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tv   Tonight From Washington  CSPAN  January 21, 2010 8:00pm-11:00pm EST

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with their preparation. i have not read the court opinion yet so i don't know if it has and the opening for any congressional action. we will see, but it is disappointing because it strengthens the hand of special-interest. but again. i haven't read-- my lawyers are looking it over. ..
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>> president obama is attempting to serve speculation and risky moves by banks. when he's done, you'll here more. chief economist for the white house economic recovery advisory board. >> good morning, everybody. i just had a very productive meeting with two members of my economic recovery advisory board, paul volcker. what is the former chair of the federal reserve board and phil donaldson, previously the head of the fcc. i deeply appreciate the counsel
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and these two leaders and the board that we have offered as we've dealt with economic challenges. over the past two years, more than 7 million people have lost jobs. rarely does a day go by that i don't hear from folks that are hurting. every day, we are working to put the economy back on track and put america back to work. even as we dig our way out of the deep hole, it's important that we not lose sight of what led us into the mess in the first place. it began as a financial crisis. when banks and financial institutions took huge reckless risk in pursuit of quick promises and bonuses. when the irresponsibility was over, several of the world east oldest and largest financial institutions had collapsed or were on the verge of doing so. markets plummet thed. credit dried up. jobs were vanishing by the
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hundreds of thousands each month. we were on the lead of a second great depression. to avoid the calamity, the american people who were already struggling were were forced to rescue financial firms facing crisis. that rescue undertaken by the previous administration was deeply offensive by the necessary thing to do. it succeeded in stabilize and helping to evert from that depression. and last week i proposed a fee to be paid by the largest financial firms in order to recover every last dime. but that's not all we have to do. we have to protect american taxpayers and economy from the future crises as well. so while the financial system is
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stronger today than one year ago, it's still operating under the same rules that led to the collapse. these are rules that allowed firms to act contrary to the interest of customers, to conceal their exposure, to benefit from taxpayer ensured deposits while making speculative investments. and to take on risk so vast that they pose threats to the entire system. that's why we are seeking reform to protect consumers. we intend to close loopholes that allow financial terms to trade and other derivatives without oversight. to identify systemwide risk that could cause a meltdown, to strengthen capital and liquidity requirements to make the system for stable. to ensure that the failure of any large firm does not take the entire economy down with it. never again will the american taxpayer will held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail.
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now limits on the risk major financial firms can take are essential to the reforms that i've proposed. they are central to the legislation that has passed the house under the leadership of chairman barney frank and we're working to have pass on the senate by leader chris dodd. i'm proposed two additional reforms that i believe will strengthen while preventing future crises. we should not longer allow banks to stray too far from serving their customers. in recent years, too many financial firms have put taxpayer money at risk by doing hedge funds to reap a quick reward. these firms have taken the risk while benefits from special financial privileges that are reserved only for banks. we provide deposit insurance that firms that operate things. we do so because a stable and reliable banking system for most
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sustained growth. and because we learned how dangerous of failure of system can be during the great depression. but they are not created to bestow the hedge funds with an unfair advantage. when banks benefit from the safety net that taxpayer provide, which include lower cost capital, it is not appropriate for them to turn around and use that money to trade for profit. that is especially true when this kind of trading putting bank in conflict with the interest. these kinds of operation can create enormous and costly risk. endangering the entire bank if things go wrong. we simply cannot accept a system in which hedge funds can place huge risky bets that are subsidized by taxpayers and propose a conflict of interest. we cannot accept a system in which shareholders make money on the operations if the bank wins
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but tax payers foot the bill if they lose. this is common sense reform. we'll naming it after the tall guy behind me. banks will no longer be allowed to own, invest, on sponsor hedge funds, or proprietary period of profits. doing so responsibility is a good thing for the market and economy. they should not be allowed to run the hedge funds while running an bank backed by the american people. in addition, as part of our efforts to protect against future crises, i'm also proposing that we prevent the further consolidation of our financial system. there has long been a deposit cap in place to guard against too much risk being concentrated in a single bank.
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the same principal should apply to forms of funding in financial institutions in today's economy. the american people will not be served by a financial system that comprises just a few massive firms. it's not good for consumers or the economy. through this policy, that is an outcome we will avoid. and my message to members of congress of both parties that we have to get this done. my message to leaders of the financial industry is to work with us and not against us on needed reforms. i welcome input from folks in the financial sector. but what we've seen so far in recent weeks is an army of industry lobbyist from wall street on capital hill to try and block the rules of the road that will protect our economy in the american people. so if these folks want a fight, it's a fight i'm ready to have. and my resolve is only strengthened when i see a return to old practices and some of the very firms fighting reform. when i see soring profits and
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obscene bonuses at some of the very firms claiming they can't lend more to small businesses, they can't keep credit card rates low, they can't pay a fee to refund without passing on the cost to shareholders and customers, that's the claims they are making, it's exactly the kind of irresponsibility that makes clear the reform is necessary. we've come through a terrible crisis. the american people have paid a very high price. we simply cannot return to business as usual. that's why we're going to ensure that wall street pays backs american people from the bail yacht. that's why we're going to reign in the excess and abuse that nearly brought down or financial system. that's why we are going to pass these reforms into law. thank you very much, everybody. [inaudible conversations]
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>> come on up here. >> yes, let's buy one, get one free. so austan, goolsbee is here. why don't we take questions if you all have questions on the president's proposal today, policy questions that austan can certainly help us with? take us away. >> austan, let's start with what the banks are saying about this. they say it's sending the industry back to the 1930s by going back to old regulations. >> well, i would say two things about that. clearly, first it's not returning toglass-steagall, this
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is about reigning in them doing investments with the backing support or other types of guarantees given by the american taxpayer. that would apply to owning hedge funds, owning private equity funds, and proprior tear trading that is not for any client-related business. it's clearly not nearly as far as glass-steagall, it's different. i think that's not accurate. >> what about the assertion that this is going to put them at a disadvantage with banks that don't have to face similar limits overseas? >> well, there is a question in all of our regulatory apparatus. we want to do in in coordination with our allies. you've seen england moving in some of the similar directions, as very small number of firms that this would apply to. and these rules would be applied to foreign subsidiaries in the
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u.s. >> mark, let me just add this. this is a proposal to stabilize the financial system. to put that system -- to remove some of the excessive risk-taking and put it on a firmer foundation for shareholders and all americans. we think that what this will do long term obviously has many benefits. >> what are the chances of this becoming law? this is about adding to the president's population for sound and furry than passing it? >> well, regulatory reform is making it's way through congress. the president believes that that proposal that laid down new rules of the road will be an importants a second of our agenda next year. we can't continue to operate in an atmosphere that doesn't set new rules and regulations
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forward for how our financial system operates so that we get into the same type of situation that we found ourself in in september of 2008. again, i think this is a -- as austan has said, as the president has said, as paul v vvolcker has said, this is to ensure the stability of the financial system. >> is there a realist hope on the bipartisan support on this? >> i certainly hope so. the economy team will talk to members of congress, particularly on the committees where -- in which the senate has to deal with this legislation. i know there's concern about these topics from -- concern for what the president's proposals addresses from both parties. >> and on that part of the proposals, i'd also highlight the support of paul volcker,
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you're seen republican former secretary of treasury, the former ceo of citibank. this is more a good policy in the view of the president. >> when the administration released the broad proposals last june, that wasn't part of the proposals. what happens between then and now to cause you to bring this up? i know that there were criticisms at the time that you weren't addressing too big to fail? >> well, i would say two things about that. the issues of excessive risk-taking by financial institutions and too big to fail is totally central to the white paper that we released in june. it's central to the house bill, which specifically authorized regulators to be able to do exactly this type of regulation on scope, on scale, and on the size of institutions. over the course of the last year, certainly paul volcker,
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members of the president's economic recovery advisory board have been in frequent and constant contact with the economic team, and the president, in the fall, thought about these issues quite a lot. he worked with republicannive kanjorski when drafting the bill. i think another factor has been -- you saw coming out of the rescue, the government provided a safety net to financial institutions that they used. and they have in recent months started making considerable profits off of their proprietary trading for themselves, not for their clients. that is certainly a factor in convincing a lot of people that we have to make sure that issues like that are not going to be pervasive going forward. >> just a follow up, why didn't the president take this action six to eighth months ago when there was pop list anger about the kinds of bonus that is those in wall street were getting. some of the president's greatest allies were saying, do something
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now? now it just lookslike political expediency. >> i'm here only to talk about the policy matter of this. we've been thinking about this as an economic team -- tim and larry and the rest of the economic team has been in constant contact with chairman volcker and with other experts. i think you have seen these issues were central in the regulatory white paper that was put out. they grow naturally out of things that are in the house bill, and i think you've seen this, the actions of these banks. >> but, suzanne, to just address one aspect of your question, these are issues that have been discussed for months here. the notion somehow that -- again financial reform is going through the process; right? we don't have anything for the president to sign into law. so this is still an active -- still a very active legislation
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issue. not having proposed it six to eight months ago, i don't think -- obviously we're still dealing with the issue of regulatory reform. that's not done; that continues. and this is part of that proposal. jake? >> the dow dropped 200 points after the aflouncement. i'm wondering how you walk the line between getting tough on wall street and not wanting to alienate those who create jobs. >> i would say this, jake. as we've discussed here, based on different proposals, i'm not doing to comment on the individual daily fluctuations of stock market or fluctuations daily of stocks that might or might not drive them. this is a proposal to add some stability to our financial system. to help shareholders, to help taxpayers, to help all of those
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involved provide that long-term financial stability. so what the market does in reaction one day or the next is not for me to comment on. what the president is focused on as part of financial reform is a set of series of the rules going forward that provide the stability in our financial system that we lacked only a few years ago. >> i think good questions about timing and the fact that wasn't included six months ago. the underlying hypothesis is scott brown was elected to the senate. there are a lot of angry voters out there. you said yesterday when you asked you about how the administration would appeal to angry voters, you mentioned regulatory reform as one of the three things that you talked about. >> no. >> volcker obviously has been
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talking about this for months, if not years. >> no, no, no. this was an issue, i know austan has been in meeting, i've been in meet thing about this dating back to several months. the president had a fairly conclusive conversation moving forward on this before he left for christmas. it's obviously a complex proposal. and we wanted to get that part of it right. but this is not something that was done as a result of anything that's happened this week. this proposal is a result of what has happened over the course of many years in allowing, as austan said, the rules of the road in many ways to be gained for -- in favor of the type of firms whose actions we seek to limit today. wendell? >> robert, when president clinton took office, the largest bank in the u.s. was like 22 in the world, which is one of the
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reasons that secretary rubin pushed for the eventual repeal of glass-steagall. what makes -- what prevents the larger financial firms in the u.s. from once again not becoming competitive with the international financial organizations. >> well, i would say, first, remember, this is not going back to glass-steagall. the second part of the two proposals was about what they would be able to do for their own accounts and the second was limiting about the way the fdic currently limits deposits. no one bank can be so large that it exceeds their national deposit threshold. that we would expand and build on that to a broader definition of liabilities. and i think we have seen from this crisis, you don't want to be a circumstances in which all of the power and all of the size is concentrated in a very small
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number of institutions. and so i think that's logical. i do not believe that either the broad regulatory effort the president has described or these two individual components within it will make u.s. financial institutions uncompetitive in the world financial market. and far from it, we saw in this crisis, not to have sensible rules of the road. ultimately deeply judge mines public trust in the capital markets and really threatened the collapse of almost all of the big financial institutions. >> what's different about what the president is proposing and what senators mccain and cantwell are proposing? >> well, the mccain/cantwell bill is literally going back to glass-steagall. glass-steagall forbid underwriting in security or investing in securities by any commercial bank. this is not that. this says a bank cannot own a
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hedge fund, cannot own a private equity fund, or do trading for it's own account that is not related to its client business. that we want to get back to the fundamental nature of the bank, which is serving its clients rather than investing for it's own profit. it's actually quite substantially different. and it grows out of what's in the house bill, as i say, and what's in the regular story white paper on page 32 where central to it is the notion of limiting risky activities and trying to protect the system. >> roger? >> austan, kind of technical, is proprietary trading with customer benefits is still allowed under this proposal? >> yes, if it is client-based they would be able to do trading or other funks as long as it was for a client. >> follow up, the president
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mentioned the volcker rule. didn't mention the goolsbee rule or summers rule. >> the goolsbee rule was close to second. >> by why did you seemingly decide to listen now? >> as we outlined. this is not a brand-new issue. it's true that volcke talked to the president about issues like this as far back as financial regulatory speech than the presidential candidate gave in the spring of 2008. >> but it seems what he said in speeches, nobody was listening. >> i agree. remember the first time the president talked about looming financial collapse was a speech around labor day of 2007 at the nasdaq on wall street. i remember that. i don't -- i remember a lot of people being worried about a lot of other issues at the time.
