of what lesson do you draw from especially the u.s. attempt to try to build the new iraqi security forces, and i know these are forces some iraqi generals have talked about with secretary and ethnic divides. but what lesson is important from your perspective and maybe we can begin in a direction. tom, you are nodding your head. maybe we can begin and turn to linda next. ..

by the civilians and the purging, the potential purging of their ranks. not to say there aren't terse but i think by and large and i would like to credit general dempsey, martin dempsey in his tour as the new sticky commander to train and equip command over there because he really pushed through a major process of

purging and especially in the national police, which was heavily think carrion. the re-gluing of that force. and there was also a critical intel contribution made eared one of the programs is called seven fail and they relied on iraqi officers to rely the political chain of influence going up to the prime minister's office. and so i think that they are -- coming you know, it's a long-term effort. we spent in tecate in salvador. we need to look at this as a long-term process of helping to mentor and train a professional force. that's one of my top flight lessons. i mean, i think the lesson of this war as we cannot think of war is a short exercise. we must pay attention to what comes after in the building of viable security forces, nonpartisan professional security forces for the long haul is really a generational

project. anything can i understand political reasons why president obama says we are getting out. the war is over. well, for the americans in a resume for the iraqis that we must pay attention to the long-term security assistance program in the political things that still has to happen. they can happen while a draw down is occurring. >> yeah, i want to take us in a different direction and think about building the nsf, i'm sorry, building security forces from the perspective of one of the things that tom and i are talking about, how you use leverage over government. i think in the past eight years we've actually made real gains tactically and mechanically and thinking about how we build security forces. i think you've seen that u.s. troops have taken it more seriously. i think we've gotten better at it. i think it's something that quite frankly we're moving in the right direction as far as how you roll troops off the line, how you build security

forces from the ground up, how you partner with them long-term. i think we made some good strides here. i think we have a lot of room to grow and this is something that needs biddle takes credit for this is thinking of strategically about how we build security forces. because when we think about trying to use leverage over host nation governments, the speed with which we build security forces, the equipment that we give security forces, the weaponry we give security forces, that's also a very concrete lever that we have over host nation governments. i actually think that the room to grow as far as the american thinking about building security forces in both iraq and afghanistan have to do with a strategic component. in the way we use to do we degree to which we use leverage over the host station government. and i can enter, just to tease about the people have a clearer idea of what's on your mind. you're talking for instance about a government before

political reconciliation has occurred is to adopt a more professional military? >> no, i was actually thinking about what happens after we leave. so maybe we leave iraq or we will just go contracts with the iraqi military bill s. five, ten years after we leave. so even when we know longer have to send the ground we are still able to exert some concrete leverage over what that doesn't fails to do. and we've done this with lebanon to a limited degree and i think we're thinking hard about -- we're up against in afghanistan were up against between iraq and a hard place. because of the one hand i think we be able to use the training and equipping of afghan national security forces over the political leadership. but on the flipside of that, we have a real need to get troops off, you know, rolling off the assembly line sat down and two rc south and let soon-to-be rc

left. >> i think intersite, but this is nothing new. latin america history come was always commissioned military aid. the question is congress going to propose the conditions or can the administration do it, which is often more palatable. and i think this whole point is really about the civilian national security policymakers are where the real lessons learnt how to get occurred. i know this conference is probably focused primary on the military, but i think we've got a real gap in the national security civilian cadre and they could have their own conference and learn a lot from that front. >> looking at stephenville at a follow-up conference. yes, ma'am and the far corner. >> thank you. thank you so much for a very insightful pencil. as is directed to ms. robinson and mr. ricks. everyone talked about the need to understand iraq for the sake

of iraq. can you talk a little bit about the president and future influence of how much will it be if there is any. >> the man has nine lives politically. yeah, i think it's been in a lot of the papers so i won't repeat the details of that, but the problem is and again i think earlier diplomatic intervention was required before those 500 people were purged from the electoral rose to be able to run for candidates. and again this is critical that you get in this parliament finally full representation across the iraqi political spectrum so then you can have the kind of multisite variants coalition building that will produce some legislation that's required for the endgame. i mean, the parliamentary system and this is absolutely critical. and so i am very concerned and that it happened and be that we were not more on top of it and did more to walk the cat back.

and i think that we really do -- this is one thing behind the scenes, you know, petraeus and crocker worked intensively with malik he and general o dear note is an able general, but he doesn't have the ability and just to strategy and it's not him and that's not a criticism, and justice are snotty. he's not as adept or comfortable in that world of maneuvering. and i think we have suffered as a result at a very critical time. but will tonight is the iraq use what you can rent to brokering these deals are maybe the guthrie painful. that may involve some returned to work. i mean i was a little concerned by the new u.n. envoy's kind of hands-off bed where he sang let's let the iraqis sort it out. there are just some cheap cleavages and some very deep issues and traditionally war ending scenarios have involved some kind of mediation and envoy. so i think some group of

friends, you know, i think the diplomatic measures need to be taken to try to help steer what is a true iraqi process. and i think that we can get there, though we need to rely on people. and i find it very ironic that in my view one of the greatest statesman of iraq is a kurd. here is a man who is willing to reach outside of his site here and and some very heavy sectarian pressures within his party and both kurdish parties frankly and be willing to sacrifice repeatedly some of the kurdish demands to get some of the deals brokered. and while i do think that the essential feature of iraq is the arab power sharing arrangements, the kurdish is a close second. you very much need to stop kurdish expansionism and put together a reasonable formula of what a kurdish regional bull of

her powers are going to be. and farsighted kurdish leaders to understand that you cannot go it alone or you're going to invite certain war with turkey with no u.s. ally with you. >> i think there's a lesson in chalabi and also we tend to underestimate these people repeatedly. the american attitude towards the father has been that he is basically sharp and with heavy weapons. [laughter] in fact, he actually has improved to be a real survivor. in the same way that cholla bs. chawla b. we treat like a mississippi riverboat gambler. i just think it would be fascinating to see the day if he ever becomes prime minister he will be a pro-iranian prime minister to see the look on the face of dockside that day. [laughter] >> will come down on the front and then we'll take some on this site. there's a microphone.

>> my name is buber phillips and i have a question about how we train local forces. and i wonder if we have done any fundamental thinking about what we tell them in addition to how to fire right. in other words, what are we doing to involve the local folks and giving the rationale to the average trainee of what is his duty to the iraqi people or the ask any people? in other words, are we trying to get across or trying to get the local folks to get across the notion that the hoses allegiance to an idea and not just to whoever happens to be his

commander in terms of how he deals with his own people. and i think this is absolutely critical. i go back of course to vietnam and the fact that we were able to turn the vietnamese army around in very early days in terms of how they dealt with the people. i go back to my side site in the philippines and halliburton that became an terms of setting a model for what the soldier was, which was he was a true servant of the people. and it seems to me that that's probably a neglected area, but i don't know enough about it and i think we got to maybe think about it. >> andrew, do you have it automatically >> yeah, not the poster on developing security forces. there's some people in mr. who know a lot more than me but i'm not going to embarrass them or call them out. but i think that just will briefly the one thing i wrote down, the one change that's

taken place in the way we develop security forces, we so far of an institutional perspective on it. you bring the men come you train them and marksmanship, physical fitness and such and you send them out there as part of the unit. a thing as were making a change this hasn't taken place in iraq because we are wanted on our presence in iraq hairdo might have read about that. but it has taken place in afghanistan were taking this move and will see if the polls off from kind of training to partnering. and that has a couple different effects. first off, there's a pragmatic effect you can assume a little risk in the time that you're spending training someone in the institution in the schoolhouse. and then you can partner with for exactly taken off cancan back in the partner with a u.s. company and then you can do certain things. first off if you have a battalion of u.s. marines and give them a district in afghanistan, that's kind a waste of marines that there's some

actual fighting taking place. but if you have an afghan cam back with a u.s. marine company in the same district, now you're doing a lot of things because first off you have afghans on the ground come you don't have as many u.s. troops on the ground in europe to start turning in such a way that the type of training, the type of mentoring that's taken place is kind of the big brother little brother type of thing that i think we never really got beyond in iraq. it's really living together, sleeping together, working together, training together, planning together and then operating together in such a way that we would hope that the way we do business but operationally and culturally begins to have an effect on the way that the host nation troops begin to operate. as well as instilling values i guess her patriotic values and devotion to a greater cause,

that i cannot speak intelligently about. i think again we've gotten better at the way we think about training security forces, but i don't know how exactly do that, creating the idea of a nation or the idea of a palace to military training. >> yes, i agree with everything andrew said you want to read quickly when a great distance in iraq originally when the ac/dc was formed which became the national guard. the conventional units were forced to take on their local brigade, battalion initially of the national guard and be mentors to them and they just fell them as force threats and they sequestered them and wanted to have nothing to do with them and of course those with a chaotic dirty areas and they couldn't go with iraqi culture and the soldiers were just totally unprepared. over time it approved but it never really did i think take

for reasons i'll seen a second. but the one success story was the iraqi special operations forces and they very have the model. the army special forces but it also included navy seals and some others as well. and that was really the model that they know. you're just with them from dawn until dusk. he looked at them coming with them, so forth. that is produced single most professional department. i think that kristol is right in trying that approach. but i really wonder if still conventional forces are totally batty. john noggle has proposed an advisory core to get some group of conventional forces that are released deep in that kind of culture know-how because you have to go back to this theme units and they know that's what the special forces do. but when we're talking about these hopefully rare exercises of big coins, we want to do small coin.

we've got to have something that's better, that's more knowledgeable. i think the professionalism occurs by osmosis. i've seen it too many times. i think the professional u.s. soldier that will rub off. but i think going the other way to the u.s. soldier understand what he's dealing with come away got to get more intensive training and people not just for military, but again cultural trainers to collect the trainers, train the trainers. >> gentleman in the blue shirt. >> thank you for being here. andrew, you alluded to this earlier. you indicated when third parties played on behalf of a host nation and recently president karzai served power from his electoral commission and i'm wondering what the panelist dr. if one a counter insurgent is already engaged in an insurgency and is heavily invested as we are, what happens if we don't have a legitimate

partner in the host nation government? >> yeah, i mean, look, the odds are you were not going to be fighting a counterinsurgency campaign if the legitimate government is legitimate in the first place. this should shock us that a government facing an insurgency is also fighting a crisis of insurgency. that is what's so frustrating about this that we haven't come up with a sophisticated political mechanism to accompany what's become a sophisticated military mechanism. i think that there are things that the u.s. military can do but ultimately i think the problem we have, one of the problems we have in afghanistan, the problem we have in afghanistan, one of the many problems we have in afghanistan stems from the fact that if you read tom's book on the linda's book, you read about the relationship between general petraeus and ambassador crocker

that we had in iraq. that was really something pretty special that you had, you know, the military stakeholder, but diplomatic stakeholders that were basically joined at the hip. now there's been a lot of rumors about relations between general mcchrystal and ambassador eikenberry. the two as far as i can delegate along quite well. the embassy and nato isaf maybe another thing. but there obstacles in the way in afghanistan that prevents us from being able to use kind of the same, you know, the same pair of chief diplomat and chief military official. and a lot of it has to do with the fact of the coalition. carl eikenberry can beat with resident karzai antique and be within ms trench ambassador comes back and they're all stakeholders. and they'll have just as much as a stake in afghanistan.

