joy and gratitude from their eyes, the blue bomber was finally off the streets. [laughter] unfortunately, the blue bomber landed just outside the gates of heaven. the sight of the blue bomber and the barking and snarling shammy at the window was hardly a welcome sign to the new arrivals, many of whom immediately started considering the alternatives. [laughter] simply put, the blue bomber and shammy were bad for business which brings us to why we are assembled here today. we speak of heaven, we speak of a place where the sick have been cured, the dead have been raised, lepers have been cleansed and demons have been cast out. in heaven all things are possible except, as it turned

out, nobody could start the blue bomber. so there was no choice, to get the bomber and shammy off the front lawn, it was imperative that their owner be called home, a call that caused all the angels of heaven to shout hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. heaven is even a better place today because mac mathias is here even if we here on earth are the poorer. it's not unusual for people standing where i am to start reaching for experiences, examples of grand moments that illustrate the achievements of the person being honored. i need not do that. all of us have had those moments with mac mathias, moments when we saw him at his best. giving voice to the voiceless, standing up for those too weak to stand for themselves, embracing the constitution when others abandoned that document for personal expediency.

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>> there's no way to capture his essence. but there is a mathias moment which i will always remember. you won't find in the congressional record. nor any the archives of his speeches, or any of the thousands of gatherings in which charles mathias was the center of attention. there was a moment in the senate chamber, a moment that's forgettable and was obscure to quorum call. he told me so much about the man i read your. it centered around a debate in the senate, the issue is not important. at one point the senator on the losing side of the debate raise a point of order. the chair upon advice of the parliamentarian's ruled against the point of order. something unusual for that era occurred. an appeal was taken from the

decision of the chair. the question before the senate was whether to sustain the chair. senate staffers as we all want to do, begin preparing guidance for the bosses on what was at stake, who made the appeal, what was the underlying issue, how was senator expo, how would senator wyden out? mac mathias, regardless of whether his party or his friends may stand on the issue, regardless of the popularity of the issue, all those things were less important. partisanship he made clear, neither would friendship, he believed that partnership should not come into play on decisions based on principle. on rules and precedents that bind an institution, under which good order, fairness, also depend. so senator mathias didn't need a briefing. he would vote to sustain the ruling of the chair. that spirit of independence and

faithfulness to the principles of good governments conform the wife of senator mathias. he saw the place of government and standing behind, not in front of the constitution. to him the dictates of law, equal rights and interests of worth of every human being were buyers that could not be subjected. the american dream in his you allowed no less. someone said he was a renegade, if so, then so were thomas jefferson and teddy roosevelt and jacob javits and feel hard. so was martin luther king. and yet this gentleman was hold his tongue when all around him were losing theirs. i once asked him after he me with a group of visitors who had managed strong opinions on an issue, how he managed to hear them out without getting caught up in the argument.

senator mathias said he learned a lesson from the late speaker sam rayburn when they served together in the house of representatives. colby, he said, they can't get you for what you don't say. i also learned from my hero that there were other moments where words would simply fail. times when we just can't make things happen. when nothing can be done, when halla places cannot be filled, when things must come to an end. sometimes when that happens, senator mathias told me, the only thing left to do is to put your leg up on the wagon wheel and weep right along with them. when the celebration is over, when the songs have ended, the joy has subsided, the day slips into night, when the sorrow and the pain and the quiet suffering

of our loss sinks in, the only thing left to be done is to lean against the wagon wheel and weep. >> i would like to add my thanks to each of you for coming today. it is a true honor to us, and to dad. i know how much it would have meant to him to see everybody here. robin colby have done a lovely job of painting a picture of dad that stands for itself. as they have noted, dad lived a large. but he also knew the importance of detail. so, i would like to focus on some details, some words, in fact, some words in french, that i came to understand where

windows into the person dad was and the type of person he wanted to be. i should explain why these words are, in fact, in french. of course, dad loved his country, profoundly. he loves maryland. deeply. and frederick always had a special place in his heart. but you could not find a greater citizen of the world than bad. he reveled in the world to great false. it's a narrow streets and his grand boulevards. he loved its desert ruins and its teeming cities. above all, he loved its open spaces. farmland anywhere was precious. and what he would be the first to agree that when a man is tired of london, he is tired of life, dad had a jeffersonian fascination with france, a fascination that animate our conversations until the end. this may seem odd, but in truth not so much. dad was a tremendous student and deep reader of history. in particular, dad felt the

french history during the tumultuous years of the 18th century was an encyclopedia of teachable moments involving power, politics, personal responsibility, irony and sorrow, that remain relevant to us today. in particular, he thought was nothing short of a miracle that the french declaration of the rights of man was written in virtually the same time as our own bill of rights, without the benefit of telephones, e-mail, or blogs. does it is thought there is powered and french words. one phrase that bad like to use was, its translation is think in french, but when dad use it he meant think like the french, whose courtesy and civility in the way they turn of phrase he always admired. initially used to coach an ungrateful teenager, and that would have been me, i came to learn after i moved through that

phase, or this after i thought i did, these words were another reflection of the deep currency that was one of dad's hallmarks. it's the courtesy he felt all people deserve, whether at the top of the day, and a policy debate, our round the dinner table, or just when one was trying to borrow the car keys. it is also the courtesy he maintained even in the face of chronic and difficult illness. dad's courtesy wasn't weak kneed. it should not be confused with weakness. it was strong and determined. combined with another french word that rob has already use, it made him an extraordinary and effective person, profession and to his family. it was truly his motto. dad liked as a word because he understood the power of its meaning. it means to persevere, to press on. to keep moving even as the moving it's very tough. this is how he thought to advance civil rights to say the

chesapeake bay. and explains his concern for the environment and why he planted acorns that he gathered from the lawn of the capital at the far. he knew those acorns embodied the oak trees will to carry on a and the they have become are a lovely legacy that should outlast us all. nowhere was dad's perseverance more apparent than in the way he led his own life, including in the last few years. dad lived his motto until the very end. i'm sure none of you would be surprised that dad renewed his passport a few months ago. nor would you be surprised to learn, as we did the other night, that just two weeks before he died, dad paid a visit to the senate, greeting the guards, welcoming visitors, and meeting old friends in a place he truly loved. while dad lived his life with civility and perseverance, it must be confessed that he also lived it a little on the fly. so when i think a bad i also think of another french word,

which means to improvise. dad would sometimes simply make it up as he went along. this led us to great and memorable adventures, planting pinecones, keeping peacocks, raccoons and reins in chevy chase, raising chesapeake bay retrievals that were gentle giants, scoring five store dinners without a reservation, or turning a simple errand on the way home from school into a visit with the president, and his helicopter. it was really quite wonderful. i know a lot of a lot of work accompanied the serendipity with which everything appeared to come together, i'm sure there are people throughout this great church you know exactly what i mean, and dad knew it, too. this is what our parents did so well. and mathias, our mother, dad's wife and partner for over 50 years, shared all of the adventure and so much of the work. known to many friends simply as

mrs. m., i want to acknowledge the love that she and dad shared and all that she did to help dad met together the details of his personal and professional lives to ensure that his zeal for improvisation was transformed into a series of resounding successes. mom, we love you for that. we love you for what you did for dad, and for all of us. teen dad include the rest of us, rob, sarah, claire, katie and me. he loved us all. team that also include everyone here today. it is an amazing group of family, friends, and staff as well as the people from maryland across the country and around the world who believe in and work for him. i would like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. dad didn't improvise about today, however. while he left us with plenty of room to maneuver, he was quite specific about certain things that he wanted. in particular, he asked that we

all join in a special prayer that gave him great comfort in his last days. so, as a final way for all of us to stick with dad, i would like us to save carbonyl whisper at night. which is in your programs. let us pray. overlord, supporters all day long until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes. and the busy world is hushed. and the fever of life is over. and our work is done. been in thy mercy, grant us a safe launching and a holy rest, and peace at the last. amen.

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♪ ♪ >> ann, charlie and rob, sarah, and your magnificent granddaughters, ann, claire and

katie. remember what i told you, girls. no boys until you're 30. [laughter] >> you had a wonderful grandfather. all of us are here today to celebrate, but i must say, also mourn with you. it's always a tough time to lose a father, a husband, grandpa. the united states senate, many of whom are here, former members, present members, the state of maryland, the entire country mourns with you. for we all understand we have lost a great man. a fierce leader, a believer in right and good and the true, and in a selfish since i lost a

fellow who was a mentor of mine. when i first came to the senate as a 29 year old kid. i got to tell you, you were saying, rob, that you're dead, or maybe we should, charlie, said your dad talk about kindness, humility. i got most of them except that patients part. he really had to work awful hard on me on that one. i served with mac for 14 years, many served longer that are sitting here. they were my first years in the senate, and i learned long after he left our chamber that the whole time i had served with him, he was truly looking out for me. that he had taken me under his wing. and i guess i kind of knew that from the first time i met your mom and dad. it was back, ann, you might remember this, back in

january 1973. i had just been admitted to the senate, a little air than most of my colleagues because i came along later. and we were riding on a bus. i was riding a bus with dan and mac from austin, texas, where he had just attended the memorial service for president johnson. and the bus was heading to his ranch at stonewalls, texas, for the burial. it was only about an hour's ride, but in that hour, i learned a lifetime's worth about the profound depths of compassion and the towering heights of dignity of your mom and/or dad. ann, you were so kind to me on that ride. in that short hour, when that texas does, i learned what it meant to serve my country with a keen mixture of both rossi and grace. and i learned what it meant to lead. and are never getting off that bus feeling better about being in the senate.

and as ann will remember, i didn't want to come to the senate. i had just lost my wife and daughter in an automobile accident, and my two boys were both still hospitalized your but the way you put your arms around, literally and figuratively, ann, and the way that mac and bracing, it was when it became clear to me that charlie and rob, both our dad has something in common about that word, perseverance. but i was politely told with a great deal of warmth and comfort was, it was about persevering. and i remember getting off that bus, as we boarded the plane, and i remember thinking, i hope, i hope i can be a lofty standards of the couples who i had just written with two hours with, to and from stonewall. but format, more than anything else, i learned about courage.

both moral and political courage. as a vicki kennedy knows, a quote of robert kennedy, i heard katie use it with moral courage is more rare commodity than bravery in battle, more great intelligence. well, mac served his country in the key mutations ship in the pacific in world war ii. and yes, as a charlie has pointed out, as well as rob, and we all work with the new he had a team in the late. from the time he spent at harvard, llama, columbia. it was second to none. i used to get them, you say he's not a democrat is he went to yale. [laughter] >> but it was most of all of max moral courage. the rarest of those commodities that made him stand out from many of the great men and women with whom i have served.

i was telling ann in the vestibule that when i left the senate after being elected for the seventh time, the senate historian pointed out to me, i was thinking i would be flattered that only 17 men in the history of the united states and have served longer than i have. all i could hear was my father's phrase, that's a definition of a new spent adulthood. [laughter] >> but the reason i mention that is not that i lasted a long time, but i got to meet a lot of really great and women and men. with whom i served. so when i speak of mac and his moral courage, i don't speak of it as a casual observer. i've been there since 1972, and mac had that most rare of commodities. moral courage, and made him stand out, as i said, from many of the great men with whom i answered. mac had a value set, a value set

that he'd simply refuse to walk away from a. when in today's political environment, people would run away from in order to save their political skin. but everybody forgets, as difficult as these days are, as rob pointed out, you know, the '60s were equally as difficult. as a matter of fact, in many senses they were more difficult. and they required greater clarity and moral courage. because we are at one of those great inflection points in american history. and fortunately, we had men like mac mathias, teddy kennedy, and others i won't begin today because i don't want to leave somebody out. but politically expedient, politically expedient in my observation never mattered, never meant anything to mac.

and moral compromise made even less. i will not recount, as i had attended to do, because of the wonderful remembered his bus far, but you know, think about it. mac voting against and coming out against the vietnam war went incredible pressure was being placed on him as a loyal republican. mac marching with gloria steinem in the midst of a highly charged atmosphere. when most people were hoping not to actually having to talk to either one of them with a cabazon, because they were lightning rods. wonderful, wonderful people. but such political lightning rod for significant parts of our constituency. and mac just the up and marched with them. campaigning for campaign finance reform. oh, god, had he won.