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and people not paying attention to the then-presidential candidate illume mating our looming housing crisis and some certainly problems that he expanded on at cooper union in march. and regrettably, not all of which, obviously, but some of which we saw come to fruition in september of 2008. >> back to goolsbee -- back to mr. volcker, his idea has not always been embraced. >> you saw chairman volcker as well as bill donaldson, the former head of the sec. i would say, as i tried to out line, the ideas of reducing risky activities, protecting the system as part of a broader regulatory reform where we're going to end too big to fail. which is quite central to the white paper. it was specifically allowed and authorized in the house bill, that they could consider these things. when you add on top of that,
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that we have seen in microcosm. we've seen some of these financial institutions using the cheap money they can get because of the safety net to do proprior tear trading for their own profits. not if any client. i think those things -- we've been talking with chairman volcker all along. secretary geithner, director summers, and i think the economic team came in around. >> he was the engine for this? >> he was the engine -- i would say -- we have been talking with him and members of the perab, the economic recovery advisory board, really for the entire year. but the whole economic team, i think is quite involved. >> but addition to the political angle for the why now question, there's all the economic angle for the why now question. a lot of people today are saying
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there's simpler ways to do this to keep the institutions away from the so-called public safety net, the taxpayer safety net. but by doing this now in addition to the fees and all of the other things that seem to be punitive or retributiontive in nature, you're dampening what is right now a have you tenuous economic situation and growth that is just beginning. >> this is not punitive. this is done because we believe it will contribute to the soundless. as we said, in the long run we must get to the point that the people can trust the capital narcotics in the financial system or else it cannot succeed. we saw this in crisis. in circumstances, it's clear and we have said in the outlining of the policy that with all of our regulatory reform efforts, there would be transition so that everyone can adjust to what the rules of the road are. but i think the fundamental
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argument which is perspective sound in keeping the white paper are the house bill, we want to try to get banks back to the core function of relating to clients and not taking excess risky activities in the financial system. i don't see how you can wait on that. i think that's really quite fundamental. >> where it's this proposal or whether it's the proposal to pay taxpayers back for money lent to financial institutions to stabilize the financial system, both of these are things that the president has thought about for quite a long time, spoken about before. in addition to, i'm reminded that -- let's take the bank fee. you're talking about a fee, structured over about a 10-year period of time, dwarf by bonuses on wall street. are the same firms that you're
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hearing from saying that the bonuses on wall street threaten the fragile stability of our newly growing economy? or is that something that they started saying today? i haven't heard that from them before. the proposals that the president makes are to put our economy back on a firm foundation, but to ensure that we never face the crisis that we did in september of 2008 that we never have to take the action that is taxpayers did in october of 2008 in loaning hundreds of billions of dollars to cover risky losses. that's what the president -- a good portion of the latter part of that campaign, the last two months. we spent talking about these issues almost every day. mark? >> austan, has president obama ruled out just telling the
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banks, no more bailouts on my watch? >> the point -- there's not a technical answer to that question. that is absolutely what is behind -- that is what is behind the regulatory effort to end too big to fail. that if you are in a circumstances where you are a adopted the program that we're putting forward, so there is no too big to fail, there's resolution authority, consumers are protect thed, we've got regulation of credit default swaps and over-the-counter derivatives. when you have that there is no -- when they mess up, they die. >> mark, you're creating a condition where that doesn't enter into the equation. remember, we didn't get to this point because of something that didn't result in their actions causing; right? taking -- making a series of risky housing loans, packaging them up into securities, selling
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those securities, cutting those securities up hundreds of ways and selling those in order to make money ultimately causes a tremendous bubble that burst resulting in a financial crisis that taxpayers have to then come fix. if you remove the front end of that equation, you never get to the back end. that's why the foundation of stability is important for our long-term economic growth. it will help our economy and it will help taxpayers and shareholders to have confidence in a system that they can invest in and they know that result of greedy risk-taking that is excessive, isn't going to cause somebody to -- somebody to sitting in this area to watch their housing value plummet by some significant percentage overnight. not because of anything they did, but because of some risky investments that were made hundreds of miles away.
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>> as a member of the economic team, let me say how proud i am of robert gibbs for that financial analysis on that one. >> won't there always be a moral hazard hanging over the system unless the president says no more bailouts? >> that's the point. it is exact to get away from that. in the subproposal that is we're putting out today with the two components, it's precisely to get at function that because there are explicit government supports for commercial banks, they should not be able to use that to turn around and invest for their own profit. they should be doing things to facilitate their client business or serve the clients in some way that they shouldn't just be for their own profits. >> the best way to ensure that we never get to that point is to ensure that the senate and the house pass very, very strong comprehensive, financial reform. if that passes and the president is able to sign it, then we go a
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long way to ensuring that we never have that conversation again. yes, sir? >> you talked, austan, i think, in passing about hedge funds. could you elaborate a bit more? i don't think you are touching on it. people have blamed that too for a big part of the credit crisis. >> okay. let's take that in three parts. in in proposal, it's saying commercial banks cannot own or invest in hedge funds, private equity funds. because this is frequently a, putting them in direct conflict with their clients, and b, if they are the own in these funds, if they do well, they are themselves profit handgun they are able to attract a low cost of capital partly because the government is giving them so forth. that is the relevance on this. on hedge funds in general, one
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key point in our regulatory white paper and that is coming out of the house bill that we hope to be passed in the senate is the function that as you start to get with big enough to menace the system that there be controls on liquidity, on capital for the institutions, but also for the types of products. if it's over-the-counter derivatives where you have the risk of con they january that can bring down the system that we get them out into the open and get them into clearinghouse clearinghouses. we are addressing the fundamental stemmatic risk associatessed with hedge funds. >> hedge funds don't have the kind of regulation that you can approach for the banks. >> well, yes and no, remember under our proposal, if --
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throwns of hedge funds have failed over the years with no impact on the rest of the system. if they messed up, they die. that is the end. they do not receive any bailout. the point is is for any institution that is too big to fail or proposes a stemmatic risk, our regulatory white paper is about how to eliminate the systemic risk, put in capital requirements on the institutions, so they can fail if they miss up. >> and quickly, you say excessive risk taking. how does the u.s. government define that? it's sort of like pornography, you know it when you see it? how do you define excessive? >> well, look, we will obviously be working with the regulatories. but we told you that what in specific -- >> don't even go close to the
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analogy. >> it's nothing like pornography. [laughter] and i will say, it's just for their own company's account. yes, ma'am. >> what about fannie and freddie? do you guys not think they are part of the problem or -- >> no, they haven't been mentioned in the regulatory white paper. their are going to look at whole which includes fannie freddie, fha, and what we do in the mortgage market. obviously it wasn't mentioned today because it's not commercial bank in this circumstances. >> but you haven't come up with any proposals since. >> i dentistry any comment on that.
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>> you have taken pains to say this is not re-imposition of glass-key gal. why not? >> the spirit of this -- which is separating risky activities from banks which is trying to eliminate some conflicts of interest and trying to limit the amount of subsidy or backing from the american taxpayer that's getting translated into their bottom-line profits. those are themes that people were trying to address back in the depression when they passed glass-steagall. but the specifics of glass-steagall which were created in 1934, underriding securities and trading insecurities are no longer in the current financial system. but things that pose the greatest risk. i do think that if you re-impose glass-steagall and it's entirety, you would put some very severe restrictions on u.s. financial institutions that would put them at a difficult spot. the point is in the current
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financial system where financial institutions are more broadly defined, we want to eliminate conflicts of interest where we can, we want to eliminate these cross subsidies or heads i win, tails the taxpayer loses. but we -- weren't not going back to the 1934 rule because on a technical level, i think that's not really central on that. >> the president has called on banks to be cooperative, supporting financial regulatory reform. he's called on the banks to increase lending to small business. at the same time, other the past few weeks, the president has increased his rhetoric against banks, calling them greedy and posing what some banks may feel as unfair burdens upon them, punishing them, essentially. how do you get them to cooperate and support these proposals when some of the things that the president has been proposed over the past few weeks, they may not view that favorly?
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>> you know, i wish they would take a broader expansive view of financial markets. indeed, i wished back in september of 2007, as robert talked about, the speech that president gave at the nasdaq, the president said it doesn't make you anti-capital markets to be for more robust oversight of financial markets because we fundamentally need public trust in our financial institutions for them to succeed. if we don't have it, the capital markets will fail. and that is exactly what happened in this crisis. people could not trust what's on balance sheets. they can't trust the numbers that they are getting. i think if the financial sector takes a step back and looks at the unbelievable amount of direct and indirect public support that they receive, not because the administration wanted to help banks, but because we wanted to help the
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next great depression. i think paying back what the losses are in the t.a.r.p. is not a punitive measure that is in the legislation and it's totally reasonable. and trying to eliminate conflict of interest and trying to eliminate the situation where government taxpayer support or guarantees is going for them making profits for themselves -- i think that's -- that in the long run is in their interest. because it restores public trust to financial institutions. and i hope they will bear that in mind. >> david? >> i'm following up on that though. don't you anticipate a major fight on this? and how would you compare that to the opposition you're going to get on this? i mean the republican already have said that this will add too much uncertainty. they are against it. eric crank tour put out an statement, i think, before the president finished speaking. so my question is have you
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talked to republicans on the hill already or the institutions themselves to get a sense whether you can sell any of this to them or whether they would just come out lock, stock, and barrel against it? >> well, look, as i said, i'm no a legislative strategist. i'm just a policy guy. if you look at the financial figures that have come out for things like this, they include very respected financial figures on both sides of the aisle. i'll let robert speak to the legislative politics of that. but i think this is no in no way a strictly partisan issue on policy grounds. >> david, i think as austan has said here, you go through the examples of those that believe this is in the long-term financial interest of this country. i think supporting this demonstrates that clarity. i would say that you heard the president discuss that there is a massive lobbying effort to derail or water down the financial reform.