in addition, you have a u.n. high representative. you have a nato civilian representatives. so general mcchrystal doesn't really have a civilian counterpart. and i think, you know, as far as when you cry and no joy i think that we partied the night. i think that general mcchrystal understands all too well that the current troop levels in afghanistan cannot be sustained i think the president has made clear to both the people of district contributing nation and other true country reading nations that were not going to be in afghanistan forever. and i think also when he said were going to be withdrawing in 18 months, you know, i didn't like what he said that because i think that sends the wrong message to afghan people to have to make a choice in this campaign as was my message to the pakistanis into the insurgents. i think it's in a positive message the afghan political decision-makers. and so, your question is, you

know, what happens if you face a recalcitrant or destructive political host nation government you know, i think you do have to make clear is we've made that our presence in afghanistan goes up or down largely depending on what they do or fail to do. >> just very quickly come i think the answer is going to find local legitimate leaders. if you primarily have to work in the bottom left in afghanistan. and as far as you have karzai taking some measures to at least hopefully improve the check or he, i think they need to get a few of the really corrupt people out, but i think the key there is going to be getting local legitimate leaders and hopefully elected once. but if not, use the traditional ones. >> let me just apologize to the afghanistan panel that follows. >> we've got many hands. let's go to the site again. this gentleman in the third row and then we'll go back over

here. >> i'm ron milo and i teach military history of vietnam war attacks at tech university. i also teach a graduate seminar in the history of insurgency and when the assam 324 was published by university of chicago press back and i think it finally came out in a seven or eight i started using it as a background textbook for the various wars that we study. some of my veterans of iraq and afghanistan who served in the early years, reading that book or saying i wish we would've had this this in the early days. now america headquarters in the philippines. our experiences and be at non. why was there no anticipation that an insurgency would develop to the point where we would need a manual by 2003 because it just seems so obvious that these wars would've developed into something like what we've seen. >> this is actually one of the

core subjects of my next book, which i've started work on which is the history of american generalship in world war ii to the president. and asking that question, why would we have probably the most competent tactical military in the world where our military leadership is so blind to the nature of the war in which they were engaged in iraq? in general, jack keane has actually written a thought in an insightful way about the. i think basically at the end of the vietnam war, the u.s. military said were not going to do that again and the american people agreed. the army in vietnam they went through and they check out all the insurgency stuff. now there's an argument that the u.s. military was so straight and weakened at that point that it really needed to get back to focusing on the gap because that was really all that was probably capable of doing at that point. and it was a sort of straightening your lines and

doing what you could do. that said, somebody in the u.s. military might've woken up in the 1990's and said we are so dominant conventionally that the only way we can be faced is to look at the far end of the spectrum either in small irregular warfare or in weapons mass destruction, that we've occupied the middle ground so thoroughly. instead what you had was an army that after the gulf war was extraordinary complacent. gordon sullivan as chief of staff gave talks about how we think we have it just about right. i have learned that that's one of the warning signs of a military leadership. whenever somebody tells you that, look for your wallet. [laughter] >> time is very short. but i'd like to do now is take as many questions i can after three or four or five even and then ask will be taking a chance or because then we'll turn to the panel for some final thoughts and they may or may not touch on your question. you have to take notes appear on

the panel. >> hi, just a quick comment. i'm sure you're over at the marine small wars manual. it needed updating but it was there. a quick question back to them on the militia and the sons of iraq. one of my concerns is that a large failing is leading them on the army go to ground and an army in sons of iraq and what that may pose for us when we draw down below 50 or 30,000 or leave completely. i'm real concerned about that. >> the gentleman right next to did he have -- the gentleman that carries next. >> i have a question about the petraeus brain trust in history this to go expertise ms. robertson mentioned the interdisciplinary nation of the trust. and i'm wondering how or who in

the group was responsible for providing historical expertise about the history of iraq and especially the pre-2003 history. most of the historians of iraq i know would stress that the sunni shia divide the media for its taken place after the station, but the deeper historical roots were very salient so i'm interested to know about that. >> agenda men in the middle here. yes, sir. here and then here. >> can you here me? i have two questions. one for thomas and one for andrew. the first one is after your assessment this morning at general petraeus, i'd like to ask thomas first if you think his activity is spread too thin and should he have stayed or should he go back and finish one job before he starts a second one. my second question is to injure and this deals with the veterans coming home. now, i want to know what priority you think is given to these young men and women coming

back to the united states with a comeback with a positive attitude about our endeavors there because i'm a retired teacher and we see a lot of the veterans in north carolina. by the way, i'm bob matthew for bridge back. you would see a lot of these young men and women and we ask them what they think. this is what we talked yesterday about a national debate on what we're doing. this is where i think it starts with these young men and women coming back to their communities, churches, civic groups in high school is coming and telling what they think and we do something novel, we actually listen to these men and women and see what they think. so my question is guys and man, is a priority given to the soldiers coming home but i guess i would say they're enthusiastic about their service and willing to share with america? >> sir, could you just pass the microphone. >> thank you. >> mark gilbert, pacific university. we've been talking a little bit

here about how the lessons of vietnam war were forgotten for a strong political cultural reasons in the 1980's and 1990's. my concern is that part of that change was returned to face the soviet threat or russian threats. when this war is over, we are going to larger conventional threat. right now we're assuming all the wars are going to be like this and i would happen to agree. but i could see what their long-term expenditure of money, the disastrous effects on our military personnel, the american people wanting to turn away from this kind of born-again when we have legitimate reasons to do so politically on the horizon of our leaders. i'm wondering what word going to do to rely on a petraeus or some brilliant historian or student of history to save us from these lessons being lost again. i apologize to those tampa did not get to. and our last five minutes, give each one of our panelists two minutes to respond or address or

throwing any additional comments and i want to go in reverse order. andrew, if i could begin with you, the floor is yours. may not sure, i think in the near term you're seeing a lot of veterans come back from iraq and afghanistan, looking at a couple naughty and who are getting involved in policy in looking at defense policy looking up the way we are building the force. it's very positive. i guess what i've learned about in the long term there's just so few of us. ultimately it's hard to imagine veterans of the wars in iraq and the guinness and occupying prominent places in the political decision-making rounds of the united states 20 years from now simply because there are too few of us. there aren't many. this hasn't been a shared experience. this has been an experience that's been largely undertaken

by our think 1%, .5% of the public and their families. and that's it. as far as where we go from here, i think they you will probably see a desire not to get involved in these counterinsurgency campaigns over again. and i for one have been fought them in highly in favor of that. last night but having said that, two things, you may see the united states and our military power of more oriented towards a notch or bouncing deemed by the global commons, seen as a new report on that. protecting sea lions, getting back to more conventional threats, maybe not the rise of china, but just ensuring that a lot of the things we take for granted right now such as space, high seas, remain secure. but the caveat to that is something that our master always brings up is that the enemy

always get the vote. the enemy always gets a vote and how it's going to fight. so if we get really good at the intensity conflict in conventional conflicts, and we better prepare for cyberwar. if we get really good at cyberwar and neglect conventional conflicts, then guess what, we may face a return of the old industrial state on state wars of the 20th century. so i think that one of the lessons from iraq and afghanistan is not to get really good according but are flexible and organizations with a specially building an officer corps this intellectually nimble and open to change. >> very good. tom ricks. >> okay, on the issue of the sons of iraq, think that is a really good question. that is something he has written about eloquently which is that the short-term solution, the petraeus and zero dear now implemented the long-term problems. this takes us back to host government issues which is the sons of iraq would tell you if

you ask them and i did, what do you think of the baghdad government? as soon as the governments are out of the way we're going after them. we're just keeping up our dry until we can get them. so i think their long-term problems created there. a second question is lessons. we should also be asking what the enemy has learned. and i think what the enemy has been globally in iraq and afghanistan is that the united states can be taken off. and this is one reason to pay attention to the hezbollah versus israel fight of the summer of 06. what we're seeing is the regular forces now have sufficient provision and firepower that they can actually do quite a lot of damage to what used to be overwhelming conventional forces. when hezbollah infantry can stop an israeli tank column that is backed by helicopters, there's a different sort of work going on out there. so i think what we may see his

high-intensity insurgencies. which is the phrase has just occurred to me, but i want to copyright it right now. [laughter] in my waziristan book that i've been reading another host government solution. i didn't know this, the pakistani government newly independent dealing with the problems of the northwest frontier province invited and paid, hired the former british governor to come back and, not because everybody loved him but because he was an honest broker in the understood the situation. he was taking the politics, the tribes in the culture. and he was just a useful way. that may be our way out of a subordinate yourself to the host government and actually perform some of the same functions for them as a transitional thing. and finally on the question of learning, i'm beginning to think this may be just a human failing. every generation has to learn

these same lessons over and over again and that the human tragedy. >> linda. >> i have a little bit different perspective on the mock the army and thumbs of iraq. they were already armed. what it was was a place to bring the men on the other side. and i think where i come from is the bumper staiger of this work, with the learning that when honesty can't kill your way to victory. so was a maneuver to try to get a different solution going. the deal they were supposed to be incorporated into the iraqi security forces and i don't think zero dear now cut a good enough deal. it should've been 50% of the black should you want to be secured by those people. they know them, they trust them and helps rebalance the local police force which is still problematic. so again it's unfinished business. the other is the job training program and we need to be there holding the feet to the fire through condition need to make sure this and it works good historian, artist name some of the people involved, david

pearce, rob ford, cb mart, there were a number of people brought in. but also people were sponges. there were reaching out in up from other areas as they were doing the three in-depth study. u. vardy mentioned andrew, the hybrid warfare. i mean, i think the future is not going to go back to some major combat operations. the hybrid model is really where the future is because it's very hard to counter the tactics we've seen. i mean, we've adopted this silly acronym, the ied. they are very hard to counter and those tactics are going to be used time and time again by either a state or substate act there. a lot of this thinking is not only an acute er but working its way through some official concept and ideas within the year into a rewrite of joint pub

three -- zero. i like to space some homage to general john kendall who was brigadier general in iraq at a critical area. we can't think that petraeus did it all. he was the commander at the top. john was the multinational division. baghdad, abc for maneuver. and he was the man who made this happen, going around to every given a day after day, working hand in glove with the iraqis in the baghdad operational command and be in the example of a mentor. he is now in charge of the 101st airborne division and he's headed to afghanistan. and i'm sure he's going to apply many of the practices that he learned and did so while there in a very different environment. and finally i'd like to do sympathize again what i've been saying and what i think is going to apply for the next panel. i'm very eager to hear them that we must have a small coin model in mind. i call a big coin and small point but for those who are really into the details, support

to counterinsurgency is really what we've been doing. otherwise known as foreign internal defense, we should not be out there fighting these wars are the ones in charge. we should be supporting the host nation government enforces. thank you. >> many insights in this one short panel. one insight irony hat, one lesson i knew coming to the table is when your dealing with a difficult issue, make sure you surround yourself with top-quality experts. i've done that today. please thank the panel. caught mark caught [applause] i have never heard a point or a better description of what we should be taken away from this experience. thank you all very much. we'll take a 15 minute break and start in afghanistan.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] some [inaudible conversations]

>> thursday, canadian prime minister, stephen harper went before the house of commons for the first time since he suspended parliament in december. opposition leaders accused the prime minister of suspending parliament to avoid answering questions about the alleged torture of afghan detainees. he is a ten minute portion from the question. >> the honorable leader of the

opposition. [applause] >> mr. speaker, as we were saying before we were so rudely interrupted -- the prime minister stepped on parliament. canadians were rightly angered eared canadians want this house to reassert its just authority. we want democracy strength and an out weekend and so my question to the prime minister, will you support creating a special committee of this house to study for and to prevent its future abuse. [cheers and applause] >> the honorable prime minister. >> it's been used on every government on average annually mr. speaker for the past 140 years on average. and mr. speaker, there was one unusual use of that that lasher

as you know mr. speaker in order to assert the very principle that the opposition wants to replace a government that have to do throes of an election. mr. speaker, the honorable leader wants to revive the litter bull coalition he can take that to the canadian people. [cheers and applause] >> order, order. mr. speaker, everyone in this house and everyone in the country knows why the prime minister shut down parliament. he shut it down to avoid legitimate questions about the afghan tt meet standards. [cheers and applause] the parliament spoke clearly on this question, mr. speaker. they passed a motion in december which said stop the cover-up, stop the excuses, deliver the documents. will the prime minister now respect the will of parliament, deliver the documents to the afghan committee so that canadians can get the truth that they deserve.