want a different country this would be had mac prevailed on campaign finance reform. not a very popular position to be in, as a leading republican. i served with mac in the senate judiciary committee and foreign relations committee. it was the entire 14 years that we served together. watching him step up, issue after issue after issue. i wondered how in gods name can he survive. particularly with political representation. the party he belonged to at the time. as the bishop went out to me, it was noted that he voted with republicans 31 percent of the time. i used to get your dad and say that he is really a democrat, but for his pedigree he would be a democrat. all this fun stuff through him off, you know? [laughter] >> and my middle name, so you know. but i've overcome it.

to be a democrat. but all kidding aside, you have read a lot since mac's death about how he would reach across the aisle. i never thought about mac reaching across the aisle. i thought of mac has never even recognizing there wasn't i'll. i never thought of mac is having to go out of his way to reach across. it was who he was. there was no artificial divide. there was only principle to mac. and who would approach every issue with his pretzels from but unlike with many today, even then, with his mind open. his principles were firm, but he had an open mind. he would approach every issue that way. to mac, right and wrong were not defined by whether or not you had a dnr placed after your name. they were defined by what was in

your heart. and mac never let any other force guide him, but that one. i rely here in the words of ralph emerson who said whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you, you are wrong. there are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. to map out a course of action, and follow it to the end, requires courage. it seemed to me your father never had a doubt about what course he would set. it seemed to me that it was just almost instinctive with them, although he could articulate in ways that were beyond my capabilities. mac had his critics. he heard that some others. but he harbored no doubts that i could observe about what he believes, no reservations about his core principles. for your people, a fairer

system, a quality for everyone. not just here in the united states, but around the world. i remember one time, charlie, that i was really sort of disappointed in your dad. and i realized it was his wisdom that was carrying him. we had george shultz, and you remember this and counter, paul. george shultz was testified before a committee, a great man. and we're having a hearing on apartheid. and secretary shultz was making the administration's arguments that we should not be imposing sanctions and so on, and i got very upset with one comment he made. and i said a very angry, i said i'm ashamed, i am ashamed of this administration. and before paul could get to me, a no got slipped across the chairman to me saying, from mac, saying call down, big fella. calm down. calm down. like i said, you learned that

patients thing, better than i did, boys. >> i remember, and i will speak to it in a second, i remember going to his office afterwards. because i was angry. i was fuming. about this injustice. and i thought, mac mathias, along with katie and others, you know, my heroes in terms of civil rights, how could he have not just eaten, even the skylights? what he was saying. i walked in the office, and that beautiful lovely dog. [laughter] >> actually, i like that beast. and mac, if my memory serves me, he had a little table in front of his desk with a tea set on it. and he got up from behind that desk, in his rumpled suit, and i was still fuming. and he walked around and he poured a cup of tea and said sydow, joe. this will help you. and then began to say to me,

colby in effect, they can't get you for what you don't say. and joe, you are saying too much. i understand, and he went through with me. he not only made me feel better when i walked out, but ended up leading the fight to succeed in it. getting the very objective accomplished that i care deeply about. and ann, you know one of the measures of how much you're in sync with other men or women, is whether or not the people you admire the most are similar through mutual acquaintances. mac and in my case, those people were identical. the times last week listed the senators he most admired. j. williams albright, mike mansfield, john sherman cooper, clifford case. levitated, that's my list, too. except the one they might add to

the list is mac mathias. these men formed the intellectual moral commerce of the united states, in my early years in the united states senate. they came from very different parties and different backgrounds. but they all shared one thing in common. they all believe in basic human decency. gender and racial equality, they belonged to a political party, but they were patriots first. instead, they give themselves, as i observe them, and i knew all of them relatively well except john sherman cooper, they all, they all started from the premise that they represented all the american people. mac was part of that moral compass. his true north always was pointing towards what was best for the people of maryland, and our country, and for the world. people today think that to march

out of lockstep with your political party, to speak out independently is some sort of new form of courage. well, folks it's been around a long time. it is just pretty rare supply these days. but it's always been in rare supply. it was in rare supply then. folks, mac was speaking out independently a generation ago. and if he didn't invent what it meant to be independent in the united states senate, then he helped to define and master it. on top of it all, mac was always a gentleman, graceful without pretense. he had, as i said, he had the way of calling things. without anyway backing down from how deeply he felt about an issue or a principal.

he was calm all the time. at least my observation. he was the calm in the center of the storm, and there were many storms in those first 14 years i was around. he was the voice of reason at times when reason itself was a very rare commodity. i like to think of mac having suffered greatly from a horrible disease and a much better place now. and one day when it is our time to hopefully join him there, he is going to greet us with that warm smile, calmly stand up in that rumpled suit, pour a glass of tea and say, settle down, and welcome. mac, you are already missed. but i suspect you're looking down right now, old buddy, and say stay calm, joe. but one of the other things i figure looking down, and i hope you're looking down on all of this, i employees to send a little of your steadfast belief

in unity and common cause and ideals that transcend politics, and read it into the souls of our friends on the hill, and keep reminding me of it as well. may your spirit guide us all, mac. those of us who knew you and loved you will forever be pulled along by your undying decency that lay at the heart of everything you did. ann, when i think of mac, i think that maybe the british historian thomas mccauley, must have had mac in mind when he wrote the measure of man real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. mac is one of the man that i'm

actually confident would have acted no differently under any of the circumstances he participated in. even if he knew he would be never found out. thank god we found out and had an opportunity to know just how decent and honorable man he was. and ann, i don't think he could've done it without you. you are a lady, and i'm honored to know you. thank you for askinge to be here. ♪ ♪

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>> now former homeland security secretary michael chertoff discusses counterterrorism and security. the hudson institute in washington host this event. it is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the hudson institute. my name is christopher sense that i'm a senior fellow here at hudson and it's my great pleasure today to introduce michael chertoff. who is our main speaker, and also ann mcclellan who was on her way, still coming down from canada. she says it is the americans

fault they won't let her lead, not so much the canadians fall because they would let her sleep despite the weather that we will hopefully have her join us that program. michael chertoff is some of the many of you know that he is today chairman and managing principal of the chertoff group, a security and risk management advisory firm with offices in washington, d.c., and new york. judge chertoff is also senior counsel at covington & burling, llp washington, d.c., office and a member of the white-collar defense and investigations practice group. most recently, mr. chertoff served as secretary of the department of homeland security, as secretary he led a 218,000 person department with a budget of $50 billion. mr. chertoff developed and implemented border security and immigration policy and spearheaded a national cybersecurity strategy. he also served periodically in the national security and homeland security council's add on the committee on foreign investment in the united states.

prior to the point, mr. chertoff server 2003 until 2005 on u.s. court of appeals for the third circuit. before becoming a federal judge, mr. chertoff was the assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the u.s. department of justice. in that position your solid investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and former enron task force which produced more than 20 convictions, including those of ceos jeffrey skilling and kenneth lay. mr. chertoff's career includes more than a decade as a federal prosecutor including service as u.s. attorney for the district of new jersey, first assistant u.s. attorney for the district of new jersey and assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. as a federal prosecutor, he invested in person prosecuted significant cases of political corruption, organized crime and corporate fraud. at some of you may have noticed on the weight he has a new book, "homeland security: assessing the first five years." which he will talk about. with no further ado, let me turn this over to secretary chertoff. [applause]

>> well, i am very impressed by the turnout on a day of i think what is a record perhaps since the 1880s, a record snowfall in the district. so it is either a tribute to the intrepid is other people in the audience, or the fact that there is nothing else to do. the super bowl is over. you got tired of watching television and you are getting cabin fever. i am delighted to be able to address you today, and i want to thank christopher sands for the introduction, and the hudson institute for hosting me. for this talk. ann mcclellan who i think is delayed by the travel as many of you may know, former counterpart of mind in the canadian government. she was the head of the public safety ministry, and in fact, we had the pleasure of working together during the first year that i was homeland security secretary here in the united states.

actually, in many ways the snow we have expressed over the last couple of days is a very reminder of at least one of the sets of challenges we dealt with at the department of homeland security, which was natural disasters. because as people rapidly found out when the warning of snow became a reality, how comfortable you are and how safe and secure you are during any kind of natural event of that kind, it's a function of how prepared you are. people have water, who had battery operated radios, who had food, who had filled at the gas tanks were in a better circumstance than those who hadn't done any of those things. and while certainly a big snowfall is incomparable to the kind of disasters we've seen, here in the noses or that we saw in haiti, each of these events is a moment to reflect upon the importance of preparedness, which really lies at the heart of pretty much everything you do in the area of homeland

security, whether it is dealing with terrorist acts orwin is dealing with natural disasters. the more because you are, the better able you are to deal with the that when it happens. that is actually one of the themes of the book that i have written, which is entitled "homeland security: assessing the first five years." and it was an effort on my part, really over a period of about a year, in 2008, to write a series of articles looking back on where we were in 2001 and where we had come in 2008 as a way of both judging the progress that we made, but also trying to draw some important lessons for the future. as it happens, we're in a period of time of renewed focus on terrorism. in 2008, and much of 2009, perhaps understandably, the public was very preoccupied with the economic crisis. there was a lot of discussion about an overhaul of our health care system. and comparatively little public

attention paid to terrorism. but of course, that is not because terrorism wasn't in existence or had disappeared or even diminished. it was merely because the vagaries of the way the media prioritizes were driven by what was the latest new thing and can. that change, however, in the autumn and winter of 2009. first we had a series of arrests that were carried out by the authorities here in the united states, including the arrest of an individual from afghanistan was a cab driver who has been charged with plotting a terrorist attack. the rest of david hedley, in chicago, was originally thought to be a plot with respect to carrying out terrorist attacks in denmark, but then more recently was tied to the 2008 mom by a tax. the fort hood shooting which tragically ended with the death of over a dozen people, and the wounding of over 30 others. and of course, the christmas day

bombing plot, which resulted in a great deal of controversy. all of these things seem to, once again, to focus the attention of the media and the public on the issue of terrorism. and as a consequence there's been a lot of discussion in the media about terrorism, about the appropriate is out our response, and i think it is a good opportunity to look back on what we did during the first seven or eight years after 9/11, and what we face now in 2010. as again at the second decade of a world in which terrorism remains one of the most potent and serious threats to our well being. let me begin by talking about the kind of threat that we face, because frankly, it's not care but different than what we faced in 2001, but we have seen some evolution, both in terms of a threat and in terms of our capability to deal with that threat. and in many ways, evolution and dynamic adaptation is the story of terrorism.