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i think it is very clear that the -- many of the circumstances that existed two years ago are still possibilities in our financial system. we have to do all that we can, and the president will ensure that we do all of that we can to change those rules of the road doing forward. if that -- i don't doubt that there will be some that oppose this, whether in financial community or capital hill. but putting a measure of stability into our financial system. putting on what mark said, if we want to go back to the type of bailouts that congress approved in october of 2008, then let's keep the rules of the road the same. but with if we want to take that
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step forward and ensure that the taxpayers and the shareholders and our economy is protected from that excessive risk-taking, then let's get a new road map for those rules. >> but quickly are you anticipating and preparing for a major political battle on this as well as -- >> david, i don't doubt this happened before we broke for christmas. when some of these activities were being voted on. that scores of lobbyist were called to capital hill to generate activity in opposition to financial reform. i have not sensed a retrenchment by those lobbyist on this issue, and i think the special interest, in order to protect the good that they have, will do all they can to detrail what's good for the american economy. sheryl? >> the president does have personal relationships with some
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of these top bankers. he's met with them. did he call them and speak to them to give them the head's up this was coming? >> not that i'm aware of. >> did you calculate it would be better to just kind of pick a fight? >> no, we calculated it was better to ensure that we had different rules of the road. that we turn a corner away from the type of excessive risk-taking that got us into having to ask the taxpayers to loan banks hundreds of billions of dollars. >> but just pursuant to this question, wouldn't it have been better to try to get some kind of buy in from the institutions themselves? or did you just figure that was not going to happen? >> look, i'll let them decide whether they come down on this proposal. i'll let them decide where they come down on whether taxpayers should be paid back in what they lend. the president has talked to them about betting on board of
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financial reform. they are going to have to decide, lobbyist are going to have to decide, congress is going to have to decide. but the president has been firm that we have to change the rules of the road going forward. >> then just one final question. has the president concluded as a result of those meetings that the banks are not on board. in much the same way that you con deluded earlier this year that health care, republicans were not on board. as we sort of reached the conclusion. >> republicans were saying they were on board. >> the banks are not on word. >> i have not seen whether or not like some had in saying they weren't onboard, the president have. i have not seen what banks have said. i'm not sure the analogy is as clear as -- >> on one policy matter, there are some $8,000 banks in the united states. and the vast majority of those banks do not engage in proprior tear trading. a dog in
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that. >> yes, sir? >> glad to see you. spoke with your buddy james galbraith last month. he sends his greetings. he says it's going to be 250,000 or 300,000 jobs for the next 60 months, five years, before the economic gets back to full employment. i'm just curious what your response is to that in relation to what larry summers said about the recession ending. >> well, look, jamie is a friend. i've known him for a long time. i try to stay out of prediction business. i know the president has been put in tremendous focus on job creation, robert knows that. every day we -- every day we're talking about those issues. he can tell you, he does not believe the 10% unemployment rate is acceptable. we're pressing.
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he called for job package. we're going to keep pressing as hard as we can on those job issues. >> i'm not good at math. that's why i'm here. [laughter] but i don't think 250,000 jobs for 60 months. i think that's greatly in excess of the numbers of jobs that have been lost over the course of the recession, and that may actually include even a greater number than those that are -- >> there's 15 million. >> exactly. that are traditionally underemployed. we'll take one more there. >> we have to get that calculate correct. it does day $15 million. >> he was working on it for 10 minutes. >> that was completely unnecessary, wasn't it? >> yes, sir. one last question. well, i, you know, moved by
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abacus. >> they are still expecting the president -- they are small business and more job creators? >> well, you're heard the president discuss this repeatedly. the economic team is continue thing to work on ways to improve primarily the flow of capital and lending to small businesses. i think you'll hear the president talk about that in the state of the union address. goyal, as you said, the -- we know that the hiring is going to take place in a lot of different firms when it comes back, but the primary job creator is small business. we have to continue to create an atmosphere through different proposals that the president has laid out to create the environment for private sector hiring. that's what the president has worked on and what he'll continue to work on throughout.
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>> -- the health care bill is going to come out because they are expecting more jobs or more hiring -- >> well, look, there's no doubt that the president has heard from many of them. small business that is are being crushed by health care cost that increase each and every day. we'll do one more. then i'll let austan get back to doing my math problems. >> thank you. didn't secretary geithner meet with some of the bankers last night? >> i don't know. >> the policy team we talked to and have talked to, everybody, heads of banks, heads of consumers organization, consumers, lendsers, small businesses, everybody. >> but i mean as of last night to give them a head's up? >> i don't know. i wasn't involved in that. >> when the president sign off on it? >> i think the last sign-off was
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before christmas, if i'm not mistaken. we talked about this event i think a week and a half ago. >> host: was he going to put it in the state of the union? >> i'm sure he'll union. but the event got scheduled probably a week or week and a half ago. >> thank you, sir. >> thanks, everybody. >> in a few moments, the hearing on the fort hood shooting. in about two and a half hours, secretary of state clinton and the foreign minister of yemen speak with reporters. after that, homeland security meets with european leaders on aviation safety. and later, fbi director robert mueller on countterrorism and the government's use of phone records on investigating
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possible terrorists. >> on washington journal tomorrow morning we'll find out more about this week's meetings because president obama and the mayors. >> washington journal is live on c-span every day at 7:00 eastern.
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>> this weekend on booktv, john mueller believes a new collar attack on the u.s. is far smaller than people think. also, ann looks at the impact on automobile in modern society from the annual operating kotz to global warming and possible incoming in on the entire schedule at booktv.org. and get the latest updates on twitter. >> the leader of the pentagon enter the fort hood testified before the hearing this morning. they discuss what led to the shooting, and how military bases would prevent future violence. this is about two and a half hours.
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>> good morning, everybody. the committee meets this morning to consider the findings of the independent panel appointed by the secretary of defense following the tragedy at fort hood. the primary objective of the panel was to quote, determine whether there are programs, policies, or procedural weaknesses witness the department of defense that hurts the safety of the employees and families, closed quote. today's hearing is on the unrestricted report. a restricted annex entitled oversight of the alleged perpetrator. it focuses on information which in the judge of the department of defense would prejudice a
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criminal prosecution. so our committee will have a closed session after this -- we'll have a closed session after this open hearing is concluded. our witness this is morning are togo west and vernon clark. we have reviewed their unrestricted report. members have had an opportunity to review the restricted annex. we welcome you both. we thank you for returning to government service for this very important task. it's a continuation of their great patriotism and loyalty. on the afternoon of november 5, 2009, the army field grade officer opened fire on fellow soldiers in the soldier
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readiness center at fort hood texas killing 12 soldiers, and wounding or injurying 34 others. there's information in the public domain indicating that this tragic and violent incident was preceded by a number of indicatorred that would seemingly raise questions about major hasan's ability to serve. some of those indicators with e-mail contract with a radical muslim cleric in yemen, concerned about his expressed belief that religious law took press sent over the constitution. and some of the witnesses implicated sympathy for violence and concerned by superiors and fears about his duty performance and his ratings. so there's a connect-the-dots issue here. there are a number of other
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investigations that will examine the failure to connect those dots. that is not part of today's open hearing. the department of defense's inquiry is one of several inquiry that is are or will be examining the incident. the president has directed a review of intelligence matters relating to this shooting. the fbi is connecting a review. and the military justice investigation is ongoing. the review that we will consider today was a first assessment of the department's policies and procedures. to identify gaps that warrant further investigation and action. clearly, there is no much that needs to be done. the secretary of defense is committed to tasking each service and pert than d.o.d. agencies to conduct an in-depth follow on review based on the findings of this report. the secretary of defense gave this independent panel less than
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60 days to conduct a quick-look review, quote the, to identify and address possible gaps and or deficiencies in the department of defense's programs, processes, and procedures, related to identifying d.o.d. employees who could potentially pose credible threats to themselves or others. the deficiency of the department of defense protections program, the deficiencies of the department of defense's emergency response to mass casualties situation at d.o.d. facilities and the responsibility to careful victims and families in the aftermath of a mass casualty situation and finally the execution and adequacy of army programs, policies, and procedures as a applied to the alleged perpetrator. the panel completed it's work
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and delivered it's report to the secretary of defense on time. and that is remarkable. given the sort period of time over the holidays that the panel was given for this task. this could only be done under the strong leadership of our witnesses, who co-chaired the independent panel. a copy of the report of the department of defense independent review, entitled protecting the forest, lessons from forthood. he will be included in the record of this hearing. the independent panel made a total of 42 findings. with the associated recommendation in the basic report. where an additional 12 findings, excuse me in the restricted annex. the panel gives fort hood high marks for a quick and effective response to this incident. while recognizing the defense department can and should do more to prepare for multiple
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simultaneous incident in the future. the panel found that some programs, policies, processes, and procedures, were adequate but were not complied with. and other policies are in need of revision to give commanders the tool that is they need to counterinternal threats as well as new threat that is may manifest themselves in the future. the report produced by the independent panel gives the department of defense a blueprint for additional reviews and resulting policy changes. for instance, the department will need to evaluate and update policies and procedures for identification of indicators of violence, clarify policy regarding religious accommodation, review and improve military personnel records, and refocus the force protection programs on internal threats. this committee has a continuing
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interest in the findings, recommendation, and changes made based on these reviews. :
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the tragic events last year at fort hood, i agree with the statement in your report that the events of november 5th, 2009 are first and foremost a tragedy for all involved, families colleagues in the nation. our thoughts and prayers continue for the families and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy. i appreciate the department defense initiated this review to scrutinize itself with regards to organizational shortcomings that led to the horrific killing subtwelve service members, one army civilian and the blending of 43 others. however, most of your report is devoted to personnel policies and emergency shooting response procedures. report concentrates on actions and effects rather than motivations. but it was motives that led to the ft. hood killings and that should have been examined. whether-- whatever the political correctness implications.
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the panel supper to assist the department defense and the american people to understand the threat to national security and to our military personnel was undermined as a result. we have a profound responsibility to try to prevent harm to all americans, especially those who volunteer for service in the armed forces and have as a result become high-value targets for our enemies. i find insufficient information in this report to advance their identification and elimination of this threat. the omission in your report of adequately recognizing and addressing the specific threats posed by violent extremism to our military service members is troubling. we owe it to our service members and their families to be very candid in addressing the threat of violence driven by violent islamic extremism. i believe general jack keene the former vice chief of staff of the army made the point clearly in his testimony on
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november 19th, when he said that we need to provide a service to all muslims serving in the armed forces by clearly describing the threats, explaining the indicators of potential problems and obliging all military personnel to report individuals to display these beliefs and actions. i believe the information compiled in the restricted evidence restricted antics to this report regarding failures in the performance of officers who supervised major hasan during his medical education will help to ensure accountability and corrective measures. much of this information not surprisingly has been leaked to the media and portrays a system badly in need of re-evaluation and reform. i expect the secretary of the army to move quickly to ensure accountability for the shortcomings you identify. and to demand more from our officers and organizations. they should have the courage and
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integrity to identify substandard officers to represent potential threats to those around me. i also believe your findings and recommendations will add value in providing the department of defense and the services to take on the challenge of identifying the legal and regulatory barriers to information sharing called for in the report. there are in the reyes concerns that must be addressed in this regard. concerns about individual privacy, the threat of litigation, equal opportunity violations, the first amendment rights, a medical privacy including stigma from seeking treatment and abuse of authority are just a few. they represent a gordian knot that has to be cut. what happened at fort hood was something more than an isolated incident, more than a random act of violence by an alleged perpetrator. it was a terrorist act struck against us as part of a broader war in which we are now engaged.