[cheers and applause] >> order, order. >> the leader of the opposition knows, mr. speaker, that the consider nation of deducting legitimate lawyers could do that according to the law. and there have been literally tens of thousands of pages of documents released on all of those have indicated over and over again mr. speaker the canadian forces have conducted themselves with the high performance. >> the honorable leader of the opposition, order. >> mr. speaker, the prime minister closed down parliament for a very simple reason, to escape answering difficult questions. he's refused to produce documents that are not altered. he's hiding behind questionable reasons to hide the truth from

canadians and he is producing to respect the will of parliament. will he deliver non-redacted documents that we cannot access to the truth because they have a right to this. the honorable prime minister. mr. speaker. the rules for the publication of documents have been established by law and the government lawyers made a decision and mr. speaker, they have produced hundreds of pages of documents and it's clear, mr. speaker, that the canadian forces act admirably in all circumstances. [cheers and applause] >> mr. speaker, why this arbitrarily set down by the prime minister. further information is come to life for crediting the government about the abuse.

in may 2007, the judge advocate general, top litter desert for military warned senior officials in the defense department that it was a crime to ignore claims of prisoner abuse and did not take necessary and measures to prevent abuse. they clearly knew of the allegations of torture. why does this government continued to claim that it do nothing about the abuse and torture of afghan detainees. >> the great honorable prime minister. >> mr. speaker, the honorable member will note of course that in the question there is a new transfer agreement in place. this included a government three years ago. it's ironic the liberal party who was in afghanistan for four years before we came to office now questions the transfer arrangement that they have established. >> the honorable member -- [cheers and applause] >> order, order. the honorable member will pass

the floor. >> mr. speaker, there communications that have come to light even after the new agreement the minister talks about. it talks about evidence. in his letter of december 16, 2009, the future government denials of knowledge of torture or own officials. jag, the u.s. state department and the international human rights watch and canada's human rights report all acknowledged the existence of torture. when will this government stop the obstruction, rio but with canadians, do right by your troops in cali public inquiry? >> the honorable prime minister. >> mr. speaker, there's been an agreement in place for three years. all of the issues i'm not aware of any complaints. not only are they aware it any complaints for the transfer

agreement, this issue is already then to court in the governments position has been upheld. >> the honorable members. mr. speaker after reading the speeches clear that prohibition has helped this government we knew it helped more than ever. the conservative vision is one that is not reflected values of q-quebec, the government take advantage of this time to repeat its intention to create a canadian serious commission. it also clearly indicated that he wanted to abolish the firearms registry and that it wanted to decrease québec's political weight in the house o commons. how could a prime minister had the nerve that these interests of kovac while all political choices brought against kovac's well-being. the honorable prime minister. mr. speaker, with respect to a national securities commission,

this is a voluntary thing. provinces will deal to decide whether they want to join or not. but mr. speaker, i have met with quebecers who have been asking for this commission to defend their interests. so this is a very clear request on the part of québec investors. the two provinces to decide. the honorable member. mr. speaker, in copenhagen the government spoke an honor to québec. in copenhagen, the government spoke for canada. it did not speak for québec and they continue to do the same thing in its own speech because it did nothing to fight climate change. but the prime minister admit that although he talks about being a leader in terms of the

environment that he doesn't do this, rather he takes his marching orders from the oil patch and the nuclear industry. the right honorable prime minister mr. speaker, i would encourage the leader of the direct terror to listen to canadian and quebecers and you'll hear a very different perspective. by mr. speaker, when the leader as we have different interests than those of kovac. we saw in the olympics québec day by acting in unity, our country is a united country and a proud country and its influence is québec. thank you, mr. speaker. [cheers and applause]

>> well, this was federal budget day and that meant plenty of talk about dads and devastated with the governments trying to do with aliens of your dollars. in all, more than $280 billion. whether that's too much or too little depends on who you ask. well, we have plenty of answers tonight. beginning with our senior correspondent, terry molesky who was inaudible. >> well, the key to picking up the budget in a minority parliament is to think of the locks. not too hot, not too cold but

just right to divide the opposition and stay in power. >> i that measure, it's mission accomplished for stephen hopper and it's authority. they cooked up a cautious budget which did not prevent the opposition to vote them down. yes, they will get tough on the best deficit but not yet. >> we are in the middle of the largest federal infrastructure in over 60 years. >> economic recovery are not a gusher of stimulus money will keep on flowing. billions of it. 3.2 billion in personal income tax relief for low-income workers and seniors. another 4 billion goes for higher employment benefits and training plus 7.7 billion infrastructure spending, roads and bridges. all of that under the existing stimulus plan. but then the bad news. in the end, the deficit master must be slain. >> in two years time the deficit will be cut by two thirds. shortly after that, the deficit will be eliminated.

[cheers and applause] >> the details show a lot more red ink. this year, the deficit will be almost $54 billion it will still be 49 billion next year. but then, the stimulus taps will be turned off, cutting the deficit to 20 billion then with growth in some lack the minister says it will adapt just 1.8 billion by the year 2015. getting there means five years of spending restraint. the government says it will shave $17.6 billion up the cost of government over that period. 2.5 billion recovery conservative favorite, the defense budget. another 4.4 billion will come from foreign aid. again, that's over five years and 6.8 billion muscled the center run government departments. >> we have to make some tough decisions including national defense in the international aid envelope and the cost of running the entire government of canada.

>> the administers deficit depends on its assumptions for growth and some economists say they are too rosy. >> a basically assumes her economic assumptions that the economy will simply grow its way out of the deficit. and that's never happened in canada. it's never happened in any advanced colonies. >> others canadians say they got it right given him some pain, but not too much. >> they're trying to change the channel to say we had all of that and it was necessary and now we have a fiscal problem. we do have to restrain spending. were going to do it over the long period of time, nate a short period of time. however, we don't have room for his great big new spending or tax cuts. >> of course the political verdicts is not what the economist but with the opposition. this is a minority government after all and michael did not yet burned last year says he got the message. >> we can't support this budget and so we are going to be --

we're going to be voting against it in the house but not in sufficient numbers to bring an election on. canadians don't want the election. >> the ndp don't like the budget. >> this is a budget that is completely left behind the victims of the recession. it does nothing for the unemployed. >> but without the liberals the ndp cannot force the election so the government seems set to survive and to put its budget into action. then the question will be, will the economy really grow as predicted because if not those declining deficits could look really different. >> all right, terry. thank you very much. a spring and a mandolin now because as terry mentioned it's all about economic assumptions and look it up in the future. >> debases it i make group of consensus but i talked to many today and all of them think that these are actually accurate. they think they're very rosy

projections. the finance minister will also say five years that we don't know for sure. you know, that brings it to the suggestion that if you really want to accurately say when you can cut the deficit, to within three years or two years, pick a smaller number when you actually know what you're working with. >> even in the five years he's not working with a balanced budget. >> something else that people criticize. in fact, when you look at what they're doing freezing funding for government permits a 1.5% that's a lot of money and several analyses of people talk to said they may not feel that do that. they're talking about government spending in the tens of billions to 1.5% is a lot of money. >> don't go away. there's more for you in a moment. now, let's see, what will i next ip. the finance partner had choices to make. many canadians are feeling the pain of this recession, looking

for work internet looking for some help. so what will they see? cbcs chris brown is here with that part of the budget story. chris. >> peter, there's not much new money and this budget, but the modest amount there is an part is going to do with the government calls jobs for tomorrow. maybe someday the small vancouver startup will be bigger than ford motors. but for now they're happy just to take ford's cars and convert them to electricity. the budget was more than $200 million for new research and development could make that easier. >> sponsoring companies don't have the resources and the connections often to bring in the talent so they should be very helpful to them. >> entrepreneur michael voelker takes good ideas and turns them into profitable businesses. >> i think this will attract people who are looking for new opportunities, especially with high-growth companies, people that are willing to take a little bit of a risk, relocate

from a region like silicon valley and join a company for example here in vancouver that looks very promising and encouraging. >> among the new measures, auto will offer any recent phd graduate a fellowship of up to $70,000 to pursue research. >> that'll keep talent here in canada and that's important. >> is also a big chunk of money for a research project including $126 million for the particle physics lab at ubc and $400 million for new satellite technology. >> are laying the framework for longer-term productivity growth but i think they're going to do so in a modest way. >> what about people with decidedly old economy jobs, people like autoworkers bobbin hailey gilmore. >> i was hoping to see something like, i know it's a longshot, but something of another auto pact or something to hold onto jobs we are to have. >> the ford plant in london,

ontario so it will be their safety net. there's not much doing the budget on that. >> i was hoping for an extension and maybe they were talking about not taxing when you get a bio. >> it may not be much comfort to the bill were so many workforce efforts believe the unemployment rate is on the way down. so existing programs may be fine if they are. >> is an economic recovery but the labor force is going to be growing much less quickly because her getting older is a population. >> and so the concern among people who are out of work now may be that this budget does not focus on them and instead is creating much higher and jobs much further down the road. peter. >> chris, thanks very much. chris brown in vancouver. jobs, jobs, jobs. whether jobs in this budget? >> something never was talking about today in the business community that could create jobs. it sounds dumb but it's pretty interesting and there's a terraced tax on equipment that businesses buy from outside the

company. it's been removed altogether. for the only g7 country to do this in business as it's going to create jobs and allow them to invest in and manufacturing especially a really big heat of our economy could be quite a kick start. it's going to cost the government a couple hundred million dollars. they say it's well worth it because it will create jobs. >> thanks, amanda. amanda lang. >> well, it's been a busy day for the minister of finance so we're glad that jim flaherty to stick in the time tonight to talk less. the minister is just outside the house of commons there. minister, i've heard a lot of monday morning quarterbacks in the last hours as is the norm you're trying to analyze what you've done. if you just go by those who are sam than the nicer things, they're saying you did -- you had a modest budget and they were glad of that because they're not so sure about what's going to happen in the near future. and they're wondering how confident you are that we have seen the worst of the recession.

>> relatively confident. that's certainly the view of the economist of the major financial institutions be a to anything whose advice i take we use the average of their predictions for economic growth. it appears we are using very modest estimates like 2.6%, 2.7% economic growth weird this is very modest economic growth particularly since the canadian economy grew at 5% in the last quarter of 2009. >> you know, perhaps the other end of the spectrum, some of whom are your supporters say it didn't go fast enough in going after spending. you could've gone deeper faster. why did in two? >> because i am still worried about the fragility of our economy. i'm worried about some of the events were seen in europe increasingly worried about some of the assets in the european banks. i'm worried about the state of the u.s. economy. we're in much better shape in canada.

we are paying down debt before the recession came. the recession came from outside. we did the big economic action plan, the big stimulus and we certainly believe we have to finish out the plan in the next year to preserve and protect jobs in canada. but then we have to rein in the growth of spending so we can get back to a balanced budget, which we can do with modest growth in the medium term. but we had to make three or four very big and very serious decisions in this budget so that the rating and will happen as we go out two, three, four years. some of those european examples. are you worried about where interest rates could go? we know what you've already decided on the housing situation, but how concerned are you about interest rates and that they could go up and soon? >> the hon. jim flaherty: well, i think it's reasonable to assume that interest rates are going to go up because they can't go lower and that that will have some effect over time on mortgage interest rates, which is why we acted

quite recently with respect to mortgage insurance. but having said that, we have very sound fiscal fundamentals in canada. we weren't running deficits when the big recession came. the u.s. was, the u.k. was, all of our competitors, in fact, were not in very good fiscal shape, very difficult for them to budget their way out of the situation they're in. canada's in much better shape. our deficit is temporary if we take the right steps over the medium term, we can manage it and eliminate it by about 2014-2015. >> peter: i was surprised and some others have been too that one of the big goals here was to eliminate the deficit, was to show a balanced budget, but you've forecast out five, six years, and you don't quite get there. close, $1.5 billion. like you were unable to stand there tonight and say, you know, we've got a plan that will eliminate the deficit. why didn't you go that extra $1.5 billion? >> the hon. jim flaherty: well, because, you know for the last two months, peter,

we've been working very hard on basically looking >> well because the last two months we've been working very hard on basically looking at proposals and saying no. this is the smallest spending budget in more than ten years federally and so we've been doing a lot of that. when we worked out the numbers and made the restraint with respect to the foreign aid and with respect to the federal public service and the tax loopholes we fixed in this budget that's where the members took us to that number deficit about $1.8 billion. i wasn't going to force the numbers. in deficit 1.8 billion with five years on the budget to hundred 95 billion at that time as a relatively small deficit and canada will look so good compared to the rest of the developed world but i'm comfortable with that. >> let me ask the one question of those who were not listening to the budget today who've been asking what would you do about the national anthem?

