think my motto is more like steal the secret to make sure the world doesn't find out. [laughter] >> i believe it is a mark of a truly open-minded group that you invited me. i do like to turn loose a little bit of truth about the intelligence world of intelligence this evening. so let's turn to a dictionary and use it to help us sort through some of the irony and some of the contradictions in my business. i think it's appropriate that i should use a dictionary that was compiled by a san francisco who

disappeared in a foreign country almost 100 years ago. what happened to him remains an international secret. it is a looted our best intelligence efforts since 1914 when he vanished he was 71 years old, although he had a reputation as a couple guy. at the beginning of the civil war he joined the union army as a teenager, served in the 19 yannick regiment, fault brady on the union side and battles. and in 1986 in his final stint in the army, he by that time advanced to the rank of major and he came to san francisco. you like to hear so much he hung up his uniform as a highly respected journalist starting by polishing wartime experiences in several newspapers and magazines, including the san francisco examiner. worked for william randolph hearst, drink with jack london, friends with mark twain and bret hart. you don't get more san francisco and i guess then that. and then in the summer of 1913, he went to mexico for one last

story. he was going to write as an observer with poncho beas army and he never returned. he left behind many fine stores but his most popular work, the one that everybody is somebody with it gets the brilliant devil's dictionary and on "the wall street journal" today there was a picture of it on one of the inside pages with a take off on some other definitions. his original work is typical entries like diplomacy, the patriotic art online for one's country. and sends your monitor at the commonwealth club is not lying but finding the truth, i did some checking on some of those relevant definitions. i find truthful, dumb and illiterate. >> that's not quite right. let's check some of it gets. a fit, and why that is not cut its teeth. not helping. let's try commonwealth. administratively operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites. [laughter]

>> even worse. >> ironies and cynicism have their place but i would like to counter some of the cynicism that by removing some of the mystery that surrounds the intelligence business. it may be that we can't tell the public everything, but that doesn't mean that we can't let you know anything about who we are and what it is we do. in the republic, the intelligence services must have the trust of the public that they serve, and trust is not an entitlement. it is something you weren't. so i can't tell you about all the sensitive intelligence that we collected today but i can tell you that it is more than a billion individual pieces of data. i can't say the exact methods that we used to stop potential terrorists are coming into our country, but i can say that we identified scores of people with previously undetected terrorist ties, while before they were able to reach our borders. and i can't take the methods we used to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist, but i can tell you that if americans or american

telecommunications are involved, our actions are takeaways were authorized by judge in accordance to law. one way that i can talk about what we do in intelligence is to talk about some of the history to bring some historical examples, and although some of the details have been updated, many of the essentials have not changed. it was 59 years ago today, september 15, 1950, that the united states landed on inchon in korea, one of the most daring and successful strategic military operations in world history. what you don't hear about, and shotgun at a joint cia and military reconnaissance intelligence team landed seven days ahead of time and sent back essential information about enemy fortification and terrain, anti-spirit they were a key at the time seemed to be a miraculous operation.

i have mentioned intelligence in the community, and intelligent work. but that's what we call ourselves. what is it exactly? is basically a commonwealth i was in the sense of the word. there is 16 organizations. as doctor duffy mentioned we have separate agencies. we have bureaus that are inside of the departments and altogether about 100,000 people, military and civilian get up in the morning and go to work and what we call the intelligence community. the larger organizations of the icr are well-known. dr. duffy mentioned some of them, the national security agency and the national geospatial intelligence agency, national reconnaissance office and the federal bureau of investigation. the cia reports directly to me. the other fiber agencies in the defense department and the justice department and then there are 10 more organizations that have substantial intelligence arms that are also

part of this community. drug enforcement administration falls underneath the justice department. each of the services, army, navy, air force, record have large components. because gore has an intelligence branches under the department of homeland security which has its own intelligence section of as well. finally the department of state, treasury and energy each have an intelligence office. if you're counting, that a 16. just that simple, recitation of the number where they are located, will give you an indication of the complexity of the organization. they all have their own culture. they all have their own proud traditions, and the trick really, mission that i have is to bring them all together so we work together to do the right thing for the country. and i will talk a little bit about how we do that. but one thing is all that diversity means that there's a tremendous range of skills and expertise that we drawn to support policymakers, to support command in the field, regardless

if you are citizens and to protect security of the country, which is our prime mission. my job was established shortly after the 9/11 commission issued its 2004 report, one of the most important recommendations of that commission was to integrate all the intelligence elements in the government's here five months later congress passed the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act. that act created the job i now have, director of national intelligence when president bush signed a law in 200 2004. i was honored to receive a phone call from president elect obama asking me to join his team in the job. there ensued a serious family conversation with diane, who finally agreed once again to postpone our retirement. in my navy career i'd work with the intelligence community a few times as doctor duffy mentioned i was at first associate director of central intelligence for military support back in the mid '90s, and very early in my

career i was the intelligence officer on my first ship which at that time was a collateral duty for a junior officer. but most of my 30 years in my career i was primarily a consumer of intelligence, and often pretty dissatisfied one. so certain irony there and being put back in this position. but do all that i always had a great admiration for the those who collected the intelligence, analyze, those who try to help decision-makers, and other officials do the job i tell you what our adversaries were doing and what they were thinking. any military commander can take the intelligence is extremely important to success. some military commanders to you that there are only two outcomes for operation. either operational success or intelligence failure. [laughter] >> which is an indication of the importance of it. but president, ambassadors, and law-enforcement officials would alt-a that when there is supported by good intelligence, note what the environment,