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without focusing on the threat posed today by violent islamic extremism to our military and family, we can't address those vulnerabilities and correct them. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you very much senator mccain and now we colin you, secretary west. >> thank you mr. chairman, senator mccain and distinguished members of the committee for the opportunity to testify before you on this important matter. i wonder if i might do one of two quick housekeeping things. you have i think in that ribboning opening statement the joint statement by both admiral clark and by me and we would ask you to include that in the record. and with that we will give a few comments that bit of the road map to what is in the report although we are aware that you have had a chance to look through it. i will do the first group and then if you will permit i will
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take it from there. >> that would be fine, thank you. >> as you pointed out senator in mr. chairman and you also senator mccain, that day, november 5th was the day of tragedy. we all will remember it as such. out of that tragedy there are some instructive lessons for us. and those are what we address in our report. as you pointed out, secretary gates was specific in what he asked us to do, contained both in a memorandum to west and his terms of reference and in his statement at his press conference. that is important to us because it bounds are undertaking as to the time we were, within which we were asked to complete their work and also as to the fact that he the had already indicated his intention to have a lengthier come tomorrow in depth follow-on review of both the report and the issues that
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we raise by the services. he has rtp gutknecht process of referring the report out for the follow-on activities. as you pointed out we were asked to look at personnel policies, specifically those that make identifications of those who are at risk of danger to their fellows in the service. to look at how those policies and practices and procedures allow us to deal with as a jury have identified those threats and to look at the ways in which there are gaps or deficiencies, his language, that we need to improve upon going for it. he also asked us to let get force protection measures. with the same idea of. not just in the army, but across the board in the department of defense and the osd procedures and regulations, at the level of
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every service. thirdly, to look at our preparations and the policies concerning preparations for mass casualty events for responding to them, for our emergency procedures if you will. and finally, in that group of four to look at how we provide for the support of those who provide needed medical care to those who serve. the fifth assignment that he gave us was a very specifically stated one and they think it is one of the annexes to our, one of the annexes to our report and that is this, to examine the army's application of its procedures and policies to the alleged perpetrator prego i make that distinction because he did not ask us to go and explain what happened, although it is certainly i think would appear to all of us, you and me as well that without an understanding of
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what happened we certainly could understand how the army applied the policy but on purpose and direction was to understand the are misapplication of its policies and procedures to the perpetrator. that is what is contained in our annex five. i should say to you as part of an understanding of how we organize and prepared for this that was the nephew going to be simply chapter 5 of the report. a report that we would submit to you today for recoup. after review, the department of lawyers concluded and i think they concluded properly that there was a great risk of interfering with the military justice, the criminal proceeding and that is why it was submitted to you as a restricted annex. with that in mind, we were told not to interfere with the intelligence investigation that it proceeded more with the military justice investigation nor with the ongoing parallel
quote
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fdi ricci you and we have made an attempt not to do so. what we did do was to organize ourselves into five teams, supported by personnel with hunley assigned to the military department from osd and each of these teams looked into this specific areas that we have described in the report submitted to their activities to less than than a week, et mcclerkan diane those who work directly with us to take responsibility for reviewing and stating our conclusions and their views with respect to that. our personal views are found throughout the report but they are specifically called out in the executive summary which you note we took the step of signing ourselves so that you would know that the summary came from us including those five or six recommendations for specific early action by the secretary of defense. let me report he has already taken some of those actions as we have talked. we had also a board of advisers
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drawn from the senior ranks of the department, the military ranks whose purpose was not to lead the team of the two of them were team leaders but merely to review as we went and provide an overall perspective of what we were looking at and how we were stating its and hallet would affect real progress for the departments in terms of responding to what had happened. their help to us was invaluable, because when you think about it, otherwise the admiral had himself and me to bounce these things back and forth to, to discuss. the board of advisers gave us an additional group with the same broad range. a word or two at this point from both that mcclerkan me about the actual landscape of the report. what you have before you is five chapters with an executive summary at the front and with
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some annexes. the first chapter is a very brief, one-page synopsis that we thought we could stay in a public report that is much more dealt with in detail in the annex and that is about the alleged perpetrator. the chapters to come the three, four and five are about the bulk of what the secretary asked this to look at. aye your attention to chapter 2 which is about personnel policies which is divided into three sections, one having to do with how we identify the kinds of things that can lead a person to become a danger to his or her colleagues. a second part of it has to do with sharing that information, getting it to the right place, and i point out to you that in our finding, 2.2 in that report, we acknowledged a specific difficulty and that is of the
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fact that information that is obtained in one place does not always go forward with a service member to success of assignments. that is making it difficult for commanders to know exactly what they are dealing with. a third section in that chapter to has to do with the areas to action. three cummins, three observations before i ask your permission to have admiral clark take on the description to you of the other parts of the report. the first is this. there can never be too much preparation. in some ways we often could say that no matter how much preparation you have done there is more that could be done. at fort hood, the leaders had anticipated massive bense, m.a.s.h. casualty events in their emergency response plans and it showed in their response.
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you have knowledge mr. chairman and has also did senator mccain, the response was prompt. within two minutes and 40 seconds of the first 9/11 call, first responders were on the scene of the shooting and by first responders i mean elements of the fort hood security forces. within a minute and a half after that, the assailant had been taken dumb. and come within two minutes in 50 seconds after that, to ambulances and an incident command vehicle from oppose hospital of arrived to begin to dispensed needed medical care. lives were saved, and yet as you have pointed out, 13 people died and scores of others, 43 were wounded. we must prepare better, plan
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more intensively and take the hard effort to look around the corners of our future to try and anticipate the next potential incident. secondly, we must be attentive to today's hazards. today, the requirement that is imposed puts us in the defense department is to understand the forces that cause an individual to radicalize, to commit violent acts and thereby to make us vulnerable from within. and finally, the threat through all of this is violence. how do we detect the indicators of violence, how do we share the information about those indicators, and then whether we have the foresight to act. thank you mr. chairman and with their permission and admiral
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clark will take it from here. >> thank you so much, admiral. >> good morning mr. chairman. i appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to talk about the work of secretary west and myself and the group of people who work with us in this effort. let me make a few comments and get right to questions. i know that you will have questions for us so first let me just talk about force protection for a moment. the principle message of our review with regard to force protection is simply this. there are lots of policies on force protection in side the department of defense. since 9/11, we have built many barriers. however, existing policies simply are not optimized to deal with the insider threat. the evolving threat that we see
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today and when people talk about the new threats, we are talking about the insider threat. now, complicating the entire force protection challenge is the diverse nature of the way the department of defense has evolved since 9/11. and so, one of our recommendations to the secretary was that we have to look at the organization itself. on page 25 of the base report, kia find a description of the dairies under secretaries and assistant secretaries of defense that are charged with the responsibilities for working the force protection challenge. synchronization is difficult, and simply stated, no senior d.o.t. official is assigned overall responsibility for synchronizing this policy. notice senate sing one person should have all of the responsibility. neither is secretary west.
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we were careful not to define the specific organization from the secretary of defense. our observation is synchronization is pretty difficult the way it is set up the way it is today and we recommend that it be looked at. the key point too is there has to be a mechanism in place to do this integration and that is our recommendation. secondly, the task of viding employees who potentially could threaten the workforce, and i'd ask us to remember the secretary asked us to look at files and so the question is, how do we identify individuals who have the potential for violent behavior? and certainly in our research we found that detecting a trusted insiders intention to commit a violent act requires observation skills that may not be in place.
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this is the evolving threat, and so there is a requirement to understand behavioral cues and anomalies that would alert commanders in supervisors to know that such a threat exists. and while the department focuses very effectively on many things, there is insufficient knowledge and guidance concerning who this insider threat is. who are these people? there is insufficient guidance on workplace violence, and most importantly how to identify the person who has the potential to self radicalize. in our view it is simply insufficient. the key word here is violence. now, since the report does come out some have criticized us for not suggesting and talking enough about violent islamic extremism. but, when we talk about
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self-radicalization and the term appears numerous times in our report, we are talking about the behavior's that create and lead to violence. that is what we are talking about. the lack of clarity for comprehensive vindicator slimness the commanders and supervisors ability to recognize potential threats. fixing this issue will be critical to solving this problem in the future. dod policy on prohibited activities, and i have the instruction here with me that talk specifically about what prohibitive activities are inside the department, this instruction in our deal is too limited and it only addresses active and very visible participation in groups that may pose threats to good order and discipline inside the ranks. so, we found that this lack of
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clarity for comprehensive indicators which limit commanders in supervise its ability to recognize the potential threats and so we are talking about whether, we are talking about people who could hurt themselves. the secretary of defense cited specifically people's been hurt themselves. for example the issue of suicide. criminal in gang behavior, people advocating supremist doctrine, family violence evolving threats like self-radicalization, identifying these key indicators is criminal to focusing the force on the threat. let's talk about information sharing. secretary west addressed it also and let me just make a couple of points. the policies governing information exchange inside the department and in the interagency, intergovernmental system itself also, in our view
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the policies for-- word addition. they do not support detection and mitigation of the internal threat. dod gann service guidance does not provide for maintaining and transferring her old and information from one duty station to the other. now, remember we are doing phase one of this as you talked about mr. chairman. we did this with you in a hurry. that is what the secretary of defense wanted us to do. thousands of pages of urdu that put the spotlight on the things the services can go fix in a hurry and it is our view that this internal information exchange has got to be examined. in other words, how can a commander connect the dots that they don't have the, some information maintained at the local level and has since transferred from one commands to another and i will tell you that automated systems inside the services did not allow them to share information on for example
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registered users in persons who routinely come and go from a base and may become a threat, said the issue of maintaining in transferring all of the relevant information, information that could lead to the ads in the vacation of contributing factors, that is the issue. last friday the secretary of defense and his press conference stood and address his observations about our report and one of the things that i was happy to see him address was his comment that secretary west and i are of the view that we have to become more adaptable and certainly we have to be proactive, but we have to be able to adapt rapidly to this changing security environment, bringing a wide and continuously evolving range of tools and techniques and programs into place. i just want to emphasize that there is no single point solution for this evolving threat. we have to keep working at it.
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we need architectures and structures in place that will make that possible. no, what the other point about information sharing. certainly, robust information sharing is an essential. and in glove with that information sharing is the required command and control apparatus, be it systems, policy, doctrine, a tactic techniques and procedures to convert this information in a timely decisions and actions. the bottom line mr. chairman, members of the committee, we have got to remove the barriers. all of the barriers. we have to equip and enable the commanders and the people in decision-making positions to take their ability. mr. chairman you use the phrase, to connect the dots. we have got to get the
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information and thus the indicators to the appropriate level of people and command. just a couple of comments about the emergency response. secretary west address this mr. chairman. dew also certainly did justice to the brilliance of the people's fort hood in their actions. lots of good news related to the emergency response. mr. chairman and members i just want to try to put this in perspective, and so you know i committed my life in service for 37 years. i created in those 37 years a number of lessons learned myself that i heard dozens of lessons learned. on the second day that our team was in existence, secretary west and i got on a plane with 50 members of our team and we went to fort hood. and, we walked the ground that they showed as the space for all this happened and we looked at the terrain. and then we sat down with
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general colin and his command team and they gave us this presentation that had been turned in a matter of a few days and their lessons learned and i want to tell you that i was real impressed, so i heard a lot of them in my 37 years and i want you to know that i'd never ever heard a better one than i heard it fort hood that day. the base personnel were ready to respond. they have trained at this, they had worked at it. secretary west talk about the timeline response, the response to the active shooter. it was brilliant. and all of that said, it still could have been better and in our ricky we found areas where it could be better and in their own lessons learned they identified the areas where it could be better. i have spoken on the last subject about the command-and-control system. they need a better system. general cohon had to deal with misinformation and should anybody be surprised?