[laughter] >> the couple of days i had in vancouver i just think it's fabulous. it was originally written in french so we should look at the original words and do something but it's just a happy time. i am totally satisfied with the scene of the national anthem everywhere. >> we will leave it at that. minister, thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you, peter. >> let's get the budget from canada's most watched political panel. allen is in toronto, chantilly and influence in iowa. i'm not sure if he was suggesting we should all sing in french. controversy proposal? >> yes. you know, it's hard to take too much out of the words of the finance minister on budget. there is a long-distance truck and to can't get them off it but i was struck a little bit by how many things jane said himself

that could go wrong that throw everything out the window that he announced today. what did you make of that? was he being frank or giving himself the possibility of a note of this? andrew? >> you asked him some pretty blunt questions and that's part of it. we've run the deficit one year, two years but if you're running them multiple years that is the problem and the danger is that if you assume the best. if you run an economic document everything has to work out fine and then you are leaving yourself exposed the longer you take to reduce the deficit. if you reduce the deficit in three years the reason that's better is you are less exposed to uncertainty and risk of a spike in interest rates or flaring up with a financial crisis or another recession so leading to five, six years to remanding out dips when you should be running surpluses were leaving yourself at risk of that kind of unexpected event. >> q&a andrew were in a lot of today so you had briefings from

officials. are they anxious and worried about where things are headed right now? >> what struck me about jim and what he was worried about is a number of things he's still worried about and canada is still worried about how to do with recession not being over and i think that he was giving a rationale for continuing to spend this year for not curtailing cutting the stimulus package because that is what is actually happening. easing into austerity. we are not doing it this year if you look at this budget. we are still so-called fighting the deficit. and i think that there are so many factors that are on a certain what the deficit numbers tell us today basically is the preference of the government to do it by cutting the size of the government rather than by addressing transfers or cutting taxes but i don't think psychologically or economically we are actually in deficit fighting mode and we won't be

for a year. >> alan? >> you don't have to read the business pages to know you should be concerned about these things but above and beyond that what he's trying to establish is the balance they've attempted to strike in this particular budget by focusing on longer-term on deficit reduction the more immediately on stimulus is consistent with the realities of the world we are living in. we did a poll the other day and said what should be the top priority stimulating the economy or reducing the deficit and the populace was 50/50 so by some respects by giving neither in any kind of particular aggressive way they are striking the kind of balance the population is looking for short-term. >> is this the balance the population is looking for? >> mabey but the premise is false. the notion what is keeping the recession at bay is the government building a hockey race is ridiculous. if this was the answer greece would not be in the trouble it's in right now. they would be having multiple, they would be in great shape.

what got the recovery going was the monetary policy bringing interest rates down flooding the market with liquidity three the irca recovery didn't before the show will start hitting the ground. this is a political decision, not economic. again he is using that excuse because they don't want to cut and spending now they don't want to antagonize opposition. these are economic decisions. stomach's not only the opposition, there is something to be said about whether you agree with the government going for the stimulus package or not which is another issue. that was last year's discussion. the was a two year plan that involves municipalities and involves provinces so if you are going to stop and say we made a mistake last year and we are going to go somewhere else this year i don't think that is publicly credible and it's not only the opposition it's the image of the government telling canadians we goofed and wasted billions of dollars last year on a false problem.

that was never going to have an to them. >> do you want to settle this one? >> farby it for me to be in on this kind of controversy. i think the politics it is quite clever because if you look substantially this is a government this out on the top two priorities for job growth and balanced budgets. the deficits can be exactly the same this year as it was last unemployment is even a little bit higher so clearly not satisfying any of those particular objectives in the short term anything purporting that is going to be substantial was beyond that probably in another election kind of freedom but because the heavy opposition that has no appetite really to take them on seriously the have the luxury waiting three, six, seven months in order to say the real issue is who is going to be with this terrible deficit problem which clearly is much stronger today for the conservative stance something like a who's going to make the economy started growing. >> i want to get to the politics of what we witnessed today.

we saw very quickly the ndp and the bloc come out of the gate that's expected to say they would not vote for this budget that left us with a normal situation as we've seen the last few years the liberals have made the final decision and we witnessed as michael said he didn't like the budget, there was lots found wrong with it but he wasn't going to allow the government to be defeated over that. perhaps no surprise but what does it say about the state of the landscape? andrew? >> she handled it as well as he possibly could. they should have done this a year and a half or two years ago. the only problems the liberals got it was getting in the game that we in the media love to play you were wrong to bring of the government. but he said today was that wasn't the question. the question is i'm going to build a credible alternate government in waiting. it's not about bringing the government out i think he did the right thing. a week from now this budget will be forgotten. it is a limit document and the

opposition response was pretty muted. >> in defense of the media this was the same guy six months ago said he was going to bring the government down so he would have to be asked -- i guess what i'm getting at was the answer one that is sellable for him at this point? >> well, two points. the first one is a good living but this is a party that has been spending month's signing the carless shutdown and on the first big day after the parliament returns to the opposition says some of the andes are going to go missing in action on a crucial vote. there is the disconnect. the second point is yes it's probably the only credible position that he could have taken today but it does beg the question that the official opposition's task beyond criticizing the government is to be an alternative to the government and if not now, and if the liberals are not ready now what is an alternative vision than when.

>> ellen? >> i think that he's doing exactly the right thing that we saw in the press today was absolutely ignominious, the howling for wider use a week you are not going to force election but if he shuts that down emphatically it will go away quickly and he is in a stronger position to pretend that he is an alternative government and waiting than some craven politicians seeking his own political ambition so i think that he's doing the right thing. i agree with andrew also that we make a lot about whether different agents had faded for disadvantage. i don't think this budget will have any affect short term. the issue now was how the different players deal with the hands that they have right now and how deeply things out in the next kind of three to six months. >> let's talk about what will get played out in the three to six months. if andrew is right and the budget is not the discussion

point a week from now and allen is right that he did the right thing, then what are they going to be talking about? what are the issues the parliament is going to go after? >> there are some issues we know the opposition will bring back to the floor but i also believe that in the speech yesterday there were a number of issues that the future government policies will come to the floor and the telecom communication and a number of issues of interest to the consumers. we will also get to see the new dynamics of mr. harper having control over the second house, the senate and what that means for the government legislation how the government tries to move its agenda for work so i think we are going to see probably a full range of discussion plus the liberals are having this conference, so that is bound to generate some discussion on the issues. i think we will do less of the when are we having the election but i have to tell you that over the past 48 hours i found being

around the liberal mps that our perception of improvement is not wildly share at this point in this caucus. >> and they're watching every poll. >> and they are nervous nellies. >> andrew, you get the last word tonight. >> the government is left in an opening by having such a thin budget that for the opposition to go back to having them on the abuse of power and arrogance on things like the afghan detainee's in terms of refusing to release the documents of the government had been made and potatoes with the budget the opposition would have been in peril looking like they were obsessed with institutional things and not dealing with bread and butter now have more open to go after that. >> ten seconds left, allan. estimate the conservatives have the best of all worlds. everyone is talking about the deficit if they haven't had to cut anything in on the other hand i think they have left the flank open on the foreign investment and i expect the liberals are going to start focusing on that in the coming

months. >> it's got to be the first time andrew has ever left ten seconds. >> stop. [laughter] >> that's because you had more than 20. >> thank you. good to see two nights in a row. >> the next journalism must be one open to blogs and e-mails herring like fists on the door to be let into the conversation to add new information, to raise new questions, to suggest new context.

as "washington post"

>> to a chinese premier spoke at the annual opening of the national people's congress. in this half-hour portion he discusses the chinese economy, corruption and relations with taiwan. this video is from chinese state broadcasters. >> translator: the main tasks for 2010. this is a crucial year for continuing to deal with the global financial crisis maintaining steady economic development and accelerating the

transformation of the pattern of economic growth. it's also important for achieving targets of the 11th five-year plan and fleeing the solid foundation for the development on the basis of the 12th five-year plan. although this year's development might be better than last year's we still face a very tough situation. some positive changes are growing while others are diminishing. short-term and long-term problems are interwoven. domestic and international mutually affect each other and dilemmas facing economic and social development are increasing. internationally, of the global economy will hopefully turnaround. international financial markets are stabilizing and the overall trend toward increased economic

globalization has not changed. considerable changes and adjustments in the world economic structure will bring in new development opportunities. at the same time, many destabilizing factors remain. financial risks have not been completely eliminated. countries face difficult choices in facing up their stimulus packages. larger fluctuations may occur in the prices of major commodities and exchange rates among the major currencies. trade protectionism is clearly reasserting itself and global problems such as climate change, food safety and energy and resource supply remain complex. domestically our country is still in the strategic opportunities.

the foundation for economic turnaround is becoming stronger. market confidence has increased. the policy we adopted to boost domestic demand and improved wellbeing continues to show the results and enterprises are becoming more competitive and better able to adapt to market changes. nevertheless, there are still serious problems affecting economic and social development. there is insufficient internal and pettis driving economic growth. our independent innovation is not strong. there's still considerable excess production capacity in some industries it is becoming more difficult to reconstruct sure them. while the pressure on and place it is constantly going over all

there is a structural shortage of labour. the foundation for keeping agricultural and farmers' incomes growing steadily is weekend. risks in the banking and public finance sector are increasing. major problems in the areas of health care and education, housing, income distribution and public administration urgently require solutions. we must make a comprehensive correct judgment of the situation and we must not interpret the situation turnaround has a fundamental improvement in the economic situation. we need to strengthen our awareness of potential dangers. make full use of the favorable conditions and positive factors

strive to resolve problems. it even more thorough preparations to deal with risks and challenges of all kinds and firmly keep the initiative. [applause] to do a good job of the government work this year and a to conscientiously implement the guiding principles of the 17 national people's party congress and offered sessions they represent, third of the emblem of the scientific outlook on the development, strive to apply macroand maintain economic settlement. work hard to accelerate the economic structuring and transformation of the pattern of economic growth.

press ahead with reform and opening up and with independent innovation. strive to improve people's well-being and promote social harmony and stability make headway with efforts to encourage socialistic cultural and ecological development. pick up the pace of building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and work hard to achieve sound economic and social development. the main targets are increasing gdp by approximately 8%. creating jobs for more than 9 million people entering the urban workforce.

keeping the urban registered unemployment rate no higher than 4.6%. holding the rise in consumer prices to around 3% and improving the balance of payments to reassure i would like to stress in their targeting a gdp increase of around 8% emphasizing sound development and we need to guide all sectors to focus on transforming the pattern of economic development and restructuring economy in their work. bye targeting increased consumer prices of around 3%, we are giving full consideration to the carryover effect of last year's price changes.