terrorism isn't about a static threat that remains the same over time and that we can simply address and resolve once we put together a comprehensive strategy. instead, what terrorism is is an adaptive type of strategy. it looks to see how we respond and then it takes account of the lessons that the terrorists learned in order to change a strategy and the tactics. and it is incumbent upon us to both recognize what is consistent in the way terrorists behave, but also to recognize what has changed that and i think as we look at what we have seen in the last year and compare it to what we saw five, six, seven, even 10 years ago, you will see underlying consistencies, but you also see change and evolution. first, it remains the case in 2010 as a believer was in 2001, that underlined the kind of international terrorism, which is what we principally focus upon when we talk about

terrorism, is an ideology that is extreme in its outlook, that purports to use the language of islam, but that in fact, is a distortion or perversion of islam. but nevertheless an ideology that has an appeal in recruiting people who ar aren't disinfecte, whether they are disaffected because of a personal psychological issue, because there is a sense of plagal 80 nation from the society in which they find themselves, or because of some larger grievance based on circumstances in a particular part of the world. that ideology is not necessarily consistent. if you follow bin laden's statements, over a period of years they have a little bit of a characteristic of a person who try to see where the parade is heading, and then runs to get to the very head of the parade. those of you who think back to the earliest statements of bin laden in the '90s, will recognize that a lot of his focus at the time had to do with

the presence of american military forces in the islamic lands like saudi arabia. the issue, for example, israel palestine dispute was not a very high issue on his agenda. but that changed more recently when it became evident to bin laden and al qaeda that that was a particular grievance that applied, at least a subset, of the potential problem. more recently we've seen bin laden and his number to talk about the intersection between al qaeda and anti-globalization to try to draw a connection between the economic crisis in the west and the ideology of al qaeda and what its agenda is. in fact, i wouldn't be surprised to see bin laden take credit for the earthquake and the snowstorm in his next statement. and i say this not to mock him but to recognize that at the core of what al qaeda is about,

it's not so much a coherent ideology of what they are in favor of, as it is an ideology of what they oppose. and that they are prepared to modify their message in order to attract a greater number of people into their orbit. and as a consequence as we think about the ideology we face, it's important not to confuse it with a religion, which is different and which has a very coherent and obviously admirable worldview, not to confuse the religion with the ideology which is much more tactical and much more driven by the desire to make sure that the latest fashionable thing has been incorporated into the doctrine. in 2001 when we look at the threat from al qaeda, booting from the ideology to the physical, we saw that the central area of planning, recruiting, training and launching attacks was in south asia, particularly in

afghanistan. that, of course, change dramatically after the american invasion in 2001. in fact, i think that invasion was significant in a number of ways. not merely because it just launched what was an enormous national safe haven, in which terrorists were able to train, keep people in safe houses and ashley set up laboratories to experiment with various kinds of chemical and biological weapons that it was not only significant because it dislodged them from the physical space, because i think it was a shock to the system. bin laden believed prior to 2001, that americans would react to an attack on american soil the way americans reacted to the laptop down episode in somalia in the early 1990s. by withdrawing, by appeasing and by running away from the fight. and i think that when america responded with many multiples of

force in afghanistan, that not only shook the confidence of the bin laden, but it actually caused some of the people who had been an al qaeda to question the wisdom of bin laden's leadership. but at the same time before we congratulate ourselves, on the immediate affects of afghanistan, we have to recognize that a characteristic of al qaeda and similar organizations, and that, perhaps their greatest strength is their resilience and their persistence. whereas people in the west sometimes regard setbacks as an opportunity to engage in a crisis of self-confidence. for people who would adhere to the ideology that bin laden espouses, setbacks are merely another turn in a wheel that they fully expect will turn again in their favor. it is their confidence and their ultimate success, as misguided as that may be, is one of the strongest elements and components other ideology. and therefore, something we need to pay close attention to as we formally our own strategy.

in the case of al qaeda, what they did is they retreated into the frontier areas of pakistan. and over the next several years, it was back and forth. at times, the use of american power, coupled with pakistani power, was able to browse with a great deal of vigor up on the capability of al qaeda to function in the frontier area that lies between pakistan and afghanistan. during that period of time, a number of plots were disrupted or destroyed because people who were the plotters were eliminated. but it's also the case, particularly in the period of time from 2007 until 2008, as the pakistani government began to pursue the prospect of various kinds of truth or accommodations with the taliban in the frontier area, a safe haven, greater safety and began to be created in that frontier area. and in fact, that's something we

spoke about in 2007 and 2008 when we talk about a heightened period of threats, a recognition that within that geographic area, a sufficient zone of safety had been created that we began to become increasingly worried about a pipeline of recruits who would be moved into the area of pakistan, would be train, would be indoctrinate and would be returned to their home countries in order to carry out plots. and indeed, if you look at some of the western blots that we uncovered during that period of time and since, i daresay you will find that many of them not all of them, but many of them do have their roots in that frontier area. now again, in the last year, it appears as if the cycle has turned again, and this time some are for the better. the pakistani government, after considerable amount of prodding, has moved forward greater energy, even perhaps aggressiveness against at least some of the taliban and the

frontier area. and that has caused a shrinkage of the safe haven, and has returned the leadership there to become more concerned about their own safety perhaps than about striking at the west. at the same time, it's not surprising that the greater pressure on the frontier areas from pakistan has resulted in attacks on pakistan itself. one of the hallmarks of a terrorist group is that they're in the reaction to pressure is counterpressure. and the hope is to wear down the will of the public that supports government pressure so that there will eventually be a rollback and a quiet in their own domain. but what we've seen is not only pressure back and a struggle over waziristan, we have now seen that al qaeda is increasingly a franchise. it has broadened its no, not only in south asia, but in parts of africa and the middle east. and encourages other groups to form at least a network kind of

alliance. in many ways, this is, in fact, what 21st century terrorism. it is not about a unitary organization with a command and control system. it is about a network of organizations that enable each other, that support each other, that may not necessarily always be 100% aligned ,-com,-com ma but will certainly be closer in their worldview and closer in their efforts than makes accountable for the west. and so we have seen, for example, that somalia, another area that is poorly governed has become a safe haven for al qaeda group that has and what would become very successful as a recruiter of westerners to come in and trained and carry out terrorist attacks. . . this again has been a feature now for a couple of years. and even in democrat, north

africa, we now have the phenomenon of al qaeda in maghreb which is the successor to some of the terrorist organizations in north africa and there's some evidence we have seen that they are forging links with drug traffickers coming from south america and providing safety and security for drug shipments that are being transmitted from south america through north africa ultimately to be sold in europe. this of course is an economic arrangement that is beneficial to the terrorists and much the same way the taliban in afghanistan benefited from the ability to make money off of the cultivation of opium in that part of the world. finally we have to look at the issue of homegrown terrorism. this topic is then much discussed certainly for it's been manifest in many countries around the world, particularly countries in europe. it has not been a big problem in the united states until recently, but certainly the recruitment of somali young

people, into the fight in somalia, and what we saw most recently with the fort hood shooting and with the zazi investigation suggest that homegrown terrorism may be a bigger problem in the united states. that's not to say at this point in time, we have anything like the dimension of homegrown terrorism that you see in, for example, parts of western europe. but it is to suggest that again, in keeping with this theme of dynamic change, we can't simply assume that because we haven't had the problem in a significant way in the past that we're not going to have it in the future. this means we need to ask ourself what it is that is allowing al qaeda or similar groups to begin to recruit somalians to go to somalia, or a u.s. army medical doctor, with medical training, what is it that enables them to convert this individual who comes, after all, from the elite of american

society, and to turn him into a terrorist assassin. and that's going to require us to think hard about not only what we do socially in order to integrate and assimilate all of our communities in the country, it's going to require us to think about how we deal with the process of using the internet as a recruiting tool and as a training tool, in an environment where the capability to trigger and train lone wolves will become an increasing problem for our security. so in many ways, what we have seen is the threats that we face now are different than the threats we faced five or six years ago, in specific application, but not in terms of their fundamental corner. in fact, many of the things that have been said in the last year, could have been said five or six years ago about the prospects of what we have face, but there are some things that are different. one thing that's different is we've gotten much better at preventing attacks.

our intelligence is better, our infrastructure for preventing attacks is better, and while this is by no means a suggestion that we ought to pat ourselves on the back and say that the job is done, it does suggest that we have made progress, that it doesn't do us any good to say that nothing has gotten better, but at the same time, we have to recognize that the progress we've made has prompted the enemy to change its approach and that means we need to make further progress. what have been the major elements of our successful strategy? well, you have to begin by saying, and i alluded to this earlier, that the battle begins not here at home but it begins overseas. obviously, if you can eliminate safe havens, if you can eliminate the people who are leading he wa he was to carry ot terrorist attacks in the midwest -- middle east, that's is the best way to alleviate the threat.

have served to disrupt those who want to carry out the threat. it's not to say that it forces them to give up or it eliminates them, but it does push them on the run, particularly in those instances where we are able to work with our allies in the region, to keep the pressure up. a second element of the strategy that has worked, again, it's not a total solution, but it is certainly an important ingredient in the solution, is enhanced use of intelligence, better integration of intelligence, and better use of some of the screening and scanning tools that we built up over the last several years, that make it more difficult, although not impossible, for bad people and bad things to get into the country. let me just give you an illustration of this point. in 2001, if someone wanted to come in to their country by flying in through an airport, if they had a passport and if they had a visa, that was pretty much all they needed to get into the

country and then the last line of defense was the border inspector, who came face-to-face with the person seeking admission, looked at the papers, had a little conversation or an interview, and then made a judgment on the spot whether to admit the person or not. much has changed in the last eight or nine years. first of all, the process of vetting people, begins much earlier. not only do we have visas in place now, but we have the ability to collect commercial information from the airlines that tells us a surprising amount about the connections that travelers have with the people who fund them, the people who communicate with them, and perhaps even common addresses. we can now determine, not perfectly, but certainly much better than eight or nine years ago, whether a traveler is connected to someone who we know horhave reason to believe is a terrorist financier, terrorist trainer, or a terrorist

communicate i don't recall. and -- communicator and that is an important ingredient in helping us judge whether they should be allowed in the country. likewise, our requirements for documentation are now much elevated over what they were of about. not only do we have more robust requirements for passport security, but 10 years ago, you could have crossed the border from canada into the united states, by waving a birth certificate, a library card, simply raising your hand and saying i'm an american citizen, let me in, and by and large, you were let in. now, we require either a passport or a document that is comparably secure, so that's another big step forward. biometrics. it was the case 10 years ago that we only intermittently took fingerprints from non-americans coming to the united states. now every american who comes and every non-american who comes into the united states gives his or her fingerprints testify border, or if they get a visa, they give his or her

fingerprints when they get to visa. the value of this is that it not only better enables us to determine whether someone is using a false identity, because we compare their fingerprints over a period of time with their travel documents, but we are nameable to compare fingerprints with latent fingerprints. that's to say, the fingerprint residue that we are able to pick up in safe houses or battlefields all over the world. that means if someone has been in a safe house horhas built a bomb and has left a fingerprint someplace, they have some risk that we will have lifted that fingerprint, we will have entered into a database and we will be able to identify them, even though we don't know their name. again, none of these is fool of proof or perfect, but the addition of each of these layers of security has dramatically decreased the threat from where it was. now, what has been the terrorist response? well, again, it's through a gap.

and you see an emphasis on the part of al qaeda and similar groups to recruiting westerners, people without a prior record, people who are citizens of the country to which they're going to return, people who, as far as the terrorists are able to determine, haven't left traces around the world. and that's why wee increasingly need to not only upgrade our capabilities, but do a better job of sharing with our allies overseas, so make sure that our information collection and analysis capability keeps track with the effort of the adversary, to continue to avoid the various traps we've laid. if the area of protection, we've also done a lot more than we used to do. we obviously now have air marshals to a greater degree, although not as many as we need. one area we have not been as successful as we need, not have the urgency we need is in the area of cyber security. only recently, there was

dramatized a series of intrusions in to american companies that captured the attention of the public and the media, but i want to tell you that the issue of intrusions into our secure systems and our commercial systems has been a problem for years. we have talked about it for years. in 2007-2008, we launched a comprehensive national cyber security initiative, which was designed for the first time to bring together all of the capabilities of the american government and the private sector, to build a comprehensive way to deal with these cyber threats. president obama recognized the importance of this in one of his early speeches. but it seems that this effort has been somewhat calmed and this is an example of yet another area where failing to keep pace with the threat will result or could result in the analog in the virtual world to the kind of catastrophic loss we saw in the physical world on september 11.

