the cement job was getting ready to be pumped. ..

>> do you believe that hall burr ton should have done more to flag the information about channeling and gas flow in the report when they sent it to you? >> i don't -- i don't remember exactly when that report was sent, but this is the one that came out right before. yeah, i think what we

highlighted in our work was that there were things passing hands, but there was no signaling about what was critical in these things, so, yes, i guess i agree with your point. >> mr. vargo, what should have alerted the team there was a problem? >> i believe the fact there was going to be channeling that was increasing the flow potential on the well. >> so this drawing here as i've understood in speaking with your engineers shows channeling. several of your engineers explained to me that this portion of the drawing here, the green material over here indicates mud will be left in the well bore. is that channeling? >> that's indicating channeling, yes, sir. >> is it the only indication in the model there's going to be channeling? >> i believe this is the picture

that shows the channeling. >> on page 23, am i right? >> i don't know, did you give this to me? >> i'll -- i'll, how about this? [laughter] >> yeah, it's on page 23, that's where the diagram would be, yes, sir. >> yeah. and it doesn't say anything about channeling on it. you have to know the green meaning channeling there; right? >> i believe that's the interpretation of the data. there is another point in the data that shows where the top of the cement is going to be, the number, the actual number foot-wise where the top of the cement is going to be. >> so there's another part of the report discussed in the press, and i see you nodding your head, so i assume you understand this part. this is about gas flow potential. right here, based on the analysis, this well is

considered to have a severe gas flow problem. >> due to the channeling, that's correct. >> due to the channeling. is this the -- is this the best indication to the bp design crew there's going to be a channeling problem on this job? >> this is one indication. the reason why the gas flow potential i believe is so severe because you are bringing cement up higher. it's showing a channel so your gas flow potential is going up. >> but you routinely do jobs with a gas flow potential? >> i believe we do do jobs with a severe gas flow potential which is why we recommend the foam-cementing operations. >> this is not a red flag to you? >> it is, absolutely. >> it's a red flag? >> yes. >> was it called out anywhere out beyond -- >> i don't know if it was brought up or not, sir. i know this was given to bp, but i don't know if it was actually

pointed out. >> and this the best model available at the time. do you agree there was erroneous input data used in this model? >> i don't know. are you tal about the actual directional profile? >> there's two issues i was going to bring up. the first is the poor pressure. i'll bring it upright here. the pore pressure here is called out as 13, 197psi. i think this pore pressure was incorrect. was that the correct pressure for the job? >> i don't have a view whether it was correct or incorrect. >> if it was incricket, does it mean this model can't be relied upon? >> it plays into the gas flow calculations. >> i heard you say one of the reasons that halliburton's view

is that there was a problem with the job because of this model, am i right? >> problem with the channeling, yes, sir. >> so if this input were changed, it would change your conclusion, am i right? >> i don't think it changes the fact the job would have channeled. >> okay. >> i think that would have changed the gas flow potential, but not the fact that the job would have channeled. >> i'm beginning to show you the centralizer specifications here. we're going to call this a fairly large section here. do you see here the central centralizers are placed 45 feet apart? >> yes, sir. >> do you see at the top the nominal die name tear is 8.6 inches? >> yes, i see that. >> are you aware that it's bp's position that that is incorrect

and that in fact the centralizers were placed not in these positions at all. >> that's very possible. i will say this. at the time of design, we don't always know exactly the placement. we know that they are going to be put, these are centralizer subs to be put on each joint and the relevant length of the joint is 45 feet, and i'm sure that's the assumption in my opinion that the engineer made and put them in that length and distance apart. we get the information from the provider of the centralizers that is not halliburton, but weatherford. >> would you agree correcting incorrect centralizer information might change the results of this model? >> i don't believe it fixes the fact the job channeled. >> is halliburton rerunning the model with correct input data?

>> we're still working on that. >> are you willing to make the results public when you do that modeling? >> the investigations continuing into this, so i assume it would become public. >> i'll take that as a maybe. >> you know, we can go back and model it with the exact low cations of the -- location of the exact specifications and rerun the model, and i'm sure that's something in my opinion that i think we can do. >> i want to talk a little now about the nitrogen-foam cement in particular. bp's report, as mr. bly mentioned earlier, said the foam cement was in fact unstable. halliburton, mr. vargo, do you have an opinion whether that