reverberations' caused by price changes for the international commodities the continued impact of the increases in domestic supplies and money and credit. while also room for reform and consumer ability to bear the price increases. this year we will focus on the following eight areas. first exercising better microcontrol maintaining steady economic development. we need to continue to implement a practice fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy. we need to maintain continuity and stability in the policies while constantly making them

better targeted and more flexible as circumstances and conditions change and keeping a good grasp of the intensity, pace and focus of the implementation. we need to skillfully handle the relationship between maintaining steady economic development, restructuring the economy and managing information expectations, and we must not only maintain sufficient policy and consolidate the momentum of the economic turnaround. but we also need to accelerate the economic restructuring progress transforming economic development. in addition we need to manage inflation expectations well and keep the overall level of prices stable while continuing to implement practice fiscal

policies. first we will keep the deficit and government bonds at the appropriate levels. this year, we have projected a deficit of 1.05 trillion which consists of 850 billion in the central government deficit or 200 billion local government bonds which will be included in the local government budgets. these arrangements are based on the consideration that this year the revenue will fall significantly short of expenditures regarding the revenue last year measures to increase revenue will either not be repeated or will be decreased we also need to continue to

implement the policy of structural tax reductions, consequential leave the revenue will not increase very quickly. regarding expenditures continuing the package planned for dealing with the global financial crisis and increase spending to the complete work on projects under construction strengthening carried forward to improve people's well-being and maintain stability. second, we will continue to implement the structural tax reduction policy to expand domestic demand and promote economic restructuring. third we will improve the structure of expenditures maintaining expenditures in some areas while reducing them and others. and spend our money where it counts the most but continue to give preferences to agricultural farmers in rural areas and to

improving people's well-being and developing programs. we will support energy conservation and protection and development in the underdeveloped areas while strictly controlling the regular expenditures and all we can reduce public spending. fourth, we will effectively improve the government debt management, strengthen internal and external restraints regard against and sendoff public finance risks. in addition we need to strengthen the tax collections as well as the supervision of the on tax revenue in accordance with the law. strictly crack down on the tax fraud and collect all due taxes. but continue to implement the moderately easy monetary policy first we will ensure that there are proper and sufficient supplies on the money and

credit. this year's target for expanding the money supply is around 17% and will increase the total quality of the guaranteed loans buy approximately 7.5 trillion. these increases are less than the actual increases last year there is still moderately easy policy goals and we can satisfy reasonable financial demands of economic and social development. in addition, the goals are beneficial for managing inflation expectations and making financial support for economic development more sustainable. second, we will improve the credit structure, we will implement a credit policy that guarantees credit in some areas and limits and others. increase support for employment

areas effectively even alleviating the smaller enterprises have an of attaining financing and control in loans to the industries that are energy intensive, highly polluting or settled. we will strengthen the supervision and insure loans are used to support the real economy. third, we will actively expand the financing to improve the system of multilevel capital markets, increase financing pacelli equities and issuing bonds and better satisfy the diverse demand for investment and financing. fourth we will strengthen the risks management and make financial oversight and supervision more effective. we will explore ways to establish the system of preventive micromanagement strengthen the monitoring of the cross border flow of capital and

guard against all kinds of financial risks. we will continue to improve the mechanism for setting the exchange rate and keep it basically stable with the appropriate balanced level. we will energetically and expand consumer demand. we will continue to increase farmers' incomes. basic pensions of the enterprises for retirees. allowances to in title groups subsistence allowances for urban residents and people's purchasing power especially low and middle-income earners. we would strengthen the presumption and promote upgrading consumption structure to the areas of high consumption of disinformation, tourism kunkel turkoman training services with elderly and household services, increase

consumer credit, strength and infrastructure such as logistics systems and vigorously devah lewicke e commerce and standardized markets to create a convenient safe and worry free environment for consumers. we will continue to employment and improve all of our policies and measures for encouraging consumption while considerably, considerably raising the maximum price so the increase types of appliances and models and improve the criteria for qualifying for subsidies and the way the subsidies are granted. strengthen provision and evaluation of enterprises that be for contracts and raise the quality of products and services. we are also including the

policies for getting the consumers to trade in the old motor vehicles for new ones and getting the rural residents to buy motor vehicles at 7.5%. we must implement these policies and measures through meaningful work and do it well and make sure the benefits reach the people. [applause] working hard to build a service oriented government the people are satisfied with. over the past year due progress was made in the government solve reform and self development. to deal with the difficulty of all kind we paid particular attention to promoting democracy. listening to the opinions of the people and protecting their

interests. our civil servants are devoted to a legend and responsible. the deposit of the contributions to sustain economic growth and ensure people's well-being. however the government's work still fell considerably short of the public's expectations. the transformation of the government functions is incomplete. there's too much government interference in and the micro economy and public administration services are relatively weak. some government employees give too little consideration to carry out their official duties in accordance with a lot. some leading cadres are divorced from reality and the people and are excessively formalistic and bureaucratic. in some areas they are prone to corruption. but the focus on transforming

government functions with deepened reform of the administrative system work hard to make the government devoted to service, strive to create a fair development environment for all types of market entities deliver quality public service to the people and appealed social fairness and justice. while fully performing the government functions at dalia public services and administration will quickly improve public service system with full coverage for all and comprehensively increase our ability to provide basic public services when proved for responding to major natural disasters in emergencies that threaten public safety improved ability to prevent natural disasters. strengthen the oversight and supervision of the food and drug

quality. we ensure workplace safety and reduce the occurrence of major accidents. we need to adapt to the new circumstances, promote reform and innovation in the public administration system and probably adjust the relationships between different interests to deal with serious infringements on the interest of the people related to conversion of enterprises to a stockholding system with housing. labor disputes and litigation issues to satisfy safeguard people's rights will promote the handling of public complaints be get letters and visits will improve supervision of and services for the floating population. it will strengthen our facets of security and focus on resolving serious public security issues and guard against and severely

cracked down on crimes of all sorts in accordance with the law. we work hard to improve our executive ability and rm greater public trust. we continue to make the decisions making more scientific and democratic and insure all of our policies are more suitable to the conditions. we strengthen inspection oversight policy implementation and ensure all orders are carried out and all are observed. persons who are derelict in their duties fail to do their jobs or to them irresponsibly will be held fully accountable. local governments shall never go their own way. government agencies tall levels and civil servants must abide by the constitution and the law and

carry out the administrative duties and strict accordance with the law. it will effectively improve the enforcement and the government administrations that to make sure the laws are enforced in the standard fare while accelerating the establishment of the sound of breathing mechanism for the government administration one that allows decision making enforcement and oversight departments can restrain and coordinate with each other. with priority to fighting corruption and encouraging integrity. the cadres of all levels especially high ranking ones must resolutely implement the leadership's regulation reporting the main facts concerning personal financial situations and poverty including income housing as well as jobs to their spouses and children will make investigating and prosecuting major violations of the law and disciplining

important tasks in the fight against corruption. the provisions and auditing departments to foley played a role in strengthening oversight and of the exercise of the had ministry of power to create a sound body of regulation to prevent and punish corruption particularly the administrative regulations concerning the allocation of public resources trade and public assets and the production. it will run the government diligently and frugally opposing extravagance and waste and constantly reduce at the ministry of costs while strictly controlling the consumption -- construction of pardoning the government bodies prohibit extravagant remodeling accelerating the reform of the regulations concerning the use of official cars. they will reduce the number of meetings and documents

particularly the meetings suppressions and forms that are short on content. promote transparency and administrative affairs committee approve regulations for transferring the governments and administrative review. create conditions for the people to criticize. create conditions for people to oversee and criticize the government. let the news media play and exercise power openly. [applause] everything we do we do it to ensure the people of happier lives with more dignity and to make our society fair and

harmonious. [applause] last year the relations between the two sides of the taiwan strait made progress from the historic new starting point and positive trend toward the peaceful development emerged. the changes and cooperation constantly deepened and complete direct the transport and trade links were established. it took a portion steps to normalize the streets economic relations and economic cooperation between the two sides who actually became institutionalized. the constant improvement and development brought real benefits to the compatriot on both sides. we will continue to the principal of developing the

cross streets relations implementing the peaceful motherland firmly in praising the the field of peaceful development of the cross street relations and constantly creating new conditions for it. it will strengthen economic trade and social context between the two sides could deepen the industrial corporation, support the development of the taiwan funded enterprises and safeguard the interests of the taiwan compatriots will encourage qualifying and enterprises to invest in taiwan, too, to support the economic zone of the western streets playing its role in pioneering the the new coach is to exchange between the two sides. we will promote a win-win situation set up on economic corporation mechanism that reflects the characteristics of both sides by negotiating and signing an economic framework

agreement. we will expand cultural and educational exchanges and work with taiwan to promote chinese culture. we will increase exchanges between people from all sectors of society on both sides so that everyone can share in the fruits of piecemeal development and cross streets relations and realize the importance of promoting peaceful development while upholding the principle that mainland and taiwan belong to the same china, strengthening the political foundation for the peaceful development of the cross street relations and enhance mutual political trust between the two sides. they firmly believe that with a concerted efforts of the chinese people we will achieve the complete for unification. [applause]

now our interview with the head of the u.s. agency for international development. he discussed america's foreign-aid budget and relief efforts in haiti. from today's washington journal this is 25 minutes. >> host: on your screen now is dr. shah the administrator for international development, usaid. he's here to talk to us about foreign aid and different aspects of the foreign-aid budget. if we could start with current issues do you know how much as the u.s. government spent so far in haiti and chile? >> guest: between the two we've spent now more than $600 million with the vast majority of that being focused on the relief effort in haiti. as you know when this incredible earthquake happened it was the worst natural disaster to hit haiti and centuries and really

destroyed critical infrastructure in and around port-au-prince the main city that hosted the capitol, and the president immediately asked for a swift and aggressive coordinated response. as we put together a broad range of assets and capabilities and started providing water and shelter and food and said more than 500 urban search and rescue professionals from all parts of the united states to save lives and dig through buildings and remove rubble and identify people so it has been a massive effort. it continues to this day and we will continue to stand with haiti going forward. >> host: what about chellie? >> guest: in the chilly it has also been hit by a tremendous earthquake, 8.8 magnitude earthquake that has infected more than 200 million people. the city most directly hit has been concepcion where most of the damage and loss of life as the estimate nearly 800 people, more than 800 people have lost their lives and chile.

the president in chile and secretary of state was just there earlier this week if asked us for new specific resources and for specific help in areas like water, medical and field hospital support, communications equipment to help their own relief system operate more effectively. chile has had an effective national response system like the family emergency management agency system and so they are also providing a great deal of their own support for what is a tremendous tragedy. >> host: where does that money come from, the disaster aid? is it budgeted for? >> guest: it is budgeted for and we said the president's 2011 budget request to congress said that's a great question and a very timely. the american people invest in our ability to provide services and meet the needs of humanity emergency around the world primarily by funding the office of foreign disaster assistance which is part of the u.s. agency for international development and it's critically important that we continue to provide resources and capabilities of

that we can act quickly and aggressively and often. the united states offers the first to matter and assistance on the ground in haiti. it was u.s. capabilities, the military that kept the airport opened and made it accessible to people around the world so that we could bring in and coordinate assistance not just from the united states but more than 40 countries around the world. >> host: but the numbers on the screen first time calls only we have dr. shah about 20 minutes or so. he's the administrator of the u.s. agency for international development. you could see the numbers slash political affiliation on the screen. first-time calls only this morning so go ahead and start dialing and. in your view is there a secondary purpose besides humanitarian aid to the foreign aid? >> guest: absolutely. the president said in oslo accepting the nobel peace prize that we cannot be secured and societies cannot be secure a must have access to food and water and ability to meet their

basic needs. psychiatry clinton and secretary gates have both spoken about how development assistance and ability to provide resources and cooperation to other countries to help solve these critical problems whether it is extreme poverty, poor health, boulder ability to climb that, these are the challenges of the future and interconnected world and if we can help countries resolve those problems and put themselves on a path of sustainability and growth we will have more trading partners in the world and we will be more safe and secure and kids that have access to education and young adults that have access to employment are far less likely to be vulnerable to threats of extremist ideologies or other things that could take seven different directions of this is a critical part of our foreign policy. it's critical and vital to the national security interests and even as light from the humanitarian assistance which is an opportunity to show our common humanity and express that in a generous way this is critical to our national

security. >> host: does the u.s. get political goodwill or is it -- >> guest: we do. we do. i will tell you i was justin -- i was in haiti i visited a town outside of port-au-prince. that town had a usaid school right near where to enter the town and was built and earthquake standards and was one of the few buildings still standing. people were using it for education bill also a distribution of relief supplies and there's a little plaque the dictates it was the generosity of the american people that enable that to happen. that's recognized around the world and i visited those types of sites whether they are schools or hospitals or health clinics or any other facilities all over the world in india and parts of africa and latin america and so this is how we express our credibility. it's the expression what is best about our country. it is the hopefulness all people