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i don't think so. there's never been a crisis ever that there wasn't misinformation. being able to do with it in a rapid way in being able to deal with a potential multiply dent mr. chairman as you indicated, is critical. and so, fundamentally we believe that we can improve by providing aid well integrated means to gather and evaluate the and disseminate the wide range of information that will make it possible for commanders to perform to the maximum. and so, this report is about focusing on better tools for commanders. this report is about focusing on violence prevention and whatever form that violence manifest itself. this report is about adapting, adapting an evolving through rapid change, sharing information, connecting the dots and exercising against the most
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stressing and pressing some areas that we know how to present so that we satisfy ourselves that we are able to perform to the standards we have identified for ourselves. and then i want to close by just acknowledging my alignment with all the comments that then made about the people at fort hood, the families that have suffered loss and just say that the thrust of our work has been to do everything we know how to do, to identify policies and procedures and practices and programs that can be made better, said that the united states armed forces continued to beat the outstanding force that it is today. thank you very much mr. chairman and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you admiral. thank you both very much. let's try the first round. the panel found that the quote
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department of defense policy regarding religious accommodation lacks a clear the necessary to help commanders distinguished appropriator religious practices from those that might indicate a potential for violence or self-radicalization, closed quote. i think what you are saying is that obviously this country believe sin religious tolerance, tolerance of the other religions, but it can never be tolerance of violence, radical views that are dressed up in religious garb. i think that is, that point reworded, i couldn't agree with you more. sometimes the views that are clearly either inherently violent promote violence are dressed up in religious
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clothing, and that automatically means that people who are sensitive to others' religious views then are kind of put on the defense of right away or reluctant right away to point out what is underneath the claim of religion. in so, the line has got to be there obviously. we want to continue our tolerance, but we have got to be much more and tolerant of these that are radical that promote violence, or encourage violence. and so, my first question i guess to you is that the policy of the department, which is limited to and addresses only active participation in groups that pose threats to good order and discipline is far too narrow a policy, because of the
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self-radicalization point. you don't have to participate in a group that opposes that kind of a threat to be a threat to yourself. and so, i guess my first question is, how would you-- i know if you are not here to provide remedies. that was not your job but i assume that you agree that it was just not that that policy should be examined but in your judgment at least it is just simply too limited a policy. and i am wondering whether not for instance you would agree that communication with a radical clerics who promotes violence is the kind of contact that should raise real questions. would you agree with that even though it is not active participation at that point? it is just simply communication,
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asking someone for their recommendations and use. would you agree that that ought to be raising a great suspicion, without getting into this particular case? >> mr. chairman i would certainly agree, i think we both would and i think your larger point that this is an example of we would agree with as well, and that is yes, in the past perhaps membership alone in a group may have been less looked upon the actual act of doing things, but in this environment, we have to look at the group. we have to understand its purposes and it is already considered by some that there is a tool that enables the commander to declare certain kinds of action, including that come a threats to his immediate areas of good order and discipline that we think the department defense can simply strengthen the ability of commanders to look at and examine exactly what kind of
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activity they are permitting and whether or not we can better define it. group membership in a group of that sort has a record of active advocation of violence and as well as your point, communication, especially repeated communication. again referring to no particular case. with those who advocate violence, those are all signals that we need to be able to indicate in their publications and in the regulations commanders that authorized to look at and react to. >> and even if there were active communication-- excuse me, active participation our communication with radical persons who are promoting violence, even if there is simply the expression of views which promotes violence, without any information about participation in a group or a communication with radical
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extremists. if somebody gets up and says, i believe that's the constitution comes in second, and that my religious views of come in first, would that not be that kind of a signal which ought to indicate some real genuine concern? would you agree with that? >> i certainly do agree with that, and it goes without saying that where we draw our red lines this week very important point, but you know if you look at our history, we as people, as americans have always been very careful working about where we draw those lines. i so appreciate your introduction to this question and your comments about, that we are a tolerant people. when i look of the dod instruction here talks about what people can do when they are at work, and things that they
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can't do at work but they can do in their private time. and what we are suggesting is that we have to better understand how people go through this process. from being a non-radicalized person to radicalization and what does it mean, and so, i aligned with your comments completely. i want to make one other observation mr. chairman. in our report, we talk about active-duty members of the military, but you know the department of defense is much broader than just reacted to the people in uniform and we also understand that when americans raise their right hand to take a pledge to serve in the armed forces that there are some freedoms that they set on the shelf. the challenge that we are facing here in security applies to everybody in the department and
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that includes civilians as well and contractors and the whole nother body of people and then you could look of this and say, you know this is not just the department of defense. this is the whole of our nation and the whole of government. this is a real challenge that we face. and it is clear, so you made the comment on the shipmate, here was the comment that was being made approaching a defined red-lined are crossing a defined red line. we must make sure our people understand where those red lines are in that means we must have a very effective education program, and our reach program that people understand. this is about our own security and their right to self-defense is absolutely not a question we have the right to do that. >> people should not be afraid of reporting information that they believe in good judgment represents the potential threat to good order of discipline and
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to the safety of the country or of their own group out of fear that there might be, that might be viewed by some as being intolerant of religious views. we have got to simply allow people the freedom to report something which they believe is a threat to their group, their country or to the individual himself and not be dissuaded by the fact that the views are dressed in some religious garb. >> good order and discipline is the fabric upon which the greatness of the united states military is built and we have to ensure that we do everything we know how to do to protect it. >> secretary west, did you want to add anything to that? >> no, i think the admiral, the .-made which is we essentially, to the effect that we are talking about expressions and expressions in many cases pertain to religion, to
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different hits on the first amendment but as you pointed out, when a member takes an oath of office, there are some things that to which he or she agrees to be regulated and we believe that where there is a clear connection with a potential for violence, that would cause damage to once fellows in service, this is the basis on which we can encourage the department to act more clearly. >> and my final question is this. you have not been given the charge of giving, recommending remedies for where there are gaps. that is not part of your charge although you freely responded to my questions this morning and i appreciate that. who is in charge of responding with remedies to your recommendations? what is the timetable? does this go right up to the secretary of defense and his he assure you that he will consider
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appropriate remedies within a certain timetable or is there somebody else in the department that is on the remedies side of what you have outlined here? >> the answer tear question is twofold. will take the second first which is yes on this follow-on review he is ordering two sets of things. he is in the process. one he is going to ask a senior member of his staff, we believe but we don't want to commit him. it is his priority, not ours. perhaps the assistant secretary for homeland defense or security, not authorized to make that statement, don't know but i believe to conduct a follow-on refute but each of the services also, and part of their job is to take this report, referred to them and provide their recommendations as how to implement. that is the first-- second answer. the first answer is in some ways to give admiral clark and me to much of the by. the fact was to come up with
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actionable recommendations as well. >> alright, that case i withdraw that comment. your recommendations then, to be acted upon in a certain period of time? >> i am not clear. >> whatever is referring to is this. you say there's an adequate clarity on the issue we have been discussing. the recommendation is a general one, provide clarity but it is not specific clarity. you should provide clarity mr. secretary and i couldn't agree with you more but it is not what the new regulations should be. that is fine to be left up to the secretary. that is what i meant when i said he was not provided a specific new language that should be in place, replacing the hon clear language. that is what i meant by that. nellis there a timetable? >> there is a timetable. he pronounced it friday.
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>> what is it? >> he wants first impressions back in march and he wants to wrap this up by june. if you read the language, weaver very careful with their recommendations. first of all, you confirmed the secretary of defense and that allows him to be the person who makes policy and we were very aware of the fact that at one point in our lives we were those people, but we are not those people today. serwer we suggested on numerous occasions he review policy, because we thought there were holes or weaknesses or gaps, there were some places that the language is slightly stronger. it is absolutely clear to us that policy and we say sometimes it is an adequate, but we tee'd it up and away so that they cannot put the spotlight on it and he is given them a timetable. >> thank you. senator inhofe.
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>> thank you mr. chairman and i want to pick up on two things he mentioned in the first one i will be criticized for. it is not clinically correct, but i will make this statement. when you are round washington and in these hearings is one thing but when you go back to oklahoma as they do every week, that is another thing and i am always hit up with this idea because we are talking about the fort hood they now but i can talk to you about abdulmutallab, the christmas bomber, the extremist views were evident from the university college london and goes on and on. 19 november the father reports and we all know about that report. lathe november he was added to the u.s. 550 name terrorist identified as the day the market all of this stuff. all this stuff that we knew but that is not your pretty, i understand that but nonetheless it is the same. a terrorist is a terrorist and
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that is what they do for a living. they kill people and i for one, notice not politically correct to say i believe in ethnic and racial profiling. if you are looking at people getting on an airplane and you have x amount of resources come again need to get at the targets. i just think it is something that should be looked into. the statement that has been made is probably 90% truth, with some exceptions to the federal office building in my state of oklahoma. they were not middle easterners but when you hear that not all middle easterners or muslims between ages of 20 and 35 r terrorist alterius are muslims or middle easterners between the ages of 20 and 35 that is by and large true and i think that sometime we are going to have to really come at least i'm going to have to have a better answer when people aboard planes and get into environments such as
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the environment we are dealing with with this report. i guess nothing more needs to be said from you guys on this. let me first of all say, which i said it said that first there are no to other people better qualified to do the job than the two of you and have been good friends of mine for a long period of time. now, so that we can talk about it i think a little more easier, your purview is really a domestic. most of what you were talking about was making the recommendations coming from what happened with the incident at fort hood. did you look into outside the united states, where thousands and thousands of troops all over the world and to me, the threat is probably a little bit greater there than it would be here. what futzed you have on that or maybe recommendations he would have on that to expand what you are doing to include that?
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>> we certainly did. senator, the first thing that comes to my mind is every base where we exist overseas, we have not americans working with us on the base. what are the processes and procedures for setting these people? so, we challenge it and we have a section in the report that talks about security clearances and how people gain access. so when we are trying to come of the second thing i talked about, identifying people who could become a threat, one of the things we have to look at is how we have that people in the conas environment. i would suggest to you and frankly this would probably be better, the details we might talk about in closed session but i would suggest to you that it was our conviction and we would not have put it in the report if we didn't think that this was
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certainly a potential weakness. >> yeah. >> maya at senator dis? if we take the lesson of fort hood and admittedly we will talk more specifically when you have your closed session, we have to be reminded that the thesis on which we are dealing here is essentially for this whole report is the threat within. the member of the military family who then turned against his or her fellow soldier, airmen, sailors, marine, coast guard person, and the difficulty there, whether it is conas comeau with the universal access card, their id, they can enter what should be the safest place either here or there, the base, the post, freely with their automated systems now. we don't stop them for routine
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checks. and so, we can't, we can-- certainly one of the lessons learned at fort hood was some roving checks, even those who have the credentials, but the place to stop them, the insider who is a threat is not at the gate. it is to identify him or her before they can get onto the poston to that act. and that is why all those signs that we talk about, all the queues and behavioral indications, even the ones that the chairman mentioned, are important for us to reemphasize, to expand it to focus on to make sure command has that information and that applies both here and overseas. >> you know, one of the things that came out that was discussed here by the chairman was whether we can move this along faster. i think you want to do that and we want to do that.
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we have still some of the recommendations of the 9/11 recommendation that are not fully implemented then understood so i assume that you share those feelings. i was down at fort hood about three weeks before this incident, and that was when we had two of our oklahoma units deployed overseas and i was down there for that defense. and then i went down afterwards for the event that took place after the tragedy. you had said, and i asked my staff to hand it to me so i could read it again, this is pretty remarkable mr. secretary when you said to minutes in 40 seconds after the initial 91 one-call insulation first responders arrived on the scene, one and a half minutes later the assailant was incapacitated. to ambulances and incident command vehicles from defense for their two minutes and 50 seconds later. that is really moving.