foam-cement was likely to have been stable? >> results provided just prior to the execution of the job indicates the stability. i know there was testing done prior to that to the contrary, but as far as the results that i've reviewed prior to the operation, and i believe you showed them up there before, the 1.8 and 1.8sg on top and bottom indicates and i would say an engineer looking at that assumes that is a stable system and go ahead and execute the job. >> have you rerued all -- have you reviewed all the testing data? >> i have, sir. >> is it the same that the foam-cement would be stable in >> you put up the information back in february on the initial testing, and one thing to point out is that we are designing and testing that cement right up until the operation typically. the initial tests that are run and as you all indicated and i think i've indicated too or two

goals are placement in their own stages and we do pilot testing to ascertain the vol yiewsm of -- volume of materials we need on the rigs to do the jobs. the early tests allow us to order the proper chemical test volumes and tweak the tests until we're up to the actual operation and get the cement in that we're going to use, and the last test that i showed or the last test shown to me shown they had what i think a reasonable engineer shows as a stable system and that they could move forward. >> i'm going to put up that data chart, and of course as i mentioned earlier today, this slide here shows a three hour conditioning time. who set the conditioning time? >> the engineers looking at the job placement time, and i

believe towards the end when they had slowed down the job, that obviously increased the conditioning time, and that's probably the engineer that was working on this was the one that shows the three hour conditioning time. >> was the job placement time changed between april 13 and april 18? >> i don't know the exact dates, but i know they slowed down the displacement which is why they needed the additional time for placement and why they used the three hour conditioning time. >> so do they derive the conditioning time from the job placement time? >> yes, sir. >> if that's true, can we -- i'll ask differently. why would someone use a 0 conditioning time if that's the case? >> i don't know. that was early on in the planning stages of the job. they just got only well just before that. they were doing some preliminary tests. i don't know why they chose

that. at that time i don't think they knew exactly what they were going to do so they didn't indicate a request time on the slurry. >> why would they choose a different conditioning time when they had no further information on the job? >> they were looking at how long it would take to run the job and reran the test with a two hour conditioning time that would have probably been a faster displacement rate than used based on the tests for april 18 in my opinion. >> would you agree both february tests produced unstable foam results from the lab? >> i would say -- i would say the results from the february 13 would be data that i would not run in the well. the 17th indicates some stability, but again, i don't think at this point i would choose to run this slurry in the

well. >> so 1 it your position -- so is it your position if you got the data back from the lab in february, you would have looked at that data and said i wouldn't run that cement down the well? >> at that day, you know, there are several factors that we consider in testing the cement. one is the pump time, compressor strengths, stability test is another test we're running, so based on those results, i would not have on that time on february 17th chosen to have run that in the well. >> as an engineer at halliburton, if you had seen those results, would you consider dre design -- redesigning the slurry at that point? >> it depends. obviously you are redesigning on the point of the 17th-18th of appraisal. there is a redesign that does occur. you change your concentrations and water concentrations changed as well, so there was a redesign process that did go on from the

17th through the 18th. >> is there any e-mails or documents to suggest the redesign process considered the instability results from february? >> i'm not aware of that, sir. i guess i should also, you know, let you know we do a lot of testing on a lot of these cement slurries as we are going through the process. many times we have a target window for a lot of the different parameters we're asked to achieve, that's pump time, compressor strength, and some of the other things we test for. we're doing testing in the background achieving those results. it may take several tests to achieve those result, and sometimes they're not all reported. we'll report the data once we know what we're going to do p. >> why dough you -- why do you report one set of data and not another? >> if it's not valid to what

we're doing, then we don't report it. if we're trying to place the cement and it takes four hours to place the cement and run a test and it takes three hours to pump off, that's a test we're not going to use, so we rerun the test and provide them with the results of what we meant to achieve based on their recommendations of their requirements. >> was that correct this morning that eventually this april 18th test was reported to bp, and eventually this february 17th test was reported to bp. am i correct about those in >> i know the 18th was. >> on march 8, this test was sent out. >> okay. >> would you agree with me in both cases better foam stability test results were reported better than the al tern gnats run in the same timeframe? >> you mean the results, again, you know, the 159, 159 says

there's not settling, but it's not at the design dense my. that's not something we would run in the well. same with the april 13 test. again, all of those tests are remitted of what we were going to run in the well based on the job placement time and conditioning time. >> i think you said this result right here on april 13, that's not something you would run in the well, am i correct? >> not at that time, no. >> does halliburton have a position when that test was available internally? >> i don't know exactly when that test was available. >> standing here on this day, halliburton has no position on whether or not -- >> i believe we knew the times to place the job, and i believe that the stability tests were being run at the time. >> so halliburton does not know at this point whether or not it

had any past foam stability results at the time it pumped the job? >> i don't know if we did or not at that point. i know that the test results were posted afterwards from what i understand. >> you agree the test date is correct and began testing on april 18? >> that's what i believe those are part of the results when the results were available on the 18th. >> when the results were available? >> that's what i understand. >> all right. >> again, i don't know exactly when the results were available, sir. >> just to ill lum nate the point here, this is the investigative staff drew the information from this lab note here.