finally, i'd like to talk about the whether of response, which is typically one of the three legs we talk about when we deal with the issue of homeland security. we were talk about response because we recognize that we can't prevent everything and we can't reduce or eliminate every vulnerability and if we have failed to prevent an attack and if an attack is in fact successfully carried out, the consequences that are felt major league baseball a direct result of the amount of preparation we have put into response and mitigation. simply put, if we can sustain an attack because we've mitigated the damage, because we're resilient, then we've basically blunted the attack and while it's not as good as outright prevention, in many cases, it is the best we can do. a classic example of this is in the area of biothreats. we've seen certainly a lot of discussion of biological threats that occur in nature, whether it's avian flu or the h1n1

pandemic that we saw beginning last year. but those who work in the area know that as troubling, if not more troubling is the possibility of a biological attack. the wmd commission, joint my shared by senator graham and senator talent, recently issued a report in which they were quite critical of the status of our preparation for dealing with a biological attack in this country, and if you look at this issue closely, what you will see is that prevention is only one part of the strategy of dealing with a biological attack. unfortunately, the ingredients of a bioweapon occur in nature. the difference between the ability to launch an attack and the inability to launch an attack lies in the know how of the person who is trying to carry out the attack. if you have the know how and the capability, you can get the ingredients relatively quickly. not only that, if you get the ingredients, it's virtually impossible for us to prevent you

from bringing them into the country. you could fabricate the weaponized version of a biological attack mechanism in a small vial, which we would be very unlikely to cap at the border. if fact, you could infect somebody and send an infectious person across the born did he. so how we deal with biological weapons requires not only better detection, but the ability to respond with countermeasures, effectively and quickly. if you look, for example, at the possibility of an anthrax attack, which this country did suffer in 2001, albeit on a very small scale, what you will recognize is that we do have countermeasures that are effect till against anthrax, but they're only effective if you get them to people in a very short period of time. now, we've stockpiled the countermeasures, we know how to make them work, so what is the obstacle to what would be in my

view a very important step in mitigation and response, namely, the ability to get people a remedy or countermeasure quickly. the problem is we have not yet built a delivery system that can move the countermeasures from the stockpile into the hands of people as quickly as possible. this is one of those examples of a problem which actually has a very easy solution, if we have the willingness to accept the solution. the solution is this. you simply take the countermeasures we currently have and you distribute them in advance. you put them in schools, you put them in fire houses, you put them in other public buildings. you may actually distribute them in advance to first responders, to people who are critical to a response effort to public health officials. and you tell them to hole on to the countermeasures, and if and when the time comes that they have to be used, you'll communicate and then people will use the countermeasures. that would in a fairly short

order fashion, eliminate the distribution problem for a large majority of the people that we worry about. so the question is, why haven't we done it? well, the answer is, not because we haven't tried. we ran a pilot program a couple years ago, actually, three years ago in the u.s. government, to see whether this kind of advanced distribution would work, whether people would respect the need to keep the countermeasures without using them for some other purpose, whether they would -- not whether they would lose the countermeasures horsomehow misplace them and what we discovered after we ran the pilot and check back in about a year, is that much better than 90% of the people knew where the countermeasure was, hadn't misused it in some fashion, hadn't lost it, and in fact, had followed the instructions they were given. this ought to have been the spur for beginning a more widespread process of advanced distribution.

unfortunately, some people in the medical community disagreed with advance distribution. they have a medical model, which operates in ordinary times, that says that you should not give prescription drugs to people unless the people have been seen by a doctor first. and that's obviously a very good rule in ordinary cases. it is not practical however, in between the time we learn of an anthrax attack and the time within which we have to distribute the countermeasures, to it would everybody to go see a dock are tore. that's not going to ham. this is one of those areas, where i think we need to look at the traditional ordinary medical model and ask ourselves whether that works in the context of preparing for an emergency. this is something we urged really pretty much literally through the last day of the bush administration and i hope it's something that the current administration is taking a very hard look hat, because the time that it will take before someone

learns to weaponnize anthrax or a similar type of biological weapon is much less than people would like to think, and when that happens, and i believe it will happen hat some point, if we have not taken the steps in advance, it will be a very, very unhappy day for the people who face what will be a catastrophic terrorist incident. let me close by saying that i have no doubt that of after the events of the last couple of months, which have spiked interest in terrorism, that other issues will come on the public radar and the media will move on to different topics and in two or three or four months, if would've been lucky enough not to have another effort to attack us, the issue of homeland security and terrorism will once again begin to recede from the public view. but in many ways, it's that phenomenon, the waxing and winning of public interest that is the greatest challenge that we face in homeland security. the kinds of responses and

defenses we need require sustained investment over a long period of time. it's not a matter of a flash in the pan response. it's a matter of building the capability, training, countermeasures and systems that take months, if not years to put in place. if we keep our eye on the need of to that sustained investment, i believe we can keep ahead of the enemy. but if our ability to sustain the investment depends upon whether something happens to be a news headline or not, and if our strategy is reactive, rather than anticipatory, then i fear there will come a point where we will have an attack and our response will not be adequate. we have lived through that. it was called september 11. nobody who was involved on that day in the government and had responsibility for dealing with terrorism will ever forget that feeling of frustration that

occurred when the attack came and we didn't have the appropriate response in placement and i think everybody who lived through that understands the importance of not letting that happen again. thank you. [applause] >> secretary her of t her chertd to take questions and answers and there's a young man at the back with a microphone. i'm going to have him bring the microphone to you, it's important because otherwise we can't hear you on the record. we have a number of questions here. let me start with the gentleman in the front row and then move over to the side. >> thanks very much. i worked for you, had the pleasure of working with you with the office of intelligence for a while and subsequently at a place in the state department

called the counterterrorism communications center, which brings me to a point you made early in your speech about the recruitment of american citizens like the fort hood attack and so forth. the key to that appears to be the willingness of muslims to accept the al qaeda narrative, which is that the united states is making war on islam and killing muslims as part of that. the counterterrorism communication center of state was designed to respond to that narrative and rebut it in significant ways, but i'm not sure i'm seeing that kind of activity going on now, although i'm sure there's some within the intelligence community, the c.i.a. in particular, but i'd be interested in your comment on that particular issue. >> this is a very important issue.

i know that people at the state department have their heart in the right place. here's what my concern is. i think the most effective counternarrative comes from within the communities within which terrorists try to recruit. when people in the community push back, that actually has resonance, and you know, there are some positive investments. for example, a couple of years ago, al-zawahiri ran a virtual townhome meeting on the internet and in that town hall meeting, he got quite a bit of negative reaction from muslims, among others, those who had seen the bombing in algeria of the school bus and asked him how it could be that killing innocent muslim school children advanced the cause of islam. likewise, there have been some scholars who have supported the ideology of al qaeda that have renounced it and ironically, often renounced it because, as one said, when we see the reaction and the devastation

caused in muslim lands, as a consequence of what we did, maybe it was a failed strategy, so within the community is where you want to build a capability. unfortunately, when the government does it, it tends of to an inherently -- create an inherent skepticism on the part of the target audience, so to me, i think the right answer is to use our financial ability and our assistance to cede among community groups that i think are moderate and mainstream, the capability to get their message out, but we also have to engage with the community and say, look, it's your sons and daughters who are getting pulled into this. it's up to you to make sure you give that counternarrative and countereducation. >> the gentleman over here in the corner.

>> hi, i'm an israeli student here. what i want to know from your experience about the dilemmas between civil liberties and the need for security for the homeland. because it's something i think you didn't address in your speech, and in israel, it's a very big issue, we speak about the biometric database that we started to implement in israel, how do you address, with was the limit between the need for security and the need for civil liberties? >> well, you know, this is an issue that is raised from, you know, pretty frequently, and there's no question that there are times you have to make some judgments about the trade ofoff between security and civil liberties, but of you have to say, a lot of times i think what is presented is a false choice, in other words, what is viewed

as a tradeoff actually is not much of a trade of i don't and i'll use the example of biometrics or fingerprints. i think that the use of biometrics is a way to identify people with the use of secure identification which some people view as an infringement on civil liberties, i think actually enables civil liberties. anything that allows me to be confident that nobody can pretend to use my identity or masquerade as me, increases my security, because when people steal by identity, they actually invade my personal privacy and civil liberties. that's not to say everything we do can be resolved by saying it furthers both the goal of security and civil liberties, but it is that in many cases, civil liberties objections on closer inspection i think are

not well founded. there are clearly times we're required to put up with inconvenience and trouble in order to deal with security issues. for example, nobody loves going through the magnetometer at the airport and taking your shoes of who and having you arrive 30 minutes earlier than you would if you would just stroll into the terminal and walk on to the plane. i think we all recognize that weeds rather get to our destination safely and make that minor sacrifice of 30 minutes. and there's also clearly a point at which you wouldn't sacrifice your civil liberties for security, but that is an issue that ought to be debate, and if the public decides, for example, that there is some civil liberty that they're not prepared to sacrifice, that's all well and good, provided then we accept the consequences of that and often the debate doesn't involve that kind of trade of i don't, but involves people simply trying to assume away or argue away the security benefit of a particular measure, as a way of

avoiding the tough choice, so i guess my bottom line is this. in many cases, what is perceived as a civil liberty threat, actually on closer inspection, i think, it arguably enhances privacy and individual freedom. in those cases where it doesn't, we ought to have a serious discussion about how important it is to protect ourselves, in this particular respect, and if the public decides they tonight want the protection, it's not worth it, it's well and good and we accept the consequences. what we can't do is assume away the problem or say it's never going to happen or try to pretend the security measure doesn't work because it's not perfect and it's those false arguments which often decloud our ability to resolve these kinds of dilemmas. >> there's a gentleman here. yes, if you can keep your hand up so that our guy can get to you. >> i'm counsel with the senate

homeland security committee and judge chertoff, i want to thank you for your many years of service in many capacities with our government. i want to first make an offer, then ask a question. one of the issues we as a committee are looking into is how to deny access to firearms and explosives to terror suspect and how the watch list might be married up to attempted purchases to snuff out plots like some of the ones you talked about and maybe offline, if you have time, i would like to talk to you about what your views are on that and when we could work together on that. my question goes to your experience as a prosecutor and a judge and then as a secretary of homeland security, what are your views about the debate that is going object now about how to detain and interrogate and prosecute terror suspects? >> well, you know, i think what i'm going to say is consistent with what i said at the department of justice at 2001 and 2003 and at the democrats

of -- department of homeland security from 2005 to 2008. first i believe we are at war. i believe that that means we use all of the tools in the toolbox. we don't use only military tools, we don't use only law enforcement tools. some tools are better suited in some circumstances and others in other circumstances. if you look at what we did during the years that i was in the bush administration, we did use all the tools, sometimes we prosecuted people in court, sometimes we put people in the military system, sometimes we moved them from one to the other. it dependnd upon a lot of circumstances, how serious the threat was, how he cautious the situation was. and of course, what the state of the law was, because the law changed over a period of time, and that required us to make adjustments. now, generally speaking, my view is, you should never take any of

these possibilities off the table. what needs to happen is, the people making the decision need to look carefully at the tools, they need to hey zest what is the right set of tools and the right circumstances and use them. i don't have a cookie cutter one size fits all answer for each particular possibility. >> >> we understand that minister mccollum has landed, so she generally will join us soon. there's a gentleman in the row, if you could keep your hand up. >> thank you. i'm sheldon williams, president of the rossgood center and i have around -- osgood center and i have around 307 students here from israel, as you heard from one and we've been debating with a variety of people about the shall use of the sources that terrorists inspirations, the question has arisen to what extent will a settlement between israel and palestinians affect the central message?

i know bin laden changes his message, but his recent concern about global warming doesn't seem to resonate quite as much as perhaps the anti-israeli message would be. in terms of -- in the importance of a settlement of that issue, how do you rank it, is it feasible, a partial solution, say, exempting gaza strip out of it. diplomatically, how due view this issue in fighting terrorism or the terrorist message? >> i think a settlement of the middle east impasse between israel and palestinians would be a good thing, and it would certainly remove some of of the grievance for some people, but i think it's a mistake it believe there is any solution that's going to take this issue of 0 the table and again i return to the ideology in question. the source of grievances that have been cited by people

carrying out terrorist attacks, is very long. we've had a number of cases where people put together plots to carry out bombings in denmark, spurred by the fact that cartoonists in denmark had cartoons that were viewed to be insulting, so you're never going to find enough things to give away to alleviate the grievances that some people are going to have. that doesn't mean it's not worth having a settlement, i mean, it would obviously eliminate a certain number of terrorist attacks in israel, as well as grievances around the world, it would be a good thing for a whole love the reasons, but i think we would be kidding ourselves if we believed that even a settlement between israel and palestinians would eliminate some terrorists acts by hezbollah who believe it's not enough and likewise, we've had a rough settlement in kashmir for a period of time and groups

continue to carry out terrorist attacks in india. so unfortunately, there is no magic bullet. nevertheless, there's halls value in -- always value in reducing tensions and as long as you're realistic about what the expectation is on the other side of that process, it's certainly worth pursuing. >> i have a question from the gentleman in the front row here. >> hi, i'm mike levine with fox news. two questions, one is sort of jumping off of the earlier question. what is your overall assessment of the debate itself, about current handling of terrorism cases. >> well, i mean, i think it's worth discussing and debating issues like is it a good thing to close guantanamo, what are you going to do with the people there. are you going going to send them to the u.s., what is that going to mean in terms of our ability to hole them. what would happen if they get released.

i think those are all important and worthwhile things to debate. sometimes the discussion generates into i told you this, no, you didn't tell me that and that becomes a little bit more heat than light. but i think underlying this is a fundamental set of shall use that hasn't really -- issues that hasn't really been addressed. what is the issue you do with guantanamo, why should it be shut, what would you do with the people this if they were not able to be returned to their home country, how much risk are you prepared to take in sending them back to their home country? if you bring them to the u.s., where do you put them, what does that mean for the local community. you know, we just saw an instance where initially, there was a decision to send khalid sheikh mohammed to new york to be tried and all of a sudden the authorities in new york said no, no, no, we weren't consulted, this is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. what this tells me is we need to have a serious discussion and

debate before some of the issues are discussed and it also tells mekong needs to do some work in laying out the legal framework for how you deal with terrorism in the 21st century. some of that work has been done in some of the legislation that was passed, but for example, we still don't have a set of procedures for dealing with detainees who want to challenge their detention. the supreme court held a couple years ago, they're entiled to do it, but the supreme court didn't set any rules up. recently, judge janice brown in the d.c. sir could you tell wrote a very powerful opinion that said it's time for congress to tell us what are the rules as opposed to making the district judges fabricate the rules or fashion the rules on a case by case basis, so to me, there's a real, not opportunity, but an obligation on the part of congress to put together a set of legal rules and a legal framework that is going to sustain us for the next, you know, 10, 20, 30 years.