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i would recommend it may be you have party done this but that you find out not always looking at what is wrong but learn from what was done, what was right and in this case i think it would serve as well to see how they did that remarkable job. i want to see it in writing at you say because i think that is remarkable and i recommend you do that. >> it was remarkable and we did think one of our jobs was to find out if that was the result of that planning, courageous and fast action, was there an element of luck and if it is what we believe in what we have said, excellent planning and well executed, is there a lesson to pass across the force? one other thing i would add. i don't want to overdo but, let me add it any way. we tried as best we could to figure out what that meant from the passage of time from the first shot by the assailant to his last. that is, the holy center,
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because the uncertainty part was how quickly they 91 one-call got in after the first shot was fired. the best we can make is that the whole shooting incident was ending by our security forces between seven and eight minutes after it started. >> were you surprised that too? >> i certainly was, so one of our strategies frankly senator-- this kind of a panel is supposed to find things that are wrong. that is what we are supposed to do but if you notice we leave with some strong statements about what we thought was right because we wanted it up front that the people at fort hood did a fabulous job. you know i testified yesterday in the staff reminded me that i said that the lists are excellent or outstanding 19 times yesterday, but i want to drive the point home. i said this was the best lessons learned i had ever seen and the performance of the people were
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brilliant. were there things that could have been better? yes. one of the reasons was it was brilliant because of the brilliance of our people. they are so good. and of course, nobody had a stop what's going on inside the room where he was shooting so that is why we don't know the exact time as the secretary indicated between the first shot and the 91 one-call here is what we do know. there were a lot more browns available. and they took that shooter down, and the sea ideate ginned was handcuffed to him in a matter of moments and was with him from that point on. >> let me commend all of them for the fine work they did. >> it was incredible. >> thank you. i would just take two seconds just to say i disagree with your comments about middle easterners and muslims and the implications of those comments. i would want to say that, except
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what you are here. >> i understand that. i expected that. >> senator reid. >> thank you mr. chairman. admiral clark, you mentioned in terms of the threats of generic self-radicalization that would lead to violence and there are several different issues, as you suggest categories. that is not simply islamic radicals but a host of others. is there a strategy and the department defense to identify these potential categories into an essentially work explicitly against them or to at least be aware of them? >> first point, the people in the public domain say we did not use the magic term, radical islamists, and so we didn't do it on purpose. it wasn't because we were trying
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to be politically correct. it was because our task was to deal with violence and this was one of them but i don't know how people could read their comments about self-radicalization and not understand that this kind of radical islamic behavior is part of that group. we said specifically those of the indicators are inadequate. now, having said that, on friday, the army published the list of ten coming in this is something out there that is better than nothing. and in the close session i would like to get into this in some detail but to say we believe that all of the indicators related to violence are not static indicators, and so one of our proposals is, we are living in such a rapidly changing world, potentially we should be considering the establishment of
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the group that focuses on this full time, across this-- i have this whole series of kinds of behaviors that we are talking about, criminal, drug, domestic abuse, gang activity come supremist ideology, sex crimes, sabotaged, arson, domestic violence. peart talking about all of these. and so, i chose that is the response to your question. >> mr. secretary to melbany comments? >> there is an annex to our report that discusses the sources of violence in some detail. it is an example of the pieces that our research is consulted and i think it is very informative. i agree with the admiral's response. while sojourner executive summary of the five or six key things that we recommended to the secretary that we pull out from this report is the
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suggestion of a body that will collect the indicators of violence, update them in light of current circumstances, of the then cqynar world, and then make them available on an updated basis to the commander sent supervisors who need to use them to make their judgments. >> let me again turn to admiral. did you believe or conclude that there was adequate information coming from walter reed to fort hood with respect to the major-- i mean was there a problem there in terms of you know, letters of reprimand that might have been issued in a formal reprimand that we never fully communicated to the commanders at fort hood, really weren't able to gauge the seriousness of this individual? >> senator, i wonder if you would let us discuss that in a
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restricted session? >> i appreciate that. there is another issue and this might come of this i thank can be, i will let you decide, discussed in public. there were many indicators about mr. hasan's professional skills, is far removed from his religious beliefs and his discussions. just his simple confidence, his ability to work with others, those things that are fundamental for being an officer in the military. and yet he was sort of moved along and i know this question has come up and in these critical areas, where there are not a surplus of individuals such as mental health professionals, psychiatrists, etc., is there a double standard in terms of had he been a line
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officer or an infantry officer or artillery office. his radicalization but a simple performance with that have been-- gotten him kicked out? >> we are prepared to discuss that with the but we would ask you to do that in a restricted session. >> i appreciate that. >> certainly the part of what we have to say is an annex. we used the word officership in the open report. officership was intended to mean more than just leadership and it was our view that there were officers ship deficiencies, and in the closed session we can talk in great detail about the specifics of that. >> just one final question. >> senator i would just add also come in our one page summary discussion in chapter 1 that is in the open report, we did mention the findings and
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recommendations which had to do with the army application of its policies to the perpetrator. but also in the fact that there were signs that were missed and some that as far as we could tell were ignored. that is in the open part of the state and. >> thank you mr. secretary. again, part of this response is going to be training, not just commanders but individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. we have something that when it comes to traditional subversion and espionage and the old world war ii loose lips sink ships and that emphasis is persistent. do you envision something like that in terms of sort of the training elements going forward? >> i mentioned just briefly but probably did not emphasize it well enough. there clearly has to be in our reach program here. >> at reach program, i'm not
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talking about an hour rege program outside the department. i am talking about inside the department and notice, the secretary of defense said on friday and we suggested that communication, effective communication is the order of the day here in secretary started that process on friday. when he said to commanders, this isn't just a ho-hum daily, and i am paraphrasing now, ho-hum regular day-to-day stuff. commanders have to look past the day to day. there is no doubt that a very effective training in outreach program is part of an effective solution. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you senator reach. senator chambliss. >> thank you chairman and gentlemen you previously have served their country well in
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your respective capacities and we appreciate you coming back once again to help the steel with an issue that obviously is extremely important. at the same time extremely sensitive, so thank you for your continuing service. ..
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to identify a soldier who may be becoming self radicalized as we think happened here and appropriately address the threat they represent. >> i'm going to let mr. clarke have a good swing at that because it is expensive experience with oer satellite. so let me tell you what we are responding to here. the fact that there is a very good argument that there are tools out there commanders can use to make the assessments they need to make. the question for us though is are there ways to strengthen what they can do? and have we learned anything about the incident we faced and will discuss with you in a closed session from this instance about how we can sort not up? and one thing is, that frankly, things like officer efficiency boys in the services is all of them.
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mr. clarke and speak more than i can. but doesn't always find and report the kinds of things that would be better to report. for one reason, it may be the cause of the information of some offensive previous uses that have been a real ballot tatian efforts or of some other type of sign me up and left to the discussion of the commander to whether he could keep silbury curd could be in the oer. it never gets to that in command or supervisor. and suddenly earlier science are lost in the mix as they move forward. we need to shore that up. we said to the secretary and our executive summary and her five or six big recommendations, you need to say to the officer corps of the nation and all the service if that which he reports on these oer's and things like
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service school academic evaluation reports that takes the place of the oer bonaire and service call. you need to say that that matters and that it has to be accurate and most of all complete so that we can make the judgments we need to make. now that's the thrust of what we're doing here. so yes, reports exist, but they're not being made use of in a way that fits what we need in these new and trying times. >> city think it's a further education of those supervisors that are making or asking the questions and making a report back >> i have an answer to that. but i want to get admiral clark embossed by saying yes, but also making sure that the standards and maybe that is education are implying. >> admiral clark? >> i don't know the firstborn
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that you reference. i have the second forms here in front of me so i can talk specifically. >> afford a 56 is the army and development so counseling form which i understand is completed one figure as a quarterly report for the enlisted and officer personnel. >> i don't have that in front of me that i would say that for minotaurs e-echo affect the width it would be great if the person knows what the indicators are. and our reviews suggest that in the area of self radicalization that can be very fuzzy. and so -- and the reason we suggested the fbi as they vardy started doing some work here, so we're saying to the secretary, don't start from scratch, but also the recommendation to use every expert that we know how to get because we're looking for behavioral fuse. and these are subtleties. and once those unknown, i have
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every confidence that our leadership, our supervisors will now have to deal with that. my interpretation of that was we were talking about an education and that's why we've got to have an outreach program that gives the right training to the right people so they understanding of these issues. >> if i'm hearing you right, with regard to which both of you setting your statement in your answers to your questions by far, we did a great job responding at turn six, our men and women were courageous and heroic intimated job. but with the events leading up to the incident, we got some major deficiencies. in fact, admiral, you alluded to this i think you call it an evolving threat for your exact words that you said earlier. are there any protection or preventative measures that are in place to detect for example
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an individual who is one of those folks that i would categorize as an evolving threats, who might simply join in a branch of military with the intention of duplicating what happened at fort hood? what if we got in place now or what do we need to do to ensure that we don't have somebody who spent the last six months and yemen were four years ago spent six months in yemen with the idea of ultimately coming back and having been framed to go when and if the cape event? >> or even who spent a bunch of years or months out in the wilds of her country becoming radicalized in a different way under different impressions. the question is the same. you're right, senator, there was no feeling by those at fort hood and a response. if there were gaps, and within us as we try to prepare ourselves to identify those factors that would say this
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person is going to be a problem. we need to act. but i think your question was for the admiral. >> i agree completely with what secretary west has said. and now we're talking with the thrust of your question gets us to this issue of the identification question that i raised this point too. and that identification question basis things about the manner in which we do checks and what's involved there. and i think it would be smart not to inform an enemy in a public way about my particular impression if it's all right with you that we talk about that in closed session. but affirming your comments, this is part of the challenge. and by the way, should we not expect that they are going use every technique and scheme of maneuver that they could figure out. >> absolutely, that's why we
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have to number one get the information, but further to your point you stated earlier admiral as we've got to share that information. it's got to get into the hands of the people who are filling out those forms or are making recommendations relative to an individual. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> can i say one more time, get rid of the barriers inside and outside of the department. the barriers to information flow. >> esther chairman, i'm sorry to keep us going back and i had one more thought to that? here's another problem that your questions in admiral clark's response and that is let's take religion. the reason we have members in record on the representation of people of various relations and our forces is because they self identify. they say, this is my religion or i'm an episcopalian or what have
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you. what about those who formulate a reason to hide their purposes? i don't disclose their religion. don't disclose anything that would cause less to try to -- this is not your term, to try to profile. it's the indicators, the behavioral cues that we have to rely on. they are our only way of getting at this in any organized and aggressive and effective way. >> and one more comment and so that you know, the alleged perpetrator was initially in the army as an enlisted person and he went off and went to school. when he came in the army the first time, he professed to be a member of the islamic faith. and when he came in as an officer, he did not declare. so all of the indicators are right in front of our nose, but i've got all the statistics here to talk about every brand of
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religion that we know about. the reality is that the way over half of our people never, ever declare what they choose not to declare. so it's not always immediately apparent and that's why this is a challenge. but really focusing on the behaviors and that's what we wanted to put the spotlight on. the department in its guidance and instruction to the commanders and all the people in the field are going to go by this document. and this document doesn't have to associate guidance about self radicalization. >> thank you, senator nelson. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for your dedication and time and putting together very well organized and i think insightful reports. i appreciate it very much. so far we haven't really talked about, let's say, patient or the evaluation process. and of course, connecting the
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dots requires that kind of an evaluation capability for it to be able to tell us anything in determining behavior if you don't have all the background, perhaps you can't establish that. violence in the workplace is not unique now to the military. it's part of everyday life, unfortunately. and that kind of violence isn't necessarily a result of self radicalization in the workforce. so i'm wondering, and connecting the dots as he looks forward not only self radicalization, do you look for other indicators in your report and shouldn't the military look for others such as marital difficulties and other areas that admiral clark, you identify a condition. because self radicalization is a subset of an overall problem when we talk about workforce violence. it may be that the military is
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more unique -- is unique in that respect because it's not just about domestic. we also have to face it on our military posts around the world. so when connecting the dots, you think we understand that not all radicals will be engaging in violence and not everyone with a different idea will engage in violent. so what are the things that can be looked at in performance evaluations that would help us detect potential violence coming not just from self radicalization, but from others as well? >> is a really great question and it drives us back to, as i review the guidance that's there today, we find that there are good indicators in a lot of areas. and i've mentioned a number of these that include the two that you talk about. although, our view as the whole
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workplace side is we tend to focus on the kind of violence that takes place away from the workplace, not in the worst place. but let's just talk about the domestic peace corps example. earlier we talked about the requirement for balance. we have been dealing with this for years. so we learned a long time ago that if the balance was incorrect, we were going to have difficulty because a domestic violence situation always has a she says he says scenario i'm going. and so, we know how to do these things when we identify the behaviors. now the reason -- and so, you are correct. we have -- we've got them -- >> we have the tools right now. >> does is why we're suggesting that perhaps we went to consider the establishment of an organization, a piece of the structure that does this for a
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living. because this isn't -- you can't, you or i cannot define a solution set today and everything be perfect for the next three years. it's going to change. our suggestion is we need to understand the evolving world that we're facing. let us not get sidetracked on a little piece of this. the secretary's goal was to make the workplace a safe environment. and imagine, and secretary west really alluded to this. when the alleged perpetrator, he was an officer in the military. he was a field grade officer. this implies trust. he's a medical doctor, implies more dressed. he's somebody that a person would confide in. we can't have these kinds of people turning from the inside
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on our people and destroying the fabric of the institution and what we're all about. and so, we are convinced that this plan calls for the kind of investment that will ensure that we are staying up with the adoption problem, that this is a challenge to be adaptive. i'm so pleased that the secretary of defense addresses straight up on friday and said we've got to create more deputy force. >> just as an add-on, in terms of your question, what are some of the things that should be indicators? we have a whole list of recommendations and incidentally in our appendix c. for purposes of being helpful to you, we list all the recommendation, the findings of recommendations and something about them so it's easier for you to find them without having to go all through. so at about 2.6 or so and all the way through that to 2.10 or
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so, there's a list of things that address which you said for example. you said, what about medical? well, so did we. we know that the medical indication and medical records are protected and they should be. but we raised the question of whether we should review whether there are ways to make some of that history, especially when it pertains to something i've said before, abuse and the like available on a more regular basis to those who need to have these indicators. >> and you don't have all the dots, you can't connect them. >> exactly. >> thank you come on mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator nelson. senator thune. >> thank you and i want to express my appreciation to the admiral for all of your service to this country and obviously being called back in the service your extraordinary work in
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regard to this tragic incident. i also want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to those who lost in my members and loved ones during this terrible event. it was a horrific event in our nations history. the fact it happened at fort hood, a place where more people have deployed to fight against terrorism than any other place is really heartbreaking and our heartfelt appreciation goes to those first responders who once informed of the situations you will have noted. they showed tremendous professionalism and duty and in doing so saved a lot of lives. i want to ask you about a couple of findings in your report. one is finding 3.8 february view, which states and i quote, the department of defense does not have a policy governing privately owned weapons, and quotes. your recommendation states that dod needs to repeal the need for such a policy. and i guess my question is, can
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you explain what you mean by a privately owned weapons policy? >> there exists, for example, at fort hood, which among other things is a popular place for hunting. and so a lot of folks come on to hunt. the effort to have some sort of control over guns has to be carefully balanced against the need to come and use it, but also the security of the post. we've got works and it works at a number of installations as this, if you live, first of all, a weapon issued by the united states military to its personnel are locked in the armory if you're listed, they are secured. so on the day of the event, the only armed person on the scene until those were part of the security force was the
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perpetrator. the policy works this way then. if you live in the barracks, then your privately owned weapon must of course be owned and publicly registered according to the state and federal law and the like, but also needs to be registered so they know what's there. and if you live in the barracks, it is also secured the army. if you live in personal quarters on the barracks, probably registered with the commander, but you keep them in your home. if you live off the pace, the only requirement is that they be registered in the courts of state and federal law because you don't have it on the base. if you bring them onto the base, previously there was no way to know when that happened if you were a card-carrying member of the armed forces, if you had your credentials. now there's going to be a requirement and i guess there
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always was, you are subject to the same role as anyone bringing privately on records on the base. let us know that you're bringing them on breaking at the gates. what doesn't exist is any way in which bringing them on and concealing them, if you worry credentialed member of the armed forces could have been detect it. we really don't have the answer in how to deal with that. but if we do know that it is a gap in the protection that was accorded to those that day. we know one other thing. the policies vary from post to post. so the question we raise is simply this, give some thought, dod, see which to have a dod policy with respect to the bringing and the use of private west end weapons by the post of members of the u.s. military. fairly straightforward. >> and where you just described is the policy at or fort hood.