no matter where they are born should have the opportunity to lead a healthy and productive life and that we care about the well-being of people who might be bored into extreme poverty and other parts of the world and that is an expression of american values. we recognize we have to be accountable for how we spend the resources and be focused on results and be efficient and our spending but at the end of the day people do recognize the value of the generosity from the american people. >> host: the chairman of joint chiefs just recently said that the military is doing too much when it comes to foreign aid. do you agree? >> guest: hi -- >> host: are you yclept? >> guest: i agree i thought it was a very important speech and it echoed the sentiments expressed by secretary gates at cicatrix clinton where he basically said that as part of our foreign policy we have to have a multifaceted foreign policy that includes strong and capable and very effective

military presence but also includes strong diplomatic capability with active and effective diplomacy and right alongside that a strong development capacity so if countries are experiencing as so many are right now actual increase in the number of people who go hungry or starch or kids who are malnourished or extreme poverty coming up in places where it has been going down the past several decades, those trends work against our national interest and so if we can do things that are effective and efficient to help kids go to school to help children have access to health care to make sure others are able to give birth and a safe environment without the risk of death themselves we should do something about that to create a just and more peaceful world for our own safety and security. >> host: how do you go from a medical doctor to the administrator of usaid? >> guest: i went to medical

school to carry out global health activities. before i went to medical school i worked on a tuberculosis program in south india and saw the value of the u.s. assistance but i also saw the value of targeted and effective medical care in a way they could save lives and they approve living standards for people who lived in circumstances frankly i have a hard time understanding being born and raised in michigan. why did you see that type of extreme poverty and suffering it's almost unbelievable. and it touches you very deeply. so i had the opportunity to serve in this capacity is tremendous. i was of the bill and delegates foundation before coming here and had the opportunity to participate in that philanthropic efforts to do-gooder of the world but in a very focused and resold oriented way and i hope to bring some of that focus on results and accountability and we will make mistakes but hope to learn from them and get more effective and

efficient and the execution of the work as we go forward. >> host: first call for dr. shah is it, ian on our democrats like? >> caller: that is correct. good morning, dr. shah for addressing such a complex matter. with that said i would like to shift back to haiti because you made the comment about the u.s. being the first presence on the ground shortly after the earthquake. however isn't it true to the had already and has pretty much always had presence in haiti and i wonder why is it that for the most part the corporate front media, and i would also include c-span2 a large degree ignores the efforts made by the nation who are not occupying haiti with the military presence but actually are engaged in

humanitarian work. if you could address that -- posed a white you care so much about cuba? >> caller: because i do think that there is an -- on their policy that has been a place for years now that has unfairly targeted cuba for its politics. >> host: dr. shah? >> guest: i do think in a humanitarian crisis and emergency our goal both on behalf of the united states and president also the entire international community is to work with everybody as effectively and rapidly as we cancel our initial effort was to go in and open that airport and get the seaport working and it sure the assistance could flew in from a broad range of countries. the united states of course has a presence in haiti for many years making set investments and building schools and providing health services to low-income children and doing a range of

other things so we did have a presence and we have many of our own staff and organizations and partners who had been working on the ground before the earthquake and lived through the earthquake and continue to provide results and humanitarian solutions after that. one point to know is we actually do work with cuba and haiti through the medical care system and in support of cuban doctors and particular. we were in the position we wanted to provide as many medical services as we could to the people affected more than 200,000 people almost immediately need some immediate medical attention more than 4 million people were affected overall by the earthquake so we worked with everybody in but it's great to the doctors were. able to provide service. we sent our own medical assistance teams that salles more than 30,000 patients perform hundreds of life-saving surgery and with misstating surgery's, so it continues to be an international effort and in a

time of crisis like that it is wonderful to see people and professionals and assistance from all countries come together against the common service mission. >> host: our usaid people still in haiti? >> guest: absolutely. we have our full team. we've expanded is significantly to include people who can work directly with military and offer guidance and support to the military to provide support to the humanitarian mission we will continue to be there for some time to read we have a longstanding relationship and a commitment to haiti and we will see that going forward. >> host: phil, do more of with dr. shah. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, doctor and thank you to c-span. you help by dr.:corker. i question is this and i will take my answer off the air. during the defendant of war, usaid was using or was employee

military officers to work in an advisory capacity helping the populace. i was wondering if that is still used in areas where we have had recent conflict with three to be in bosnia or afghanistan or iraq >> guest: i would say it all of those places we work for a closely with the military. we have a strong connection with the military through a variety of different personnel relationships and offices of civilian and military affairs and it really is important to be | and needed as we do this work. afghanistan is a great example where this is our largest usaid mission anywhere in the world. we've had some success the wind, 900,000 kids in afghanistan having access to school and now we have more than 6.2 million children a six or seven years into that efforts that are now going to school and 40% of them

are girls so there are big and provides a real opportunity to create improvement and meeting you and needs and laid the basis for a stable and sustainable society. but in places where there's a military operation of course we work very closely and in tight concert with our colleagues from that part of defense. >> host: age would durham c-span junkie. early after the earthquake i heard relief planes brazil and france got turned away while our dignitaries and pressed landed. is that true? >> guest: well the airport was challenging. right after the earthquake the control tower had collapsed and the airport was not functional so the united states military went in and within 24 hours at the airport up and running. that's an airport that had about 20 flights a day before the earthquake with an effective military operation of that airport they had 160 flights a day so it had more than eight times the standard capacity evin not that much increased capacity we did have to make some

decisions with the haitian government and with the united nations about prioritizing flights. the priorities were always health, food, water, medical supplies and relief personnel. we didn't have any situations where certainly on behalf of the united states where u.s. dignitaries took flight slots that could have been used for the foreign assistance. we were very specific about those. the haitian government set a number of other priorities and so we did have dignitaries from other parts of the world coming at their request to help coordinate and lead the relief effort and do a number of other things but it was it was a success story getting the airport up so quickly to high-capacity and now it's down below that because the seaport is working at a capacity that is 400 plus containers of a which is more than twice the seaport capacity prior to the earthquake. airport, it just became a challenge at the

beginning and it was a great thing we were able to get so much more through-put into the country to provide relief. host: on our independent line robert from rosemont, pennsylvania. caller: doctor, thank you for your service. it outstanding. given yesterday's one million homeless and the rain and hurricane system how do i get involved in building homes, orphanages. we have built hurricane proof homes in two to four weeks. guest: that is wonderful. i would appreciate learning more about that and you could connect with us through our website at w into contact with us to our website at usaid.gov. you could also connect to the clinton bush haiti fund which is the primary vehicle for getting private commitments and donor commitments into haiti. it is clinton bush haiti fund.org and that will be an

effective way to coordinate your contribution or your idea to the overall relief effort. it is to do right now we're in an absolute race against the clock. there are efforts to get emergency shelter materials to 1.3 million people in port-au-prince in advance of what we expect to be the rainy season in mid-april could come sooner from market for working with partners from around the world and encouraging as much creativity and innovation in the process. i just got a briefing yesterday better teams on the ground and i applaud their circumstances of clearing rubble, together working with patients and often in haitian job programs clearing rubble, making sites based, serving which settlements are rooted in which people are in very slow flood vulnerable plants and areas in trying to move them to safer places in advance of the rain. so it's a big effort that requires a lot of logistic support and i applaud the interest of the collar and

learning more about that. >> dr. shah could you talk about federal and private funds because you talk to make usaid $600 billion in tax funds have gone down. how much in private funds and what kind of control is there over those private funds? >> guest: well, thank you for asking. first, to nature menaced by responsibly just shows the common humanity and commitment of the people. we believe more than half of all american families have given in some way to haiti. and if you think about that, that's a tremendous achievement and something that all americans should take great pride in. the clinton bush haiti fund as their primary vehicle for acknowledging that his money comes into that we can account for its effectiveness and the line it against the top priorities coming out of the relief effort on the ground. >> host: is that if i'm controlled by usaid? >> guest: no, it's a private fund. they asked president clinton and

bush to come together as president clinton in the previous president bush had around the tsunami effort in indonesia years ago. and do that in order to facilitate adding private resources into haiti and doing that in a coordinated way. and so that's deeply and highly coordinated with the process on the ground. for example, i think they just livery in haiti at some 70 tracks that are being used to move rubble and do all of that. but knowing where to get those types of contributions than knowing which organizations need them, getting them to them quickly and picking the things that are most important is a significant coordination challenge and that's why we encourage people to use the fund. >> host: my call for grameen comes from akron, ohio, democrat. >> caller: i am independent. thank you for taking my call. dr. shah it's a wonder to talk to you.

you sound like a very knowledgeable caring person. one of the things i don't understand is why it is not ever talked about that we have a vital interest in haiti. we took out an elected official and brought him to another and hand-picked who we wanted to leave their country, who now is out of sight. >> guest: if you could just expand that a little bit. the political aftereffects of the political importance of usaid. >> guest: thank you. in thank you, you need us. we abound the world have such a strong vital interest as one unit indicated to making sure that societies have the ability to protect their vulnerable populations grow and have an opportunity to connect with more interconnected global economy. doing that in a way that's effective and sustainable so that we can all, you know, benefit from the fruits of the global economy and that is

peaceful and just. and that's a critical part of our security. and so many countries that's more acute than in other places. and haiti is one of those places that we just have a long-standing commitment and relationship to the people of haiti and its leaders. and we've been working very closely with president prefall and coordinating and making sure we're working in support of what needs of the haitian people actually are. and so that's the spirit that continues to guide our work in haiti, but in countries all around the world that we want to be respectful of governments. we want to work in the partnership so that we're not exercising our work is patronage. really we are doing it as real partners and in a respectful way. and we want to listen ultimately to the most vulnerable people that we serve so that we can meet their needs and we can help them pull themselves out of poverty and lead better lives. and when we're successful, i've had the chance to visit schools or hospitals or entire societies

that have graduated from usaid commitments and programs and gone out to many cases become donors and supporters of these activities themselves. you feel that both gratefulness in the connection of that work when we fund scholars that perform agricultural science in africa are medical doctors in asia. they value the fact that they have those opportunities because of usaid programs and because of the commitment that the american people. and i think this country will benefit from thy goodwill for many decades to come. >> host: and what is your response finally to people say okay we're spending a .5 billion on global l. 7.7 builds to afghanistan, pakistan, iraq. 4.2 for humanitarian assistance and our budget is 40% of our current budget is deficit spending. >> guest: a few things. i come back to admiral mullen. i think it's very important that

our investments were making in our own security and own well-being. these are also investments we're making because they're the right thing to do and what we have the opportunity to save lives at 11 to $14 we can do vaccination or have the opportunity to treat hiv patients and keep societies from within their corporate active work force and falling into disarray in conflict. we are saving money in the long run and we are creating more stable in a more just world for us to participate in. and that is as president obama has said the responsibility of the superpower that has the capability to do this. we doubled our partners accountable and i think the united states agencies are national development and the american people should make sure that every dollar we spend is worth it and be very focused on that. but when we know we're generating results, these are some of the best investments we can make to protect ourselves and build a better future for the world. >> host: dr. rajiv shah is the

administer of usaid. thanks for watching "washington journal." we hope you come back. >> guest: thank you.