>> the question you raised about the 9-11 trial, whether guantanamo should stay open, questions like that, what are your thoughts on that? >> the bush administration looked at the possibility of closing guantanamo. he is very hard. there is a significant number of people there who are dangerous, who still regard themselves as at war with the united states and the west. some of them perhaps can be sent to home countries that you can be confident will make sure that they're incapacitated. sometimes, however, they raise legal objections to going back and you can't send them back. our position was, and i believe it to be true, you don't want to bring them into the united states. once you bring them into the united states' soil, they will have a series of rights, or a set of rights, under the immigration laws, that could well put you in a very, very difficult position, of being ordered to release somebody and not being able to deport them, and i think the last thing we

want to do is i am por terrorists into the u.s. again, there's a solution for this. congress could step up to the plate, and could say, here are the rules about what we're going to do with these detainees, and we could have a really carefully thoughtout plan and strategy for how to deal with them. i haven't seen that yet, so under the circumstance, i think it's probably good news that the administration has put the brakes on closing guantanamo, but in the end, we're st. louis going of to have this debate and we haven't really had it yet. >> why do you think it's been -- why do you think they need to step up to the plate, why hasn't that happened yet? >> i remember attorney general sent a proposal to the united states in 2008 and it went nowhere. it's a hard issue to talk about, because there are a lot of strong feelings on different sides of the debate, but i will say this.

in the early part of the decade, there was a lot of -- congress did step up, passed the patriot thing, and then maybe some of the appetite for getting involved in controversy diminished. that's to me why we have elected officials. it's not to take easy decisions, it's to look at hard problems. and there are some members of congress who have been very active in pushing congress to take this issue up. i know, senator lindsay graham has tried to get this on the agenda, senator mccain, a whole bunch of other people on both sides of the aisle, but i haven't seen enough willpower yet and i'm not enough of a student of congress to explain exactly why that is, but i can tell you the clock is ticking and not making a decision in this case is going to be making a decision and probably not a very good one. >> good afternoon, secretary chertoff. my name is todd wiggins, i'm

operating under urban revival media, which is a blog i do on youtube. i would like to thank you for the opportunity. i just heard you were here and tried to make it at the last minute. i have first a question, followed by a complimentary sidebar. the question has to do with the consolidation of the department of homeland security headquarters in southeast d.c. and the west campus of st. elizabeth's. i have a colleague who is vehemently against that consolidation because he believes that, a, it is not necessary because of the virtual technology that we now have, that can spread resources around a region and perhaps core from a security aspect, the organization more completely. he also does not believe that consolidating is good for the community, although i disagree, but he doesn't believe also from a security standpoint, that it's a good idea of to. -- of to have all of your eggs in one basket so to speak.

i want to ask you to speak to that and before you answer, i would like to compliment you in an abstract way. i attended an inauguration party in january in georgetown for dr. gallo and when you walked in, it was equivalent to a los angeles opening or a hollywood party to see you with your friends and so on, so i felt like i really arrived being that i was at the same party while you were there, so thank you for thrilling me in some ways. >> let me take this second shall hue first. we don't put all our eggs in one basket. there obviously will be a redundancy element built into the process of pulling headquarters together. there's redundancy in terms of our servers and hour cyber capabilities, without getting into classified matters, there are redundanc redunns.

i -- redundancies. the community by and large is very supportive of this, including the leadership in the district and frankly, we looked at the possibility of building headquarters out in virginia or maryland and the district really wanted to have that, because they felt it could be the corner stone of ream economic revival in the area, including some additional transportation, including maybe an additional enhancement of the subway, as well as the economic activity of the mer chance who are in the surrounding area. i think in terms of security, it would have to be a very good location, and as to the point about whether you can have a virtual headquarters, you know, i have -- i've been involved with a number of large institutions over the last 10 or 15 years and i've always heard people talk about, you don't need to be in one place. everybody can communicate by e-mail or telephone and therefore, we can all be widely distributed. and it is true that to some

extent, e-mail and telephone do allow for a certain amount of virtual community. but i have to tell you, with all my experience, i have never seen a substitute for face-to-face interaction. when you are in the room with people, it is different than when you are on the telephone or even on a video conference. and human beings, being what they are, maybe this is going to change in 5 who years and we'll all have "avatar" and things will take place in the second life, but in the world in which we currently live, i found it a real impediment not to have the lead are ship in one place -- leadership in one place and to allow the kind of inform am interaction that i think is part of building up a spirit of community in any organization, so i'm a very strong believer in the need to bring the headquartered components of dhs into one place. i think it will be good for dhs, i think it will build a unity of spirit and a unity of effort, and i actually think it's going

to help the local community quite a bit. >> thank you. >> all right, now i have a question in the corner and then i have one next to the camera. >> hi, richard white, thanks so much for coming today. a question about the way the u.s. government is restructuring how it deals with the cyber security threats. as you know, the administration is conducting an extensive review and had to deal with a bunch of models about how you would distribute the roles and missions for cyber defense, particularly on the civilian side in the united states. i wasn't sure how you assessed the results and whether you had any results about which agency should be most appropriate for the lead role. >> well, i'm not sure we know exactly what the results are. i can tell you, where we were as of 2008, when we put together

the national cyber security strategy. it recognized that there are different functions, in cyber security, some are appropriate to the defense and intelligence community. in terms of the domestic government, what we call dot-g dot-gov, dhs had the authority and we thought should build the capability to manage that process for the dot-gov domain. the big challenge and big unanswered question is how do you deal with cyber security in the private sector and here i'll offer a personal opinion. i don't believe the u.s. government ought to sit on the internet and run the private sector's security. except if a very limited number of cases, where certain private entities seek of to that kind of protection and because they're government contractors or operating them in the military domain, it's appropriate for the government to play that role. i do think we need to find a way to have the government -- i hate

to use the word interface, but it happens to fit here, interface with the private sector, so the benefit of the government's capabilities can be shared with the private sector, but without having the government actually operating in the private sector's domain directly and i think that raises, to use -- make reference to the earlier discussion, a sill liberties versus security trade ofoff, which would be probably not the best one. one model that i've suggested, it's not the only model, is to create trusted third parties, entities, you know, in the private sector, that are, you know, have proper classification levels and security clearances, that can be the interchange between the government and the private sector in terms of conveying necessary information and skills, but not necessarily giving the government direct control over the levers of the

private sector. the architecture of how this is going to be developed is very complicated and could give rise to a lot of controversy. so again, i think it's something we would do well to debate. and get out in the open. if there are people who believe the government should directly have that on the internet, maybe we putt to hear what that case is. what i don't think is an option is to ignore it. it is a hard problem. one of the things i say in the book, and unfortunately, remains true is, one of the ways we deal with hard problems in the government is to avoid them. it is the musical chairs theory of government. i know the music is going to stop some day, i hope i'm out of the room when it stops and i hope i don't fall down because i don't have a chair. that is a good model for a child's game, it is a bad model for government. the hardest problems are the ones that to be tackled. we took a good running start at

cyber security in 2007 and 2008. i think the administration currently recognizes the problem and i know a lot of good work is being done. i do think though that we've got to increase the tempo of our dealing with this problem, because again, time is not on our side. >> all right. we have pa gentleman here by the camera. >> i used to be an intern for richard. my question regards cyber security and also the u.s. government in all can improve the main powers to deal with it. with cyber security, it seemed that the -- [inaudible] becomes a reactionary agency. now when cyber security becomes a bigger issue, then you need more people to start doing the job. going forward, what do you think of a good idea, you know, with the dhs being the head. the same with the f.b.i. or the

justice department, when there's a terrorist issue, where you would need language people, then you go forward looking for people. what are the good things or good main powers techniques that dhs can put together to kind of have people that can do the job. >> you're right there's a tendency in the government to be reactive and i think my original point when i was speaking was, all too often, it seems our strategy is driven by what's in the head behind last week. in the era of cyber security, i will say, in 2007-2008, we began the process of really -- really taking a hard work at where we were an where we putt to go. we had done things before 2007, but i think we had a sense that there was a lot more that could be done. i don't think that, you know, i always get asked the question, or at least i used to get asked the question, who's in charge. and it's a complicated question to answer, because at one level in the federal government, the

president is in charge, although i think presidents are often surprised to find that there are real limits on their power, not only within the federal been p, but in dealings with state and local government in the private sector. in the civilian domain, where you deal with a lot of divided authority among different agencies, what we find generally works is a degree of coordination with someone standing as the coordinator, but not necessarily being the commander of all of the assets. and that's because our legal framework tends to divide power, and there are all kinds of good reasons to do that, as opposed to centralize it. that edge said, i think the -- that being said, i think the con chiewtion we reached in 2008, was that it was worth having a coordinator on the sillan side, dhs have the authority and the relationships with the private sector to be the appropriate place to put that, i think the intelligence community and the military were quite happy to

have dhs be the interphysical -- interface with the private sector, but at the same time there was a recognition that we needed to bring together all of the elements of the community, intelligence, military, and dhs and department of justice, so they could coordinate their activities together and we would do that through a cyber security center, which could kind of be the focal point for this kind of effort. it's an architecture that is designed to give you a unity of effort, although you don't have unity of command. i still think that's the right model of medicine em. there are some -- the right model. there are some who suggested the white house ought to be the operator of all of this, although i think the white house is appropriate as a policy making location. our experience has shown that when the white house, and this is not specific to any particular administration, when the white house becomes an operator, that's usually a recipe for some kind of a serious problem and you don't want of to the white house being

an operator, particularly in the area of cyber, where you're dealing with issues that are, your know, very delicate from a political standpoint, small p. so that's my particular suggestion, that we stick with the basic architecture, we put together in 2007-2008. it seems to me from what i've observed of the current administration, that they are more or less in the same place, they have a cyber coordinator in the white house, but it seems to me this is somebody who is going to be a policy making coordinator, not an actual operator, which i think is probably the right decision. >> mr. chertoff, it's good that we have this opportunity to talk to you, more than just a one-way

lecture, because another speaker hasn't come in, so i congratulate hudson and also the moderator for his not talking up a lot of time asking you questions. you mention the that one of your first top priorities of a solution is to go abroad if a foreign country, which means more wars, my in my opinion, i've been in this country since 1970 and this country has always been some way or the other in terms of military operation, and my opinion is, a lot of that does cause -- is a source of terrorism or, as a germinatation of feelings of people who finally become terrorists. giving that and your high priority that the u.s. would continue to be in some kind of a war forever and not go into isolation, my personal feeling after watching this country from 1970 to today, that it would be

better if the united states went into isolation for some decades, maybe 20, 30 years. >> well, you know, here's the lesson of 9-11. there was a time maybe 50, 60, 70 years ago, people argued that the two oceans protected the united states and we could isolate ourselves. in 9-11, and one of the reasons i think it was a pivotal event in american history, is the first time in american history, maybe since the war of 1812, that the enemy came on to our shores and found us, and that was a vivified lesson that -- vivid lesson that isolationism isn't an option. you can't retreat far enough to isolate yourself. let look at the historical fact. 9-11 occurred before we were in afghanistan, before we were in iraq, there wasn't guantanamo, all of the things which are sometimes cited as being spurs to recruitment, or inflaming people against us, those things didn't exist prior to 9-11.