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and the suggestion is simply that dod adopted the uniform -- the >> consider. >> all rights, without getting into the details of all that. and it brings me to another question because you have described the timing of the incident, the report, news reports have said it lasted by ten minutes and 40 seconds after the initial 9/11 call, installation and first responders arrived, 1.5 minutes later the assailant was incapacitated which accounts for about four minutes into account that the timeline, which as you said, his almost superhuman in terms of response time. it really is remarkable and great credit to those who responded. can we assumed then that there was a time. before they got there if in fact, you said seven or eight minutes? the >> that was our best and
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estimate. we just give the best estimate. >> which is still a significant amount of time. and i guess the question has to be promised a follow-up to the previous questions. but at the soldiers would've been armed at the time, in other words, let you carry small firearms, in your opinion, could more lives have been saved? >> may as well give an answer. >> well, they are soldiers. if they had been carrying their weapons around on them, it would've been different. how different? how can i tell you. but with the timeline of been? of course, it would have been different. >> what i was hesitating about as i thought this is a natural lead into the act shooter program as well, which admiral clark spent some time talking about. well, maybe we didn't go into detail but the answer to your
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question is armed service members, the difference of course is security personnel trained to take down someone in those circumstances differently. >> writes. >> and in two ways. in the past the practices clear out all the innocent. those who are unarmed. those are being assailed and many take down the shooter. that had been the product is for law enforcement agencies around the united states. but there has been the advocate of the response to active shooter program, which is more and more becoming a response, which is train your people, your security people well with firearms and then go when and as their first priority take on the shooter before he or she can do more damage to those who are there. the risks are obvious and that's why the emphasis is on training and the fbi have cautioned that
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we really need a carefully selected and well-trained force to do that. it was done at fort hood. >> and they performed extremely well. >> may add one other point? my response was brief, almost to the point of being brusque. let me just add, it would've made a difference, but if i was a commander, would that be the first thing i did is to arm all the people on the base? that's not what i would do. would it make a difference in some portion of them were armed? of course it would. but the reason i wouldn't arm everybody is because of the fact it was so change the environments that we live in and i don't think that's the immediate solution in good order of discipline. >> well, i guess in response to that, if in fact there is going to be some consideration given to a policy or departmentwide policy with regard to firearms,
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i would hope it would not be more restrict the. ecocide you think these are soldiers. these are people who are trained. and clearly if anybody would be prepared, probably not trained exactly an emergency response, but people who would be trained and prepared and equipped to effectively use a firearm to save other lives, it would be someone in the united states military and that's my observation. so i had some other questions that amount of time. so thank you all very much. >> thank you mr. thune. >> can i go on record as object into the comments that was made by the distinguished senator from oklahoma and reference to profiling? i also want to commend the two distinguished public servants here, one of whom i have known since he was a freshman at howard university and to see him
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move through the ranks and commit all this service to america is what i anticipated when i saw him as a freshman when i was in law school at howard and of course seen him graduate also from howard law school. so secretary west, tremendous job from the people of america. >> thank you, senator. you're a lifeline public-service. >> admiral, i appreciate your service as well. i just didn't attend school with you, so. i am really seeking to see how we cannot the major problem that do well are tasked to do. and i had other questions, but the hearing has just provoked some other thoughts. in mr. secretary, you mentioned the fact that when you take an
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oath of office in the military, i'm just wondering whether or not there's a different standard on the constitutional right that you have after you've taken the oath of office or if it's something -- something never been in the military and i just want to know whether or not a person who has taken enough, there are different standards that they are held to, for example, the free-speech article or the right to bear arms article which was brought up by senator thune. could you comment on that, please? the >> i will and i think you'll be interested to hear the views of someone who has commanded at every level and decide to give these instructions to his officers and those serving under him. but years ago as the dod council and we tried to remain coverts with us. i was a jack officer as well. and the basic world is
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fascinated here it services data, whether they are officers or enlisted to come into the service says are still citizens of the united states. they do not give up the basic constitutional rights and protections. they get to speak, especially when they're on their own time and not in uniform, freely. they get to associate on the same circumstances. they are entitled if they are accused of criminal activity while i'm not a duty to make trial with a number, a number of the constitutional protections. not all because as i think admiral clark observed, they do agree when they take the oath of office to put some things, as he sat on the shelf. for example, when they're in uniform, they can't just say anything they darn well please. i may have set it to boldly, there are lots of things you can add in, qualifications, it's
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just a fact of life. and frankly, when they're on active duty in uniform, they can't just go anywhere at anytime to do whatever they please. they are under orders. they're an in obligations either as officers or is enlisted or as ncos to respond as they are directed to carry out their orders fully. they represent this country as well as serving. i've said that we too broadly unsure but i think it gives an overlay that says yes they don't ever stop being citizens to you don't lose their constitutional protections, but there are some limits that can be imposed on them under lawful military authority. >> secretary west said all that like a true veteran ideas. it was absolutely perfect. and i would just add that so let's say we are having, it's the political season and people are running for office. a member of the armed forces is not allowed to show up there in
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uniform. now if they choose to do so and values my words very carefully, they will be counseled to be sure, i would say, they would probably be part of a short but exciting conversation is the way i might put it. and there are other areas when we are overseas, the first thing we tell our sailors as they do are ambassadors of the united states of america. and we put limits on the kind of things that we expected them to do when things that we clearly expect them not to do. so those are the things that we are speaking to. and certainly as secretary west said so correctly, basic constitutional rights are never in question. >> thank you, admiral. and other general question running through my mind. now in your work in this short
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period have time, did, did you all seek to assess other violent acts that may have taken place on military bases on american soil or military bases, say the incident in iraq were soldiers supposedly snapped and killed fellow service members. did you well look into that? the >> absolutely. team one went into great detail of policies across the board. they're the group that is reviewed over 30,000 pages of instructions and policies and it was incredible. we called this the ominous team. it was an unbelievable task that they had. and they use, as a frame of reference, to look into the special cases and say, now are they are weakness is here because secretary of defense asked us to look for weaknesses in policies and programs and procedures and caps. and so we looked at those and
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basically we found that this instruction that i hold in front of me, by the way, has extensive detail about the questions you raised about the things that you can and cannot do. in other words, they're prohibited activities are outlined here. but our team used those particular cases like you saw as a springboard inside, are the policies adequate bikes and fundamentally, what we're reporting is that -- and let me inject this thought. we know that you can't legislate perfect behavior. that's not possible. so the question is, are the policies fundamentally sound? the areas that we have been putting focus on in the report for specifically this internal threat is where we seek the greatest need. >> i just wonder, gentlemen,
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whether or not in your assessment and in your report we're trying to get at something the procedure says almost impossible to prevent. it's similar to a suicide bomber as i would see a person who is willing to commit to his own death. in all of the policies and procedures we would put in place, all of the corrections. for example, mr. secretary, if you were to have some type of procedure to go one based whether or not to bring her private arms on base or not, what happens if the commanding officer was to have a problem? do you think the mp is going to stop the commanding officer at the gate and search them for his own private weapon and determine whether or not he is bringing a weapon on base as he is determined to make some type of violent act or statement. and just bring that up as a result of our attempt to try and get procedures that are going to
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be in the place that would seek to prevent someone from doing such a violent act. >> that's a very pertinent observation, senator. and it exactly on point. it is why we have emphasized in our report that we can't rely solely on stopping someone at the boundary. we have to have looked for the signs, for the hundred yard stare, for the examples of tensions or difficulties even in a personal life, for the -- and we can do this, if they use government facilities for the communications with extremist persons or organizations on a repeated basis. we can look for all the signs. we come up for the signs of drug abuse because, and imagine that so often because there is some literature that our teams found, team one incident when has this
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report in chapter two as one of those things. we looked for those signs that say that the pastor of the abuse, even when correct date, is often linked later onto plates of violence. so we have to look for white admiral clark discussed in his opening statement. and we must do this over the course of the surveys, to find them early enough so that it doesn't get to the point that he brings his weapon onto the base and some crazed effort. now, that is expressed frankly at the entire report. in thank you for getting right to the heart of it. >> mr. secretary, the question is can this and will this happen again? and god knows we don't want it to. but think about it. thank you, mr. chairman. my time is up.