>> we're in the business of trying to help hours events predominantly young women and so the older women and men who come to us understand that you should focus on a achievement in your own life and not be looking to grab headlines. >> sunday, meet the woman was ty washington university, president for over 20 years, patricia mcguire on c-span's q&a. >> at today's daily state department refrained ej crowley discussed the recent passage of a resolution by the house foreign affairs committee, describing the mass killings of armenians during world war i as genocide. the turkish government has strongly objected to the resolution and is called back its ambassador in washington. this is a half-hour. >> extremely well attended for an almost-spring friday in washington, d.c. good afternoon

and welcome to the department of state. a few announcements before taking your questions. the united states notes with great concern reports the iranian courts have upheld a death sentence for 20-year-old university student mohammad amin valian. mr. valian was arrested for throwing stones during a december 27 ashura demonstration, a crime to which he confessed. for this minor act, he was found guilty of warring against god. it appears this would be the first person facing execution after the election, although we do note due process concerns about other executions. we find this disproportionate punishment deplorable and urge his immediate release. furthermore, we join the international community in calling on iranian authorities to release all political prisoners. if the iranian government wants the respect of the international

community, it must respect fundamental freedoms of its people. assistant secretary of state kurt campbell will depart washington on sunday for an extensive trip to asia. during his trip, he will stop in singapore, malaysia, laos, indonesia, thailand, and japan. in singapore, he'll meet with senior government, foreign affairs, and defense officials. in kuala lumpur, he'll meet with malaysian officials and hold a town meeting with the american embassy staff there. in vientiane, he will meet with senior laotian government officials and attend the u.s.-lao comprehensive bilateral dialogue. he will also meet with representatives of the mekong river commission. in jakarta, he will have meetings with asean permanent representatives for discussions on u.s.-asean relations, as well

as senior indonesian government officials, with senior thai foreign affairs, security, and economic officials. in addition to meeting with them, he will also make remarks on u.s.-thai relations at chulalongkorn university. and of course, he will finish up in tokyo, will meet with senior japanese officials. the secretary is now in guatemala on the final stop of her trip to throughout the central and southern region. she is currently having lunch with central american leaders. this afternoon, she'll meet with salvadoran president funes. earlier today, she met with guatemalan president colom. in her discussions with heads of government of central america and the dominican republic, discuss wide range of issues of

common interest, including how to deepen cooperation to improve citizen safety, strengthen respect for democracy, human rights, and rule of law, as stipulated in the inter-american democratic charter, work toward greater social inclusion and broad-based economic growth, and expand partnerships on energy and the environment. and as you may note, yesterday, she announced that the united states is resuming assistance to the government of honduras. honduras now has a democratically elected government and democratic constitutional governance has been restored. these conditions and president lobo's actions since taking office meet the united states requirements for restoring assistance to the government of honduras. while staying in the region, just to update you a little bit on u.s. support to chile in the aftermath of the earthquake, we have a dart team on the ground with six additional personnel

expected to arrive tomorrow. that dart team has six members. we also have one usaid contractor embedded with the chilean national emergency response office, the equivalent of our fema. seventy-one satellite phones have been distributed along with plastic sheeting, two mobile water treatment units, with six more units scheduled to arrive within the next week. $1 million has been disbursed to the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies. we've deployed a field hospital and two c-130 aircraft to assist with moving supplies around the country. deputy secretary steinberg is on his way back to the united states. he met earlier today with foreign minister okada and other senior officials to discuss a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues. and finally, before taking your

questions, voting for iraqi citizens living abroad has started today in the united states and 15 other countries and will continue through sunday. there has been strong voter turnout in several countries. here in the united states, iraqi citizens are voting at locations in or near eight cities which include washington, chicago, dallas, detroit, nashville, phoenix, san diego, and san francisco. yesterday, there was voting throughout iraq for special categories of voters such as security personnel who will be on duty on sunday, election day. our embassy reports that the process went well. generally, election officials were well-prepared, and the voters enthusiastic. there were three serious security incidents that affected voting centers out of a total of 2,550. we regret the loss of life, but it is clear that these incidents failed to deter the determination of the iraqis who voted yesterday.

and today, there were minimal security-related incidents. yes. >> on the armenian genocide resolution that was passed yesterday, i was wondering if you could give us your thoughts on the vote. did you feel that it was helpful? and are you going to do anything to ensure that a full vote does not take place [inaudible] >> well, as the secretary made clear, that any further congressional action will impede the normalization process between turkey and armenia. we continue to believe that the best way for turkey and armenia to address their shared past is through their ongoing effort to normalize relations. we have been in contact with turkish and armenian officials at the highest levels to urge timely ratification of the protocols, and we look forward to continuing dialogue with them. >> well, it sounds like the turks are pretty upset with you. they recalled their ambassador yesterday for consultations. are you really optimistic that that's going to happen right now? and are you in touch with speaker pelosi's office about

trying to make sure that a full vote doesn't take place? >> the secretary has talked to hill officials. other officials have as well. >> i think they understand our position and that we don't think any further congressional action is appropriate. >> has the secretary spoken to hill leadership since the vote? >> not to my knowledge. >> only berman or was there wider contact? >> the secretary has talked to chairman berman. but i think we have had a range of conversations over several weeks on this issue. [inaudible] >> the secretary hasn't. i mean, it is possible that we have been in touch with congressional officials today somewhere here in the department, but i'm not aware of any contacts. >> are you saying that state department officials or administration officials were making clear to people on the hill that they didn't want this to proceed for the last few weeks? because -- >> we've had i mean, this is

not an issue that has snuck up on anybody. this is an issue that we've gone through a number of times in the past. we know that the feelings about this issue are firmly held on all sides. but the secretary made clear in a conversation with chairman berman earlier this week, but other officials have been talking to congressional staff for some time on this. >> can you get any details on that? because every i mean, people on the hill are denying that pretty strongly. >> denying what? >> denying that there have been conversations along the lines that secretary clinton had with chairman berman in recent weeks. >> well, i mean, keep we have not made a secret of our feelings that the best way to resolve this issue is through the normalization process that we have supported, going back to

last year. i mean, obviously, congress has a role to play. they've registered a vote yesterday. you can interpret that vote any way you want to. but we have made clear to them the risk. i think in the statements that various members made before the vote i think they understood fully that their the risk of this vote and the impact it was going to have in both political circles and in popular circles, particularly in these two countries. i think we have continued to make clear that we think any further action on this will impede the normalization process that we think is the best way to resolve these questions. yeah. >> there is a theory that the ratification of the normalization protocols was not

going anywhere in turkey anyhow that subsequent to the signing of the protocols last year, that the turkish government, notwithstanding its public position, has not really been very eager to put this to a vote in its parliament. do you see it that way? >> i'll leave the analysis of the turkish parliament to others. we continue to press turkey and armenia to move ahead with the ratification of the protocols. we understand that this is difficult. we understand that these issues evoke very strong emotional reactions within both populations. that said, we think it is in everyone's interest to see this process continue to move forward, and we will continue to press this case with these countries. >> p.j., if you feel so strongly about this, why hasn't the secretary or other senior

officials senior enough that it would come to your attention tried to make sure, subsequent to the vote, that it won't come to a won't come to the floor? >> i'm not sure what the question is. >> you say that, you know, if it comes to the floor, further action will disrupt the normalization process. but you also say that secretary clinton hasn't called anybody about the vote itself. >> well, in our conversations with chairman berman and others, i think they understand how we feel about this. and we'll just have to see what congress decides to do in the aftermath of what they've seen today. >> are you really just going to wait and see, or are you working to ensure that there's not a hill that there is not a floor vote? >> i think we have an understanding with congressional leaders on this issue, but obviously, congress has a right

to take action with its own body as it sees fit. >> but i mean, we let's be clear. we oppose any further action on this issue within the congress. we feel that the best place to resolve these issues is through the ongoing normalization we have made that position clear to congress, and we will see what is done or not done in the future. >> when you say you have an understanding with the leadership of congress, do you mean that they understand how you feel about this issue, or you have an understanding with the congress that this is not going to reach the full floor? >> well, ultimately, this i'm not an expert in terms of parliamentary procedure, but i think that the leadership of the congress understands our position and they will they have taken this into account as

they evaluate further actions, if any actions will be taken. >> what if it just one more what of the discussions you said that you spoke with the turks. have you spoken with them since the vote? obviously, they would have to communicate that they were [inaudible] >> again, i am sure that somebody here at the state department has talked, and talked to our friends in turkey today. i'm not sure it's been at a high level. >> who or what is the obstacle for the normalization between the two countries? did the turks or the armenians told you? >> okay, i'm not sure i understand the question? i'm sorry. >> i mean, what is the obstacle for the normalization? >> well, i mean, the next step in the process is for the parliaments of the two countries to ratify the protocols. >> why they refuse to? >> that would be a better question to direct to turkey and armenia. >> so you can say that there is an understanding of the congress

that the issue will stand as it is now? >> we hope that congress will having taken this vote, that congress will not take any further action. >> p.j., do you have any update on pentagon shooting yesterday? >> i'll defer to my colleagues in the pentagon. >> thank you. >> do you know if the secretary is going to meet with the prime minister of greece on monday? and if they are going to meet, what issues the secretary wants to discuss with him? >> i would defer to my colleagues at the white house to announce meetings with heads of government. if they are planning to announce such a meeting today, which is possible, the secretary will be in that meeting. [inaudible] >> i think it's not for me to announce what's happening at the

white house, but -- >> i'm asking if the -- >> if the prime minister is here in washington next week i'm winking as i say this the secretary will be in that meeting. yes. >> can you comment upon the fact that former ukrainian president yanukovych conferred the order of hero of ukraine on nazi war criminal stefan bandera? and then as a follow-up, the un passed a resolution, 64/147, prohibiting the it's on the inadmissibility of the glorification of nazism, and also prohibiting the exhumation of bodies of soldiers who had been killed fighting against nazism. and that action is a violation of geneva convention article 34. the only country that voted against that resolution was our country. why? >> i'm not familiar with that case.

let me take the question. >> thank you. >> on cuba secretary clinton said last week in the senate that she wanted to have an there was already a review of programs in the island for the pushing for democratization and >> no. >> do you have any update on the case of that mr. gross? >> we did have senior officials in cuba recently for migration talks. during the course of those meetings, we pressed on multiple occasions to have access to mr. gross. i'm not aware that that was granted. i think the last time we've seen mr. gross was early february. we continue to call for cuba to release him. as the secretary said, we are reviewing our programs, but we have and continue our firm commitment to work with the people of cuba to build and

expand civil society there. >> have you frozen any of these programs? >> no. >> just temporarily? >> no. >> mr. richard holbrooke made some comments yesterday to clarify comments he had made on tuesday regarding the kabul attacks, and the department of state hasn't yet carried a transcript or offered any further comments. >> he made these comments in boston? >> right. so -- >> i mean, you're saying that richard clarified what he said i mean, he was here on tuesday and you're saying he made some comments. i happen to know he was in boston yesterday at tufts university and at the kennedy school. if he did issue any clarifications up there, i have not seen a transcript yet. >> is it likely that we'll get one later if he did do that? >> i don't know what public activities i happen to know he was at the kennedy school because my daughter works there, so but beyond that, i don't

know what he said publicly yesterday. but if we have any details on if we have a transcript, we'll be happy to put it out. >> okay. i mean, what he his comments have are available in the media. but it's just that there isn't an official version yet, so i was wondering if you would be issuing one. >> okay. as i said, i will check to see if there's a public transcript of what he said yesterday, and we will be happy to put that to make that widely available if we have it. >> chinese nuclear envoy wu dawei said in beijing china's goal is to restart the six-party talks within the first half of this year. so any comment on that? >> i think we share the same view as china. we would like to see the six-party process begin again as soon as possible. but as i've said many, many times, that right now is up to north korea to agree to come back to the talks and to take affirmative steps towards denuclearization.

yes. >> i just wanted to get a bit more comment on iraq. clearly, you mentioned there have been a couple of incidents. clearly, violence is a potential concern. do you have concerns that the threat of violence is going to be a big factor in these elections? ..