they didn't exist prior to the embassy bombings in east africa, they didn't exist prior to the u.s.s. cole. in the 1990's, we were basically minding our own business. you know, and bin laden's original grievance is that we went to saudi arabia to help prevent an invasion in kuwait by saddam hussein. so for those who believe that we somehow caused these things, we would have to pull out of the entire world and even then, if you look at the plots against the cartoonists in denmark, we have to start to censor our books and our newspapers and television. we will never be able to appease enough to satisfy the people who want to strike us, so i have to say, the experience that we've seen in either having ourselves or our allies strike against safe havens has been that has produced very positive results,

and frankly again, if i go back to even some of the idealogues who have now turned against al qaeda, even though they originally supported the ideology, one of the things that they cite as a cause for their turning against al qaeda, has been the strong reaction that came into afghanistan and the fact that the community in which al qaeda was operating actually suffered because al qaeda launched an attack against the u.s. so i'm a believer that soft power is important. i also believe that hard power is important as well, and you cannot expect to command the respect of the world if you are not prepared to defend yourself, against others who come looking for trouble. >> i know i just got a nice compliment for being quiet, but let me ask one question from the chair if i might. mr. secretary, when you were in office, onette big issues that came up was immigration reform and your president was in 5 of

it and you had strong congressional leadership that was also in favor of it and it was difficult to get done. now the current administration, with its strong democratic leadership has said they want to take this on and your successor is charged with trying to carry this forward. do you have any advice on tackling immigration reform, just sort of your perspective on what might be done to move us forward and why it is important or perhaps, why we shouldn't tackle it at this time? >> well, you know, this is really more a question of the legislative process. than it is homeland security. i hai would say the lesson i led from our experience in 2007, is first of all, there is a comprehensive bill that i think would satisfy most people on both sides of the aisle. but not everybody. and certainly significant minorities on either side object, although for die metrically different reasons. the one lesson i take away from our experience are a couple lessons, which i think are

reinforced by what eye seen in the last year are these. first of all, i think it was very important to push with enforcement, not withstanding the failure of the comprehensive approach. because i think what enforcement was designed to do and has done frankly to a significant extent, is to demonstrate to the american people, before we come to you and ask you to allow us to you know, find some way to accommodate some of the people who are here illegally, or set up a temporary worker program, we better convince you that we are prepared to enforce the law, the way it is now. in other words, that we're not going to simply come up with a proposal and fail to enforce the parts that are hard and just go with the parts that are easy. so you think that down payment on credibility, which came with enforcement, is hugely important in setting the table for this. that's one of the reasons why i think it was remarkably important to finish building

that fence. we said we wanted to build about 650 miles of fence along the southern borders. there are 643 miles that have been built, and it was very hard to get that done. there was a lot of legal objection, a lot of complaining from the local communities on a kind of not in my backyard theory and there was frankly a lot of ideological opposition, but the fact is congress voted for it, congress funded it, and by getting it done, we demonstrated to the american public that when we commit to something, we can live up to the commitment and i think that's the first lesson. you've got to show that you are prepared to live up to your commitments. the second lesson is on the other side of the spectrum, on the reform side, we did think it was important to deal with a problem comprehensively, but it strikes me that we may be better off in the future dealing with it in stages, in other words, do one slice reform first, see how

it goes and then go to the next slice of reform. one the things which i think even the current health care debate demonstrates is that hall though in theory, a big problem needs a comprehensive solution, it is very hard to persuade people who are naturally and perhaps appropriately skeptical about government, to do everything all at once. sometimes, a big meal is best digested bite by bite and what i might suggest is taking a look at the proposal and beginning for example with a couple of slices, a temporary worker program, some kind of a temporary visa program for people who are here illegally, but who have not otherwise committed a vie haitian, but instead of a -- violation, but instead of an immediate pathway to citizenship, have a temporary worker program, see how it works and then if you go back to the american public and you say this has worked for three ar four years, let's extend it or modify it, perhaps you get a better audience. >> there's a young lady here.

>> i'm a second year student very c in israel -- ivc in industrial, i also serve in membered reserves for the home corps and you mentioned beforehanding out medicine for civilians, for citizens, we actually do something closer to israel or most of the citizens get a gas mask and an automatic syringe that has adrenaline, but obviously, you can't distribute any mi medicine to any disease t there and my question to you is where is the line, where do we stop, also all the measurements that we're taking in the airports, some of my professors claim and i agree that it only escalates the terror, because the moment you are achieving this -- you know, when you stop that thing, they find another way to achieve that.

>> well, two questions. there are two questions, the first is, there happen to be a relatively number of small countermeasures that address most of the things we would worry about as a likely biological threat, so you're right, you don't have an infinite number of medicines, but we could eliminate 80% to 90% of the problem, pretty easily with a small number of countermeasures, which would be pease to distribute and for those who are uncomfortable putting it in the hands of each family at a minimum, you could put it in fire houses and schools and local townhomes. i have mean, this is an -- town halls. i mean, this is an issue which i have to say astounds me that we don't do this. there was a lot of interest in the last administration in doing it, the medical community was strongly opposed to it. it's one of the great lessons you learn that sometimes presidents can't do what they want to do because there are

institutional brakes on it, but in this case, it's so important to do, and the argument against it is so ill founded in my view, that we ought to be able to get this done in the next couple of years. we have the countermeasures, enough to invent them, we have the stockpiles. you literally just have to distribute them. it would take a huge burden off the response capability. ... aviation your right, we can't do it in the area of the subway what we do in aviation. we can't do it in the area of the shopping mall what we do in aviation. it's true aviation is a particularly high-value target. all we can do is try to balance by putting in the appropriate level of countermeasure for what we think the threat is based upon a consequence of an attack and based upon how likely we

think it is someone wants to carry out the attack. as technology increases we will have better ways of dealing with explosives and subways or explos explosives in shopping malls but we aren't there yet so what we can do in the meantime it is use whatever countermeasures' we have in those areas, but embedded in your argument is a common argument that we face in homeland security which is the perfect is the enemy in a good. because you're countermeasure is in perfect it's not worth doing it at all and a great example is the christmas day bombing which obviously it was a failure in the sense of someone got on the plan with a bomb that was concealed in their underwear but recognize in many ways it was a forced error on the terrorists because the countermeasures and the security rehab in place forest the terrorist to put together a device that is a fact difficult to get in, not impossible. if we didn't have the things we have in place now there would

have waltzed in with a pre made bomb simple to operate in blown the plane up so even though the less -- the lesson is we have more to do there is a lesson we have done quite a bit and i think that balance that we have to keep in mind when we look at the issue of how much security is another -- enough. >> excellent, excellent. let me also just in the hope that our next speaker will arrive sometime, one of the things she has looked at and i know you have some experience with the olympics coming up at the end of the week, week in vancouver right on the border, your experience with this super bowl in detroit to ride on the border also, what would you say is the extent of our cooperation in this big event driven security challenges? are we getting better at them and you have any hope the olympics will be coming off pretty well this time?

>> we've had phenomenal operation with canadians across the board, not just in sporting events but also in day-to-day security across the border. when you have a of these large sporting events, we have various levels of security ranging up to what they call national security special event which is the highest level of security. an enormous amount of work is done in advance preparing the infrastructure for a security and those kind of events. there is intelligence collection, there is planning with respect to how do monitor who comes into the sports promises, they put in the air, on to make sure people are flying planes and accounted for in the air space. there are biological and radiological response capabilities in place. there's a huge amount of stuff done behind the scenes and deliberately obscured because you don't want to spoil the event by making it into

technology chauffeur security devices so we do do an awful lot breach of the u.n. general assembly is, in each of the super bowls, the inauguration which was a huge security efforts, the planning of which began three or four months in advance. and when we have these cross border events will work closely with the canadians in order to make sure we cover both sides of the border. >> other questions or comments? there is a gentleman in the front row. >> george washington university. mr. secretary, thank you for your time and service. with tsa nomination of its controversy about the position on unionization of tsa workers, i am wondering what your view is on the effective unionization on

security personnel as somebody who has obviously have the top job? >> we oppose the administration position under president bush unionization of tsa and particularly because typically a workforce is unionized than any changing conditions have to be dealt with a negotiated and often we saw this in 2006 when we have the airline bombing plots in london, often you have to change these quickly and so the need to bargain or have a grievance process becomes an impediment. we did work hard to try to elevate morality of tsa and to create mechanisms for feedback because the point of a avoiding unionization is not because we don't care about the morale of the officers, we do, but because we want to be able to operate in a nimble in burma quickly. that's where our military is in unionize because you don't want

to have the marines going grievance when they sent overseas. i know the current administration has a different view on this. i don't know that the tsa nominees are solely related which other issues. the other thing i would say is we had a real delay in filling the spots. not only the tsa but the head of customs and border protection. we are over a year to the new administration and again this should be a partisan issue. if we didn't -- they are entitled to have their own people in the top spots and i encourage everybody involved in the process to get these jobs will less quickly as possible. >> the gentleman in the front. >> secretary, i want to ask you in recent months after the christmas day bombing and some of the states that have broken out the current secretary stated the that we are consumers of the watch list for examples and don't create them.

in addition to the other statements, i do think the general public understands what they will is and how -- what is exactly the position? >> i think that's a good question. probably not, i'm not sure the general public understands what the director of national intelligence does, what the terrorists databases and that's actually run by the fbi. they preside over that. may be a explain it, dhs is in many respects a consumer intelligence information and the watch list is populated by information from multiple agencies. the fbi presides over the process of the terrorist screening database although every agency gets to have some participation. their decisions about who gets onto what list in terms of how dangerous they are and then that becomes the database on whichever date draws but it's important to say that dhs generates its own information

and intelligence. for example for our border process we have it targeting center the uses information from the intelligence community as well as information that we collect at the border ourselves and intergrades that in order to determine who comes into the country. notwithstanding the fact that the systems are perfect, if i look back on where were in 2001 and see where we are now, we're usually better. not only collectively but intergrading at our analysis and stovepipes largely eliminated, but human error remains as with any endeavor still part of what we have to deal with it so anytime there is a lawyer as there was on december 25th, it's an opportunity to go back and look again at all the layers of security and as appropriately with the press secretary is doing and the administration is doing.

>> [inaudible] how do we defend against supporting giving aid and support to countries like yemen and other training in the pending our issues with the terrorists when there are developing countries? howarth you go and how much you depend that they won't use it against you? >> that's challenging. one of the problems we've had traditionally and you see it in pakistan, and other parts of the world is you have to work with the countries and the governments in their countries that are the locations where the problems arise. those countries may have an ambivalent attitudes toward the

u.s., not just the government of the population, so there's always a concern about all back for your giving capabilities to countries that could be turned on us. i think that's where building a deep set of relationships with the countries you are working with matters a great deal. it's not fashionable to say that personal relationships matter but they do and i think when the we are able to go about a deeper understanding of the countries we are working with because they put people in place, build up a sense of trust with the locals, i think we're better situated to powerplay the amount of help and the kind of help we get. i think in many ways that's the strategy general petraeus use dinow iraq is getting people in the local population connected up with the military in an ongoing basis, not sorting out an outpost interesting for a few minutes and going back two

literally have that back-and-forth interchange that in many ways goes to a trust that allows us to understand how to strategy the locals. there is an old piece of advice that in many pieces of the world what people value is when you come by for a cup of tea and don't want something from them and that over that process to develop trust that enables of the and to do some kind of business and that's really what we have to do in places like yemen and other parts not only the region but the world at large. >> we have the gentleman in the back. take a minute to get there. >> [inaudible] >> thank you, mr. chertoff, for your answer. i respect your answer that you gave to my question however i disagree with it on one ground. recently i heard an interview of

gordie dallas who cannot be one of your favorites but he said the usa as the united states and asia so your historical perspective that you gave a buy a foreign intervention in my opinion is part of that. basically there were lots of problems in 1991 and '92 like you said, there was an attack. some of the old problems dealing with the israeli-palestinian problem festering. there were other interventions in this afghanistan problem that we're talking about now, the whole incubation of the terrorists in that area was funded by banks to the united states and the cia when the russians were in afghanistan those of the elements that have not turned on us so. i don't know if you want to elaborate on that but there is a history there. >> well, i guess we're going to

disagree. my recollection is gore vidal is not even sure we would have been in world war ii so there are people who have a very different view of world history. i don't share that view. >> we really appreciate that you have been so kind and generous in sharing some of the views with us today. this has been a tremendous opportunity for exchange and also to get a preview of what's available in your book which we hope everyone will go out and purchase for a low price available at all best bookseller's. >> and amazon.com. [laughter] >> thank you secretary chertoff were coming and thank you all for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] this is a live look at the u.s. capitol as a blizzard hits the nation's capital and most of the east coast. the weather service of spreading conditions with wins over 40 miles per hour and why that conditions, the third day in the role the federal there remains closed, the u.s. house out until the or 20 seconds. not in session today but the senate does plan to convene tomorrow for general speeches at to 30:00 p.m., democrats also caucusing tomorrow to talk about jobs legislation. that is the plan out anyway schedule coverage to market to 30:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. for news from capitol hill actually from michigan rep errors of michigan says in an interview he won't seek reelection to congress in 2010. the ap says he's going to announce his retirement this morning in a news conference in

grand rapids. most of is solidly republican congressional district was represented by president gerald ford so he is set to retire first elected in 1993.

now a panel on the climate change from the world economic forum in switzerland with mexican president calderon coming in for a secretary, a massachusetts congressman rep. markey to talk about immediate steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions. in december the u.n. climate change conference in copenhagen failed to reach a legally binding deal. this is about an hour in 10 minutes.