knowing what is going on on the other side, people they're dealing with, that they will do well and it is that much better. i really formed the core of what we do in intelligence. in particular i have three roles. the virtual is the principle of visor to the president on intelligence matters. if you consult advise and the devil's dictionary, you'll find advice is the smallest current going. i can assure you that intelligence plays a large role in national security policy. as a new administration comes in it looks through the set of policies that it inherits to determine what it wants to do in these many important areas in the future. and i can take in the seven months of this administration, the role of intelligence has played very strong as this administration has tried to figure out what is going on in the ground. what the policies that get us where we are and what are the ones who want to adapt for the future to support our interests. the intelligence community we

really go all out for the president, for the entire executive branch. they look to our support their guy responsible for president obama's daily intelligence briefing. i also serve as a top intelligence adviser to the national security council itself, but that is only part of it. intelligence officers, their report, the whole collection system and forms that entire national security policymaking process which started with inner agency group, works up through groups and to culminate in the national security council meetings and the president's positions. i also meet regularly with congress providing them with intelligence about what's going on in the world and the status of our intelligence activities. if you look up the word senate in the dictionary, he called them a body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors. [laughter] i can say that's not so for the two committees with which ideal most often in the congress and the senate select committee on intelligence and the house committee select.

their members are serious and dedicated patriots and in fact some of the most prominent mayors of those committees hale from this area and are clearly not elderly gentleman. senator dianne feinstein, chairs the senate select committee on intelligence. aikido you she is exactly the right person for that job. smart, tough, but fair. always offering exceptionally thoughtful intercooled guidance. she is just superb. representative and as you chairs the subcommittee of the house intelligence committee. represented mike thompson jersey human intelligence by thousands and counter intelligence committee of the house intelligence committee. and both of them are excellent public servant who care about getting intelligence right. they are tough on us but they are fair and had the nation's interest at heart. of course, speaker of the house nancy pelosi was breaking minority member of the house intelligence committee before she became minority leader. a course or extent of intelligence matters is not very important to all of us now that

she is a third highest-ranking person in the government. i can tell you they all represent you, san francisco, california and well and the tv on my toes as they should. they not only oversee all of our act and that is that they provide the budget for all of these agencies. this congressional oversight is crucially important in the area of intelligence because so much of what we do it via your national but necessarily secret. the intelligence communities have the appropriate security clearances they represent the citizens riso to is that in dispenser outside check on all of our activities. turning to that important matter of money and the budget, brings up my second responsibility as the director of national intelligence. and that is to manage the national intelligence program. the current year budget is always classified but we published the previous year's budget, which was $48 billion for the national intelligence program. my job is to make sure that

those resources are a portion effectively across the community, to meet the challenges that we are dealing with. so to get us a balanced program so that the 16 agencies can fulfill their proper roles in achieving the priorities that cut across all the individual organizations. we have just completed the process of justifying next year's budget to the congress, and they look at us hard, as they should. my turtle as the head of the 16 member intelligence community and leading the community as well as a provided iris, that affect more than one agency. and i try to align the incentives to enforce compliance issuing policy directives that apply across the community. i clarify rules and responsibilities and that is especially important for any activity that requires collaboration by multiple agencies and the big important issues all require collaboration via multiple agencies. and then another important part

of leading the intelligence community is to support the operations that we have in the field. right now we have diplomats, military units, reconstruction teams who are out there working in places like iraq, afghanistan, dozens of other nations around the world. and providing that support for all of these people out in the field is the key job of the intelligence community. and we do extraordinarily well. sort of a precise, tactical level intelligence that we send that to those in the field is phenomenal. it's orders of magnitude better than any intel i remember receiving as a junior officer in the fleet, even when i saw as a combatant commander here in the pacific about seven years ago. we try to give our unit, our diplomats, our reconstruction workers an unfair advantage. they deserve it and we are proud to provide it. now underlie all of these three separate roles of the director of national intelligence is the fundamental responsibility to make sure that the intelligence community is coordinated,

integrated and is greater than the sum of its parts. we have to connect the dots better than ever before to do all we can do to make sure this never will be another 9/11. and frankly, before 9/11 the general attitude of the intelligence committee was to share information on a need to know basis. the 9/11 commission concluded that the barriers to sharing intelligence were one of the factors that led to the failure, our fed to stop those attacks. so we have begun moving to a responsibility to provide mentality, rather than in need to know. since the creation of this office of the director of national intelligence, we make treatment is progress in sharing information. that is not only true within those 16 agencies i talked about, but with other partners that we have in the united states. the department of homeland security, law enforcement officials at the local, state, tribal levels. and we have worked hard to improve the necessary communications with our foreign allies, and with those in the private sector. now sharing doesn't come

naturally to us spies, but it's got to change. we recognize it does and in fact it is changing. as we go about this reformation and a proven upper intelligence business, when the biggest advantages and biggest challenges that we have and i'm guessing this is of a particular interest here just of the road from silicon valley is the growth of information technolo technology. for our intelligence analyst it raises real challenge is to sort through terabytes of intelligence or even take a bite out of. didn't even know what a petabyte was until a few years ago but we have been. they have to, these analysts have to sort through all of this huge mess of information about trends to find out what is correct, defined in title pieces of information that are in that mess of data that comes into it. and many of the tools of the information technology revolution have helped us in that sorting process and in the sharing process. but these added tools, the opportunity, the u