on and there will be a good deal of tension surrounding that. how is the u.s. being sort of planning and around those issues? or thinking around those issues? >> i think that past experience i think informed the timetable that we have been outlined together with the iraqi government regarding the withdrawal of combat forces from iraq. we understood from the previous transition that was lengthy. we have built in some flexibility into the current

timetable. but right now we are on track to reduce the number to 50,000 by the end of august and have all troops out of iraq by the end of december 2011. >> what is the flexibility the youth build in? >> i think we were conscious of the fact that in the parliamentary system and knowledgeable about what happened the last time that it could take a number of weeks for iraq to form a new government. but obviously these are decisions up to iraq. >> on the prime minister's travels to -- >> thank you for asking that question. >> on notice came up in the briefing yesterday but could you shed any light on whether you expect his planned meetings with prime minister netanyahu to

constitute the beginning of the indirect talks or not of that would be left to the subsequent stage. this gimmick i think we're looking forward to the meetings on sunday and monday and at that question will be part of the discussion. so let's wait until monday and i think we will have more to say about that. while we are on the subject, you know, they're have been some reports on the region regarding questions about britain assurances or documents or guarantees to either party. just to be we are trying to help the parties in this conflict and what we've said to both parties is what we've said to them privately and publicly all year. our goal is to states living side by side in peace and security. the only way to achieve that is

good faith negotiations between the parties. when those negotiations hit obstacles we will work hard to overcome these obstacles and as we have always done we believe either party is not living up to its commitments we will say so. >> you are kind of memorializing what your vision of a final status solution is aren't you? >> es should we enter into these discussions obviously we will take into account the previous discussions that take place over many years. we are not starting this process of it starts from scratch. but to the extent as we get into this as we have done in the past as facilitators of the process if there are snags we can offer bridging proposals as we've done before but we are not going into

this should the parties decide to enter into talks with an outcome already predetermined other than the good faith negotiations that lead to the end of the conflict and the creation of two states living side by side. >> do you offer any guarantees or insurance is? >> we have been working steadfast with the parties on how to get these negotiations started. we've been clarifying a number of details during the course of this process but we haven't given written assurances or documents or guarantees. >> so we are clear leaving aside the word assurances, have you in writing conveyed more less what he said publicly and what we've heard other officials say before

notably if you think you their site is not living up to their obligations you will say so. have you conveyed that to both parties in writing? >> no. >> can you explain then the story, i know it's not for you to explain the newspaper stories but the quotes at length from what purports to be written communication. there is no such writing what they put in quotes they just made up? >> nope. >> can you square the circle? >> have we provided assurances? no. >> i said leave aside the word assurances. have you conveyed to either party is substance of what you just said publicly? >> in writing, no. >> have you read it to them? >> we have had any number of discussions with parties coming over several months to the

extent during these discussions things were written down by the parties. that is possible. but have we provided hauer written guarantees and assurances regarding the preconceived outcome's going into this the answer is no. >> me you write stuff of loud and they wrote it down. >> maybe we've had a number of discussions and as you know our shot in all meetings there are no takers. but what is quote it or not our documents. >> one more use it in your opening comment about this you said if we feel either side is not living up to their obligations we will say so. will you say so in public or in private? >> again, we will play a constructive role as honest broker and fasuba tater as we have in the past. we are not going to have preset

outcome's going into this process but i would just repeat what i said. if we think as part of this process either party is not living up to its commitment we will say so. >> we will say so privately. you will say privately but it won't be a public matter. >> again, you know, we are not going to issue guarantees in advance of the start of the process. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> the next journalism must be one open to blogs and e-mail that are hammering like fists on the door to be let into the conversation to add new information, to raise new questions, to suggest new context.

now a look at counter insurgency operations in afghanistan. it's from the conference examining the history of counterinsurgency from vietnam to the present state of warfare. cohost by the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies and texas tech vietnam center. this is about two hours. >> thank you. my name is steve, the director of the imam senter texas tech university and it's my pleasure to be here with my colleagues from our university to become hosting this conference with a were friends, dr. bill weiss and his friends here. i think we are off to a remarkable start and this morning's first panel amazed me. i learned a tremendous amount, and i'm looking forward to the next set of discussions and panels as dr. jackson and his panel will discuss afghanistan. with that, dr. jackson.

>> good morning. i feel this is a neat opportunity after the conference to discuss the diman experience yesterday in detail and that we touched on a lot of the problems of iraq. i do think it's interesting in a conference titled lessons learned lessons lost and that type of thing that the question what we mean by a lesson turns out to be a non-trivial issue, and i do think as mike said in his opening remarks there's a danger applying lessons that either are not valid from past historical cases or don't travel well. so i think in almost all of these discussions and certainly the one in afghanistan we have to ask two sets of questions. one, do the things we think, the generalizations we draw from the case like viacom or iraq, are they actually valid explanations of what actually occurred in those war and the second task is even if they were valid in those

cases, to the trouble to the ones i care about now so the question is in many cases here did what we think worked in iraq, you know, does that trouble will to the afghan problem and i think the iraq panel did a great job by getting us a pretty good rendition i think of the orthodox interpretation of the surge and why security improved in iraq and maybe the last panel today we will see some dissenting views i think because i know some of the people on the panel. but i ask this panel which is an embarrassment in terms of experience in afghanistan to talk about three broad areas that is what effort should we draw from past historical cases iraq, every recent and again on more distant. which should we reject or resist and in the broader of all questions which is in the back of everyone's head what do we make of the current american

strategy in the ames implicit? are there better alternatives or are we roughly on the right track so without further delay i will turn it over for remarks. >> thank you. actually i was a little bit embarrassed when people ask me to comment and compare because i'm always telling my students they should never think about comparing two things. it's too complicated. [laughter] well i am. [laughter] i would start with four points very quickly. the first being that we have to be extremely careful about what we should compare. for example, comparing afghanistan and iraq we see five

points immediately. we have to think a lot about it, the iraqi insurgency was extremely fragmented and the insurgency in afghanistan is not second, the iraqi insurgency was taking the order very directly, the tribes were let's say under the control of the taliban have managed to play cleverly with the system weakening the travel system but in a very indirect way. third, iraqi is about fighting mostly in the urban areas and a chemist and of course is more where role. fourth of course the iraqi insurgency at no sanctuary

nothing to do with that kind of support pakistan is offering to the taliban. and for all these reasons, we have to address what is compatible between the two situations and we have to be careful not making that it's too far. the second point is they often compare given negative reason, negative recent like are very interesting. comparison is useful when you get an idea what is missing in your context for a successful strategy example in afghanistan we know that we do not have quality components. that is a key point and you know that in iraq political parties whatever they are have been key

in the political process that is going on. if we take another kind of comparison we know that the leadership is important but we come back. the third point is that comparison should not be a kind of general comparison. i don't see the point comparing the amount and afghanistan. what i see is local comparison, under control comparison i would say for example what about the decision process of escalation in vietnam and in afghanistan so you have to be extremely careful about the way that you are defending. and fourth, i think the comparison is useful even if it is not politically correct, and i think that most of us refuse to see the fact that the soviet expanse in afghanistan is

extremely interesting. the british want to fold and we should work on that much more. we should work on that in 2002, 2003 when the trend was extra negative and basically in 2005 it was so bad we do we were heading to major difficulties. so know what kind of comparison we can do. first i would say it is about escalation and goals and i will have this kind of comparison the vietnam i am not a historian, i am thought to have known of which more about vietnam, but two things are important here. the first is that in vietnam,

the united states or the problem of defending the goal, and i would say that there was over emphasis on the importance of the imam. when you are reading the text in the 60's you have this feeling if it is less than the amount it is over. nobody is going to trust the united states again. we are going to lose everything. you know the story. i mean, not that bad after all. plus the fact the series of mistakes. so i would say in the case of afghanistan we should be very careful about not doing a lot of if we are expecting afghanistan is going to be the rest of the world and we have the next six months. i do not think it is the case. any way that is the point that should be addressed.

for the political reasons politicians tend to offer discourse about what could happen. that is not especially rational. the second thing that is linked to the first is that we have some kind of cultural problem. a no x. ackley with a dislike what control. it is called a point of view that is a better outcome. it is absolutely there. it is everywhere. coming from a culture that is slightly different because as you have noticed i am french. [laughter] i think is a major problem in afghanistan. there was in vietnam, too. the idea to put more resources and things are better is deeply

wrong because flexible in afghanistan you put 100 million more the taliban are going to get at least 10 million. because there is corruption and plenty of things. you send more arms of afghanistan the taliban will get part of the arms and so on. you are destroying the country and establish high-level corruption. so this idea that the that affect, the unintended consequences of the more resources and that is the key point and suddenly i don't see what i of seen since 2001 is every hear more resources, every year the security and the end it is just the end of the process. it is the end because after soon after the 2000 peace and we stop

and do not send more resources, no enforcement. the withdrawal is kind of much more complex. so, with that escalation, difficult to criticize the importance of the conflict i think it was also in vietnam to find the objectives, the metrics where [inaudible] in the case of afghanistan it's more about the objectives. there is a love of number in the western societies basically it is extremely misleading and i would take just one exit poll is the number of the afghan army. the afghan army is supposed to be 250,000 in less than three years. it is absolutely -- it is not in

this world i mean. it cannot happen. both want that as a political objective of course since it is difficult to argue with this kind of objective because of this kind of technical newspaper or printing that and it's creating this kind of generally lucien and at the end people are in a hurry if they want to do it quick and of course as you know it's not working the right way so that is what say the fee on comparison through the second comparison i will make buried quickly i think is about the iraqi surge. i've already said i think that basically there was no less than -- because the structure is

different. but there is this thing about the counterinsurgency. you have this mythological thing that the counterinsurgency work some iraqi. this not the case as far as i know and so it is going to work also in afghanistan. and here you have not only the counter insurgency as a phenomenon but also this idea that we have to pitch this book about counterinsurgency that there is a new doctrine that is working that is producing concrete and good effects. in fact it is not the case. it is interesting. first because it has not been understood. clearly the comparison between what was done in my back or afghanistan and the french pherae basically ordered the counter insurgency furies in the

60's is irrelevant i think because the context was so different. when you are seriously reading french officers you understand that the context with iraq and afghanistan is so totally different that i don't see what you could draw from that. the second thing is that the question of cost is not clearly understood and there is the old theory is deeply flawed. let's take an example. there was an operation as you know that mobilized over 15,000 men for the district that is no importance and if you are following the counter insurgency doctrine, just if you don't want the weapon to come back into as you are obliged to leave your

trips there. 5,000 probably maybe more. just to contain the taliban. of the same time since it is totally -- strategic you need your troops. much more important for a simple trying to do something in kandahar if only they think is going to be [inaudible] so, what we are seeing is that there is no doctrine right now in the u.s. army that has something to do with the the real world of afghanistan and i think in iraq, too. you have a theory that is totally disconnected from what is going already in afghanistan. what is really going on is not counterinsurgency it has been done in one district for political reasons, so it is washington strategy if i may say that and underground it is militarization of aid. it is targeting the taliban commander and a certain extent it is going to be a negotiation.

that is what is going on. it's not counter insurgency because we cannot do a. so, jerry -- the only thing i will take from iraq is do not build the success in iraq or afghanistan remember but now it was a success in afghanistan. then when you see the situation in the places today [inaudible] let's be extremely careful. let's have theory is what is going on on the ground and not a disconnected way.

i will end with one of remark to that we have to think about in the case of the afghan war it is the soviet experience. we have to understand how they work because we are in the position that is in certain aspects compatible. we are working basically with the same social groups and it's interesting. i was two weeks ago in a meeting about how to say in afghanistan so we took two days and the afghan war they're basically where people begin the communist party in the 80's and they are working with us because after all when you have been a communist you are thinking that some is good, that the woman should vote and after all

[inaudible] for us to -- so, for this reason what we are to be in afghanistan is sometimes not very far from what they were doing in the last period after 86 basically and we should think more about that. the way they were securing the cities, the way they were dealing with the population and so on and so on. i will stop there on this very optimistic note. thank you. [applause] >> just a few comments with comparison to the on and others. we have to look at a lot of skepticism compared to vietnam.

but like any insurgency anymore in the world there are lessons to be drawn, comparisons and similarities that are out so it's not wasted effort, it's important but it's not the vietnam has any special lessons to learn for afghanistan. it happens to be a war the united states fought in the united states military remembers so that is why we come back to that comparison. same thing with comparison to iraq. there's nothing about iraq this special and these other insurgencies around the world we should compare to afghanistan it happens to be war we fought and remember so we always come back to it. the differences are more important than the similarities. i also think the comparison to the war against the soviets in the 1980's also against the british durham to the 1970's out along the afghan frontier and waziristan and parts of afghanistan is much more apt comparison and less pleasant teach what we are doing right now. we operate on a lot of the exact same basis the soviets operated on afghanistan in the