>> thank you all prairie much for coming. i am timothy werth, president of united nations foundation and it's my privilege to help to moderate this a very important panel. the top -- the topic today, let me read from the agenda to remind us all, the u.n. climate change conference in copenhagen did not lead to a definitive global solution on a carbon emissions. what immediate steps should governments, businesses and civil society take toward a long-term climate path that is both environmentally attractive and economically efficient? this session is part of an ongoing effort by the world economic forum to help improve international cooperation by servicing the best ideas and triggering new practices in the governance of most important challenges. it to service a threat for feedback on ideas and proposals that the global agenda council is working at of the remark of

redesign. as we talk about climate change, let me divert for just a minute for those of you who may not to watch this all in great detail in just give you a little bit of definition that so that some of the words that maybe for terms that may be unfamiliar we can all share. first, the framework convention, it's the climate treaty called the framework convention. negotiated in riel in 1992. and the operative words were to quote, avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system. kyoto which came five years after the climate convention hall was ratified by 187 odd countries, the u.s. was the sixth country to ratify the basic climate treaty. kyoto was the first implementation of a protocol to the treaty. that was 1997. and it was at keogh that a

distinction was developed between specifically what the responsibilities of developed countries were going to be, the so-called annexed countries, and what to developing countries everybody else should do the so-called non and next born countries. copenhagen was the third and major convening that just occurred in december. copenhagen's initial purpose was to design a tree in which nations all around the world could come together in agreement about what a global strategy should be related to climate change. when you hear reference to cops it has nothing to do with a policeman, cops me in the conference of the party. the conference of the parties are all of the countries ratify the climate treaty, there are members of the copper, what occurred in copenhagen that was the 15th conference of the party is. the 15th year since the treaty

was ratified in 1992 and mexico will be the host of the next s.t.o.p. this year in 2010 so president calderon has a very important pontian and what we're talking about today is the time between and what we do between cop 15 copenhagen and cop 16 which will occur in mexico. a final definition, the ipcc is the intergovernmental panel on climate change. that is the scientific group that came to gather in the late 1980's sponsored by honda u.n. reader logic organization and the united nations environment program. more than 2,000 scientists from all over the world will have developed the consensus science upon which all of the private negotiations have occurred. that is this before. we are talking here about the way forward and that clearly will be led by president --

president calderon as we agreed this morning with his appearance we're going to spend a few minutes first on where we have been a. what happened in copenhagen. if we did a cloud analysis of discussions at taos this week i think that no doubt copenhagen it would appear in very large bold letters. in while some have very very strong views, most people who are still trying to figure out exactly what did happen in copenhagen and where we go from here, our topic this morning. this is by no means clear and there is by no means a consensus. those with a positive interpretation of copenhagen will most often cite the fact that the leaders in copenhagen going into copenhagen had to learn their briefs, nations develop consensus on the seriousness of this issue, it was the first international meeting based upon international

consensus science, despite efforts of the climate downers and deniers the undermining of science and despite some unhappy and sloppy science and science writing, the evidence is unconscionable that the globe is warming and that man is largely responsible. there was consensus on a target that we should shoot to have no higher than a2 degrees centigrade increase for 450 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere and should move toward a low carbon economy by 2015 and the developing world both made commitments a breakthrough away from this dark wind that existed between aniks one, and on annex one countries, developed countries, and on developed countries, that line had been very troublesome and is now beginning to emerge and change is a very interesting ways. finally, out of of copenhagen the developed countries agreed

to a $10 billion package of assistance moving to $100 billion package by the year 2050. 2020. of those that's the positive use and there are many positive elements of copenhagen. the negative is that there was total chaos in the negotiation and that venue really reflects the lack of capacity of the it u.n. to undertake such a negotiation which say the critics. no agreement was reached. back there now greater divisions between north and south and anax one and non aniks countries remain far apart, the urgency is much greater, the negotiations would suggest this, and we have to now find a new venue and a new approach. so there is a very broad split in many many shades of difference in between. to start the morning we have asked yvo de boer, the executive secretary of the framework

convention on climate change, to set the scene as to what this ec from the perspective of the conference of the parties and the u.n. believe was the result of copenhagen. we then asked shyam saran, former foreign secretary of india and now special envoy of the prime minister, for the india perspective on what happens. very interesting and different negotiations occurred in copenhagen. and then congressman ed markey, the co-author of the important waxman of markey legislation and the house, a longtime member of the congress, to respond from the perspective of the developed world as to what happened. after the short remarks we will then turned over to president calderon who has the responsibility for guiding us into the next year of these negotiations for a more lengthy discussion. will then ask to industry people, the vice president of deutsche bank, carlos ghoen, chairman and ceo, both deeply

involved with world economic forum activities, to talk about their perspective on backstabs especially important since the private sector is now playing a larger and larger role. was in my view practically invisible in copenhagen but now must be brought much more to the floor. we will have then a discussion among ourselves back and forth. we will send the final 20 minutes for questions from the audience. so with that, as the introduction, to want to kick this off. >> thank you and good morning everyone. i would like to begin by talking about what copenhagen wasn't. copenhagen did not deliver agreements on the second target under the keogh protocol. in kyoto -- copenhagen did not deliver agreements on a new legally binding instruments under the climate change convention. copenhagen did not deliver

legally binding targets for individual industrialized countries. but actually it wasn't really supposed to do that. copenhagen is in a sense a step on a longer journey to come to that long term -- you talked about quitting conferences and parties but more important is what copenhagen did deliver. and what copenhagen did deliver is for may, first of all, an incredibly important political statement. in part of the chaos that we saw there was because 120 heads of state and government came to copenhagen. 120 heads of state and government expressed their concern about this issue and the fact that they see it being at the heart of economic recovery. they see it being part of an agenda in moving toward a. the second thing that copenhagen delivered was a poor group of countries, major industrialized countries, major developing nations, representatives of

small island and states of african countries bring a political agreement which you just outlined. political agreement which talks about maximizing temperature increase, providing $100 billion a year to developing nations and a specific -- measures of 20 billion some short-term finance remain but there was also in the political package and important political agreement on a financial architecture on technology agenda moving forward. the agreement also indicates that we will make reporting by countries more frequent, that actions will be reported on, monitored and verify that especially if there's international financial support. so basically the architecture was put in place. what i see pulling from that architecture our commitments at the national level. yesterday evening when i was in my hotel room on my blackberry came in the commitment of the united states to a target moving forward. china, india, brazil, mexico, south africa, korea, a houston

nations around the world are moving forward to invest -- address climate change, the issue of energy prices and energy security in coherence. countries are moving toward it at the national level whenever they feel about the outcomes in copenhagen. what we now need to do in moving forward toward mexico is to ensure that we put an international architecture in place, regulatory framework that allows countries to move toward a on the basis of a level playing field both politically and economically. so in that sense copenhagen will not please, the lawyers in the room, but i think act copenhagen has given it an important signal to the politicians and economists. brazil, south africa, india, and china. shyam saran, would like to give us your perspective on what came out of that? >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me clarify that, as far as

the four major developing countries, they were very clear in their minds that they would like to see a comprehensive, balanced, and equitable outcome on copenhagen. that outcome was not achieved. i believe one reason copenhagen did not live up to expectations of the international community was precisely because climate change has become enmeshed with issues of economic interest and even political interests. it is extremely difficult to really focus attention on what all of us agree is one of the greatest global challenges humanity bases, but when we start working toward meeting that challenge, we get bogged down in a lot of issues of level playing field or competitiveness, issues which

then make it very difficult for us to deliver the kind of collaborative response we need to climate change. >> i think what that developing countries were saying was that, in this case, we need collaboration. that is the spirit of collaboration which was missing. as far as we're concerned, what was good about copenhagen >> as far as we are concerned, what was good about copenhagen was that the measure of other countries, the major developing countries did come together. they did we reach and meeting that was an important development in our journey towards a global agreement. the fact that we reached broad consensus on some of the outstanding issues, leads us to believe that this will in fact become a very invaluable input

into the post-copenhagen negotiating process. which will lead up to next. this is what they had stated. i would disagree with the notion that somehow the u.n. system, and the multilateral process failed. it is not the multilateral that failed. isn't it other multilateral competence we have smaller groups or countries going into a side room, discussing various outstanding issues. but what is very important is they always bring that back to the multilateral process. and i think one of the reasons why copenhagen did deliver what was supposed to do with because that particular link was missing. and i think we should be very careful that we don't trash the multilateral process when we take this process forward towards mexico city. >> congressman ed markey.

>> i think what happened in copenhagen, from the perspective of the united states, was that there was a very significant step forward. not as far as we wanted to go, but it has now put in place as yvo just pointed to, the requirement that all of the major players have to make a commitment and put it in writing. and the united states yesterday put in writing their commitment to a 17% reduction by 2020 other greenhouse gases, 22 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050. that's a huge commitment. so we had an election in massachusetts last week. the politics in the united states slightly change, but the

problems did not. president obama come in his state of the union address on wednesday night, made it very clear that he was fully committed to passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year. we have already completed that process in the house of representatives. the senate is now considering it, but i think that if anyone had any doubts, the president removed it on wednesday night. yesterday, the united states made a commitment to the world, and i think what happens in copenhagen with secretary clinton announcing the united states intention to lead the effort to produce 100 billion-dollar a year commitment to developing countries, to help finance deforestation protection -- prevention efforts, adaptation efforts in developing countries and transfer of new energy

technologies to developing countries should remove all doubts that the united states is prepared to be a leader partnering with other countries in the world. the planet has a fever. there are no emergency rooms for planets. we have to act together to put in place the preventative measures that will assure that we do not see the most catastrophic consequences from catastrophic global warming. >> president calderon, it is overdue. most people think there is a directionally the right move, and all these avenues forward to your office in mexico and at the end of this year. >> it would be quite interesting top in mexico. all of you will be very welcome in cancun. and probably one thing that we need to do is try to learn from our mistakes, copenhagen,

previous part of it. one thing we need to do is to reestablish trust and confidence between the parties. and in order to do so, i want to hear all the voices, i want to bring to the table each and every country. and we need to understand that there are very different perceptions of the problem, very different, economic, political interest, and i need to say legitimate interests is not the same, the perception of the small state nation's who were down here because they can lose their territory. it is not the same ambitions of developing countries without the missions, developing countries with the missions, the same missions of the same patients in europe and united states or

australia. so the idea is to hear everyone. still the prime minister, i'm other members, to sing with matters of international community, tried to establish a method in which we can work all the year together. and of course, will be very close to the united nations. in very close contact with the specialized groups, the working groups, working today in the different issues in the post-kyoto call, working with issues that are established. of course, in return i will insist on good faith negotiations. i want to avoid wasting our time and going home after cancun with empty hands. in order to do so, we need to be very careful about the project.