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>> thank you, senator. >> thank you for the work that you've done and for your past service. thank you for the service. and they also want to extend my condolences to the families of the four hasan soldiers who were killed here in iowa to first of all gestate that i think we all agree and your report certainly says that this was a failure on the front end. we commend the first responders for their fantastic work, but this was a failure. and i don't want to belabor that's because i think it's been talked about, mr. chairman. but there's a houston chronicle of yesterday, richard lardner and calvin woodward of isp submitted for the record, which i think details a lot of the failures in monitoring the major along the way and something should have been done along the way. thank you, sir. what i want to talk about his
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three things and there are questions for you. and the first one is to follow-up on what senator sat through was talking about and that the soldiers on the base carried weapons. this struck me as well because i recently this past week or two for military in florida from naval air station in pensacola to kendall, to a grand to hurlburt air force. and the thing that you notice and different from going to a military airbase in a theater for by going to bogra air force base is that the soldiers and airmen and the soldiers aren't carrying weapons. but when you're at bogra, you see half of the men and women carrying their weapons. and i do think this would've happened potentially at bogra and air force base for two reasons. one is there would've been a huge deterrent to major hasan if he knew some of the older soldiers were carrying weapons. in the second thing is that it
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would have been to stall upon senator thune point there. weather was no responder there, one of the servicemembers i'm sure would've picked up their weapon and fired back. and i hope that you will in your continuing work stress this to the secretary of defense has while i understand the admiral's point about order on the base, there is probably a sweet spot here where some of the folks on a base, even in the united states of america should be carrying weapons. may be where there's going to be large groups gather, i guess that the where this was happening. i don't know if you have any other further comments on that. you are the answers senator thune's question. >> it has happened overseas where day have been carried weapons. it didn't stop there.
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secondly, let's assume that everyone is able to carry weapons, say at fort hood. well, then for a committed or seen it would have been necessary to smuggle them into use them. and thirdly, i guess well -- no, i think first answer to me is enough. if the admiral wants to read a third, i will attend. >> i don't argue with your fundamental point. i would just say that as the commander, i realize that i was responsible for the creation of the environment. and so, the environment, the deployed environment is always different than the environment at home. and so, i think there are a lot of things that i could figure out how to do before i decided to arm every single human being on the base. i don't discount adult your
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point about the degree of difficulty for a shooter. but i believe secretary west has accurately responded. we have cases to be sure. and we have been very careful not to define specific single point.solutions for these cases because for starters, we did this and extraordinarily short time. if we were going to then look at all the possible courses of alternative, solutions for every one of the recommendations we made, we would have needed at least six months and not the sure week. >> i understand that. i used the term sweet spot for a reason. not that she would put a gun on every servicemen and women inside, but that there be some thoughts about this point because i do think that knowing that someone is bearing arms is
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a deterrent and maybe it always hasn't been a deterrent but it can be. and they may have saved 13. we don't know but it may have saved some of them. the second thing is in terms of an senator collins is going to speak in a moment in her homeland security along with senator lieberman has talked about training for all service members and islamic stream is them. i wonder if we don't only need to encourage our servicemembers to look for the science report them, but we need to do more that under the mat and require it. i think something that universities do. i didn't understand the university of virginia but they have a very strong honor code. in the honor code can be broken into is, one by violating and feeling that someone failed to violate. i wonder for your consideration is whether or not we should make a suggestion like that, that you have an obligation of the member of the united states military that if you see something that is out of line to much reported.
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and then if i feel like in my service record i'm going to be reprimanded for not reporting something, none of us like to tell on our colleagues. it's human nature. but i also commend that to you. enough you'd consider want to comment on that. i'd appreciate that as well. >> i think this is the kind of questions and all of the pursuit of potential solutions but the secretary would be think is going on without suggesting one of the resolution or not. phase two is to do the drill down. and they couldn't do the drill down and the whole breadth of things we look back on the 30 plus thousand pages of directions and policies in all of that. but our job was to look at the spotlight on key things they could go to in a hurry. and it's my understanding that this expectation for phase two. >> the third and final point i have is we heard this phrase, connect the dots. and i heard it yesterday when we
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have a commerce committee hearing the secretary napolitano and director laettner about the christmas day bombing attempt. and that's obviously the great struggle is connecting the dots. and you mentioned, admiral, perhaps having some other unit that would try to do that. and that seems to be smart to me that you have someone is going to look, you know, through all the information, not because what they be other jobs but the cast was trying to, i don't know that an internal affairs function, or just a function to make sure that one is out out there looking of these reports that are filled out on different servicemen. i know there's a lot of people in the united states military. though we have really good technology in this country, technology that's being used by the private sector. you know, i don't know if these reports are scanned. i don't know if they are entered on a computer. i don't know someone can use of computing and some of these new techniques to do searches. we failed again on the almost
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herbal tragedy and christmas day because of a misspelling of a name another things that failed in the way we process, gather and evaluate intelligence. and one thing i want to commend to you when you're further discussions with the secretary is if you do establish one of these units is talking to the people in the private sector who developed this wonderful technology and see if it might be innate for helping keep our servicemen and women safe. >> may i comment? so we say in the report that we've been having arguments about who owns what pieces of information. we've been having those discussions long enough you it's time to move on. and so, without defining what that solution is, i don't know how a commander could possibly connect the dots if we doesn't have all of the dots in his.kit.
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but all so i bring attention to this point. we told the secretary, this isn't just in their agency. this is inside the department as well. challenge the assumptions on who has all of the pieces of information. the commanders will be better equipped and we know how brilliant they are when they are given the tools. >> actually, i think the organization that you are thinking about that we recommended was one that's designed to collect all the indicators, keep them catalogs, update them regularly and make them available to commanders and those who have to make decisions. your idea has a thing to do with connecting dots on specific individuals, where those things come up. and that's a interesting
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concept. and it's not one that we necessarily focused on. thank you for that. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lemieux. >> thanks very much do secretary west and admiral clark for the service that you've given. obviously into industry port and for the attack on november 5 was a tragedy and we are very grateful for the efforts that you've made to the department of defense and working with you and this review to assure such a tragedy doesn't happen again. the homeland security committee, senator collins and i are here, has been investigating the fort hood shootings to assess the information the government had prior to the shootings and the actions it took in response to that information. i can tell you that even at this
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early stage of investigation is become apparent to the department of defense dweeby approach to the servicemembers who adopt a violent islamist extremist ideology needs to be revised. senator collins and i sent a letter last week along those lines to secretary gates. i know their sensitivity on this about the other muslim americans who are serving honorably in our military. but i honestly think a more focused approach in an open approach on islamist extremism will protect the great majority, overwhelming majority of muslims serving in the army and will maintain the bonds of trust that are so necessary in a military context among servicemembers of all religions. it seems to me in the fortunate case that there were many indicators that the dow sub six
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needed to commit these murders in furtherance of his own violence extremist ideology. but i must say respectfully that your report only trend generally mentions that particular thread in contrast, your review recommends generally the department identify common indicators leading up to a wide range of destructive events, regardless of the individual's identity. i understand again the department of defense's need to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of all its servicemembers and employees, but i think it's also critically important and i don't see it in your report as much as i neier so many of the recommendations you've made that we recognize the specific threads posed by violent islamist extremism to our military. so i wanted to ask you first how you think the department in the
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services should address the specific threat of violent islamist extremism and if you want to respond to my concern generally about this matter. i will add that i remember being disappointed, troubled after the fort hood murders when general casey first response described the incident as a force protection failure, which i suppose in one sense it was. but it was also a terrorist attack in my opinion. into a certain extent, the title is your report that continues this emphasis as opposed to a focused emphasis on the problem were facing, just as we focus earlier after fort bragg on the very real problems come expressively of rights to the extremism. i welcome your response, generally and particularly. >> i was the secretary of the army at the time of the fort bragg incident, senator, and
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because i was given a little more leeway i ordered the review that occurred. and we operated under the same constraints than, the folks appointed operated numbers the same constraints we do now and that is they had an ongoing military justice investigation. and in fact, because the victims were civilians and the acts occurred off post in fayette will, still to this day one is struck. i mean, the servicemembers required civilians to kneel and shot them execution style. and so, there were several multiple criminal investigations. and so that task force that was appointed could not get into what might have been criminal aspects or anything that would have impaired the trials. we operate on that same constraints. >> okay, so that's the reason you felt you couldn't be more
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explicit about islamist extremism? >> well, what we had to say, a lot of it is in the restricted amex. but no, i think the second two your point, second point we had is respectfully, yes it was and yes it is a force protection issue. that is the way in which it was handed to us and that is the way in which we have to approach it. in that case, it is every kind of extremism, every kind of opportunity for violence that we were going to have this one-shot, admiral clark and i too made recommendations to the department of defense has to be sure to cover. and so does come a win for indicators, for cues on the lake, but we did not exclude any source of violence and we specifically did not include the source that comes from radical
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islamic beliefs associated with the actions that go with it. admiral clark has some thoughts he wants to add. i know we talked about it more than once. and so i'm going to stop here. but that's my brief oversight of how we approached it. >> before we go to admiral clark, let me just follow up while i'm thinking about it. goes after those heinous murders at fort bragg and 95, general king testified issued this pamphlet that are quite directed towards other racial extremism and specifically detail some of the key indicators to look for in white supremacy, which i thought was exactly the right thing to do. of course. and the question now is do you think they should issue a similar type of pamphlet with the same kinds of recommendations to address the threat of violent islamist
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extremism, because that's the reality. do you want to respond to that? >> only that i think you make a good point. >> okay, thank you very >> good to see you again, senator. in my opening statement i talk about violence. and i made the point that somehow vindicated that we did not address the kind of violence that you are speaking to, radical islamic fundamentalist untracked fundamentalism and the behavior that goes with that. and the point that i make is yes we did. because secretary gates wrote to us in terms of reference that talked about violence in the workplace and the people, including people hurting themselves, we decided to go after it in that way.
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but we used the term radicalization and self radicalization dozens of times in the report. which we intended to make there. we are talking about every kind of violent behavior, including this. and then we go 12 then specify in our recommendations. and i made the point about tears the department of defense and direct days that talks about prohibited act dvds. and our point is this document is inadequate to the task when dealing with self radicalized individuals. so that's what we're talking about. i could not agree with you more completely that we need the outreach program, outreach i mean we've got to reach out and let people know what positions are and where the red lines are and behaviors. and then with that goes all the training that you talk to. so i've made that a matter of my
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prior testimony. i'm in complete alignment with that view. >> okay, i appreciate that clarification. in my opinion, of course this is a concern about force protection generally. but because this is a unique new threat we're facing, i think the more explicit we are about it, the clearer it's going to be and the better off are going to be because as some of the regulations earlier had to go with almost cold war scenarios. many of his response to a the supremists killings. and all porcelli reified two cases in a portion of the way things were going were going to have some more. so the protection of the force we need force weetabix was about what the threat is. i time is up. thank you. >> thank you very much, senator lieberman. senator collins. >> thank you very much,
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mr. chairman. thank you for your continued public service. senator lieberman, the chairman of our homeland security has asked exactly the question that i planned to ask, which is not a surprise because we've been working together on the whole issue of homegrown terrorism and the threat of islamist extremism. i do want to follow up a bit on the point that senator lieberman just made because i was struck when i read the public part of your report by the decision to omit the term islamist extremism from the public report. and it troubled me. it troubled me because it appeared to contrast sharply with the approach that dod has taken in the past. your report recommends that the army focus on a broad range of
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motivations for violence rather than focusing on specific causes. but that's not what the department and the army did after the racially motivated murders associated with fort bragg back in 1995. the 1996 guidance is striking because it squarely faces the problem. and i believe that's why i was so affected. it is clear message that white supremacist had no place among our troops. and i believe we need to send a similarly clear message. and indeed, in 1996 in response to the fort wright incident and obviously mr. secretary, you're
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more familiar with it denice and seo were involved in correct and the problem at the time. but in response, commanders were specifically advised to be aware of quote, indicators of possible extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. they were told to look for specific signs, such as reading materials or the use of a personal computer to visit extremist sites. these signs were geared towards identifying what the white supremacy. but senator lieberman has suggested in our letter to secretary gates is that same kind of focus, squarely admitting what the problem is. so my worry is that the perception of your report for
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those wanted you to read the public part will be that we're not facing the problem squarely, the way we did in the mid-1990's. and it worked. the guidance was excellent. it involved training here at our commanders, are enlisted troops. it appears to have been very successful. so without presuming to speak for my chairman, senator lieberman, that's what we're suggesting,, that we squarely face this threat to our troops. so i went and what i realized that and more of a comment than a question by urging you to more explicitly address this specific threat. it doesn't ignore the fact that there were other sources of violence. but in

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