one of the points that we need to establish is what exactly are the coincidence? copenhagen provide us with a very good basis, if i understand, the goals about related to the temperature, the commitment related to funds, the green funds established there, and a very important thanks. my perception is that the lack of consensus is related with the economic problems in each nation. because there are economic costs associated with the tasks in order to tackle climate change. if we can find and economic mechanism with the right incentives, in order to stimulate, in order to incentive actions, either developed or developing countries, we will be on track to find what we want to

fight in cancun, a robust, comprehensive and substantial agreement at comp 16. it's not going to be easy. i think there are a lot of problems with the traditional mechanism, negotiation by consensus, but we need to try that. before copenhagen, we started to organize some mutual meetings between some members of the community, each week, several members, trimesters from australia, others, we have meetings through internet. maybe we can do exactly the same. we can try to get in formal gathering through internet and order to fix the problem and try to understand what our main concerns coming from each country. we will do the rest, but let me be clear. i realize how important is for

the world to get success in cancun, how important is to start, taking actions today. for me, it's clear. the scientific evidence is overwhelming. the affects of global organ are already affecting people, life of ordinary people in developed and developing countries. today, for instance, there are more than 2000 tourists in peru, they are trapped by flood. they are trapped. you can see it right now in europe there is no -- almost paralyzing the economic activity. and two years ago in france, thousands of people die do the wave, the wave of high temperature that france suffered. so we need to act now, and mexico has a clear commitment in

order to achieve this comprehensive, robust and substantial agreement. >> mr. president, thank you. may be the magic words that we hear is substantial agreement. and will come back and talk about, you know, how we begin to define that. the other central point of the present made was that we must start -- we must are taking actions today. carlos, going into one of the key climate change our admissions from transportation, and you've been at the center of the transformation of the industry. and maybe -- when you're the president say we have to start taking actions today, what does that say to? >> let me talk about the mexican commitment. mexico was the first developing country in order to present the for communication to the united nations related to our emissions. the first developing country to

establish a unilateral and condition commitment in order to reduce 50 million tons a year starting in 2012. we are submitting our commitment in order to reduce 30% our emissions from business as usual by the year 2020, and 50 percent by the year 2050. and in mexico, we're working preventing deforestation. we're being very aggressive in the terms of reforestation. actually, we used to lose like 300,000 acres a year, the last decade. and we are today, we are preventing -- reforestating more than 500,000 acres a year. so we are compensating and we're reaching in this particular arena. we are investing in technology in order to reduce our emissions

for all industry. we are trying to transform transportations, we're trying to apply new mechanism to massive ways of transportations and the cities. and my point is, of course, it's very expensive force, particularly for mexican economy. we suffer a recession almost 7% negative last year. but nevertheless, we are keeping our commitment because we will be in benefit of the people. and i think each single country who make similar commitment, what is the point? we need money for the. but the money will be there. i think it's a very good step in poynter copenhagen to talk about 100 billion a year starting 2020. and the point is, how are we going to use that money? and one principle must be this. the result based principle, we need to measure and we need to be absolutely transpiring about our action.

>> point again to carlos ghoen who is the chairman and ceo of nissan-renault, made major commitments in this area. >> the first question is what do we need, what do we need from your? i think, i think there is the result of copenhagen are the best we could result for and we're expecting a lot in mexico when we meet our targets. we need to move on. as private sector we need to know exactly what is the level we need to reach, where, in order for this problem to be behind us. so we need clear targets. now, when we talk about targets, is it a 2%? is at 60, 70, 80? we need to stick to these targets. and i think we need some encouragement and processes like the president was mentioning about favoring integrated approach. i mean, you can ago to the car industry as a unique to do this and then go to another industry and say, this. because sometime to time, if in order to reduce the co2 emission for cars, the best solution would come from a group

cooperation between the car industry and all industry and the chemical industry. so i would be asking for encouragement for an integrated approach. so nobody escapes responsibly. but we are sure that we're talking the best solution, the solution that makes the most expensive requires the least resources. when you push were integrated approach, you're pushing industry to have a good representation. representation of the industry and today is a problem. we have been for the last the years at the level, working towards one common position for the industry. we were not successful. we were not successful. recently, after three years of war, we came with one statement, which is going to be official today, signed by for ceos, for ceos of the car industry. because most of them did not want to sign, but these represent the substantial part of the car industry. so if we don't push for an integrated approach, you know, still the public, you know, and

the governments are going to have some difficulty to understand what the technology allow you to do. at the end of the day, most of these solutions will come from innovation and from technology solutions. governments need of some kind of objective image about what technology can allow you to do. just to give an example. today, we can do batteries for cars, and probably we can project the next five years to do with battery for cars, things that we cannot expect today. so somebody's going to have to be in a very objective way to explain what's possible, what is not, what is not possible. and a final thing i would like to mention is encouragement for private public collaboration, and i'm very glad to see that there is one specific example that is taking place with, taking place in the united states, in europe or in japan, where governments and private sector are coming together to say, okay, government cannot do it alone. private sector cannot do it

alone. we have to work together in what to make something that makes business sense, and at the same time be very efficient for the public good. >> thank you. that leads us right into mr. koch-weser has a long history in finance, with the world bank out at deutsche bank. we have talked about these very large pools of capital that are going to be necessary for mitigation and adaptation in the climate area, promises made from the developed world to the developing world. this clearly cannot all come from the public sector. caio, give us your view. you have thought long and hard about the vehicles that may be necessary if possible? >> ten, first from the private sector respect, i would call the results of copenhagen a glass half-full. we didn't have very high expectations before, and i think on the positive side, compared to kyoto, all sectors are very

important for us to, so to speak the group of countries committed to strict mitigation is now expanded to the basic countries, very important element of that. and i think we have the outline at least of what could be a future financing mechanism, the 30 billion of fast art money that the 100 billion that comes out of, i've been involved with which will be required for mitigation adaptation action is in their. the details to be worked out in time of fiscal constraint. are very large and therefore the private sector in future will have to finance a lot of that. and immediate negative to add to the list is we have uncertainty now to the future of cap-and-trade and carbon market. and even well-established carbon markets like dts in europe have some doubts now on how this will go forward. site think that inserting on the future of carbon price and carbon process is near-term

result. now where do we go from here? i think we need to create momentum that is a three-pronged approach and strategy. one is the u.n. process, and strong leadership, president calderon i hope there will be progress. it will be tough. it will be important to define during the year. you have to be run very differently. that's very critical. there are a lot of lessons to be learned. but i think as second prong in that strategy becomes very interesting, and that would be to have small groups of like-minded countries come together around certain sectors and issues, and push the agenda forward. bread is a very good example, how some countries took the lead. there's money on the table. there is payment for performance. there is transparency. i could see this happen in other sectors from a business point of view. perhaps in a tradable sector, and and untradable sector. international transport, shipping, and steal some of the

japanese ideas on sector agreements, come up again, power. and i think again, put a serious money on the table, have on the recipient side credible performance. and odyssey, all the transparency related issues. such flexible variable architecture, smaller coalitions of countries i think and push that second prong forward which would reinforce and maybe later lead back into the first prong, which is the u.n. process. i would not even limit that to nation states. there is no evidence, even within the u.s., that subnational evidence states that are more dance, california, could come together and form these small coalitions to move on certain agenda item. third prong very quickly, obviously leadership from the private sector, to identify this as a major opportunity not to burden opportunity for future growth, technological innovati

innovation, in league with big iconic megaprojects. we are involved, carlos, you're involved in many of these, we, deutsche bank with other german company sastre. big ambition of bringing 15 percent of electricity requirements of europe by 2050. for particular constant solar power from this. these are truly transformational megaprojects, technology excess, financing will be difficult but is doable. that you politics of course is complex. and then come to govern as private sector around these new innovative projects intrigue, and as governments for the framework conditions. and here comes the public-private partnerships. i think there's work on the way that can lead to success, which was give up and leverage of limited amounts of public money. for example, taking first class equity positions on certain projects, that than on a factor of five, seven, 10 leverages in

private those are because 100 million i believe in the end will have to come about one-third from cap-and-trade, and carbon market, private to private. it will come through schemes like this of leveraging of public-private, public monies, guarantees, the world bank, could play a role. and of course, the fiscal coffers will also provide some. that will be my three-pronged strategy. that is independent, these promise, from each other but mutually reinforcing it. >> thank you very much, caio. ed markey, we're beginning to get to a point of giving advice i think it president calderon as to what this animal is he's going to be trying to harness in the next year. what can he expect, do you think, from the united states of american? >> first of all, president calderon is going to do a fantastic job over the next year, so let's just start there. he already outlined in his

statement his complete identification of all of the big challenges ahead. so i don't think we really do have to worry about president calderon. is going to be a world leader over the next year, and i think we can bring together a great coalition. in the united states, again, president obama recommitted the united states the passing climate legislation this year. there is a coalition of republican members led by lindsey graham and susan collins who are partnering with john kerry and joe lieberman in the united states senate, working with the white house towards finding a conference of agreement. the intention then is for the house of representatives, henry waxman and i, nancy pelosi, then to work with them in order to produce the legislation this year. i believe that that will have a. i believe that bill will be on the president's desk.

and the reason i believe it is it's in our national security interest. it's in our long-term economic interest. half of our trade deficit is importing oil, a lot of it from countries that really we should not be sending that capital too. so i think those and their kids are driving us towards resolving this issue in the united states. and i think since mexico is our closest neighbor, then working with them to help produce a hemispheric understandings that can help then i think to create a model for the rest of the world. there is no question though that we will be successful. we don't have an option in the united states, and legislatively i think republicans and democrats both understand that the world looks at us and they say most of that co2 is red, white and blue.

stop preaching temperance from a barstool. don't tell us what to do, and lets you have put your own laws on the books. and our intention is to do that. we will complete that this year, and i think at the end of the day, go to mexico as a leader partnering with president calderon in order to publish those goals. >> i may remind if this does not happen, legislative, the president has many authorities, administer the, direct? >> if i may, yes. we had a very important supreme court decision, massachusetts versus epa, two years ago. under that authority the president and environment protection agency of the united states now has the authority, administratively, at the executive level, presidential level, to regulate greenhouse gases, to regulate co2. so it's no longer a question of whether the legislation passes or doesn't pass. if legislation does not pass,

the president has the authority to wrigley, even without legislation. if we pass legislation, it allows us to moderate impact on industries, on consumers, to put in different trade protections. but even in the absence of that, although it won't be a less refined process, the environmental protection agency of the united states can regulate greenhouse gases, and the president and the epa at 40 put in motion the process to make that possible. and to do so in the course of this year, unless we legislate. >> shyam, president calderon laid out a very, very impressive list of things that mexico is doing, mexico is a non-annex one country, does not have the same obligations that developed countries do. but he has, as a rapidly developing country, put together this very, very impressive list of commitments. the basic countries coming in,

what will they be able to offer to, you think, the goal of reaching as the president has said, a substantial agreement in mexico? will you be matching the kinds of commitments, do you think, that mexico has been making? >> mr. chairman, first of all let me compliment the president of mexico for the very strongly he has given in this global effort to reach successful outcome at copenhagen. and let me assure him, on behalf of india, and i'm sure this is the same sentiment data shared by his colleagues in basic countries that we look for to working very closely to working with you to ensure that we have a successful partner. let me say that, just as mexico has shown the way, in taking on commitments which it does not legally need to, frankly

speaking, most of the developing country, major developing countries are ahead of the curve. if you're looking for leadership, with respect to what is required to be done, which is a strategic shift from our fossil fuels, to renewable sources of energy, clean source of energy, these countries are way ahead -- look at india. we have only recently but have the most ambitious energy development plan in the world. we are looking at something like 20,000 storage capacity of solar energy by 2020, 2022 pick was looking at raising our energy efficiency by 2020 by 40%. we already have 22 percent of our land area under force. we are doing. that is a huge carbon sinks. and it is this which has given us the confidence to declare

that by the year 2020, we will be able to reduce the emission intensity of our gdp growth by something like 20 to 25%, with 2005 as the base you. and as you look at the members which have been made by china, which have been made by south africa, by brazil, you will see that these four countries actually are already, despite the fact that we do not have an open critic of have already taken the lead. so there should be no doubt that these countries are going to work together with mexico, with other countries, our partners in the diocese that says, for example, to make certain that the kind of collaborative as i said, collaborative response, does come about that and i would like to just inform me that very decently, the environment and climate ministers of the four basic countries met in new delhi. and