2:15 a.m. on 4/18/10, with conditioning time three hours, it's our understanding, sounds like halliburton doesn't have a position whether we're right or wrong, that this task would have taken 48 hours from the point it was poured and 48 hours from 2:15 would be 2:15 a.m. on april the 20th. >> it takes 48 hours to perform the test. that may have been something that -- i mean what we do is pour the test and the cement has to set up. the time period for the cement to set up may or may not take that long. i don't know exactly the time period it takes for that stuff to set up. >> this is testimony from mr. tommy rowe. would you agree he says we transfer that foam cement slurry into a pvc test cell and fill the top of the cell and through it in a water bath at 180

temperature for 48 hours. >> that would be the procedure, but it can be cold earlier if you have cement set up prior to that. >> was this test pulled up any earlier? >> i don't know. >> my apologies, i need to pick up -- ademy ofa table here presented a engineering. i focus on this to show the foam stability test here reported 99 lab hours here. would you agree 48 plus 48 is 96, and that that's probably the 48 hour test span we're talking about, the two tests reported. >> again, i don't know when the tests were pulled exactly, sir. >> mr. bly, if bp had the information in the february test reports or the april test reports and had reviewed them

carefully, would it allowed halliburton to pump this cement job? >> absolutely not. when we looked at our report, our investigation, we saw lots of evidence of the engineering team working to the, working on aspects of the cement job mostly to do with placement. the presumption, of course, is that the cement is going to be stable and it's not going to have fundamental problems. these indications would say there's fundamental problems with the cement, and that would change everything. it would be the precursor to literally all 13 of your points on the 13 point slide. >> do you believe that any of your engineers on the job at the time were aware of the potential issues with the nitrogen foam-cement? >> no, looking through the information they used and the analysis they were doing, they were focused on as i said, aspects of the work, ecd and things, but no indication they had been begin notice or had any concerns at all about the

stability of the foam-cement. >> so we also looked through the e-mails here. what we see here is an e-mail from jesse gagliano. do you believe this is just before the job? >> yes, sir. >> here we see he talking about lab tests, the small changes between the amounts of tartar that would be used in this. from halliburton's point of view would a change in tartar combination from 8 gallons to 9 gallons in the mix meaningfulfully affect foam stability? >> it have to be tested out. i think we would ask the advice of our lab manager by changing.01 gallons per sack if that's going to affect the stability. >> do you have a personal view on that whether it's likely to or not? >> it would depend. you'd have to really test it out

to understand 100% i believe. >> i would prefer the extra pump time with the added risks of the nitrogen. do you know what he means when he says, i prefer the extra pump time? >> i don't. i don't know what that means. >> is it reasonable to think at that time he was thinking about the possibility of nitrogen-foam instability? >> i don't know. >> fair enough. >> were your engineering concerned about halliburton's confidence at the time that this was about to be pumped? >> not that i'm aware of. you know, as we went through the investigation, i did become aware of some e-mails that were around for the mbi. i don't -- nothing i saw raised issues

about confidence. there was questions about time limits and getting down on time. >> it's crucial to have stability foam tests done before a cement job is pumped? >> i would agree that it's important to know that the fundamental properties of the cement you're going to use are sound, yes, and i think that would be a part of it. >> this e-mail sent from brian morrell, another bp engineer, there was a view among the bp engineers at this point that jesse, in this case, jesse gagliano, the halliburton engineer, quote, was not cutting it. would you agree there was concern among your engineers that the lead halliburton person on this job was at least not being timely? >> i would agree with it not being timely because the other things i saw indicated and that was the primary complaint. >> the time limits in particular

here is about lab tests, would you agree? >> from memory, that's right. >> would you agree bp was aware there's problems with getting lab results for this cement job back in time? >> i'd agree with the first two things i agreed with is it appeared they had to push to get results done, and that there had been an indication that this had happened before. >> can we go back to the cement bullets slides? i want to close briefly about the discussion of evaluating the success of the cement job. mr. bly, i think your report concluded that the team on the job used lift pressure and returns to declare that the

cement placement was a success, correct? >> yes. >> your report also concluded based on internal engineering practices that those criteria were insufficient and a proper risk assessment would lead them to do more work? >> correct. >> sorry, more evaluative work. >> yes. we said while it was clear they had thought through it, got a positive indication that the cement job was pumped correctly, we were critical of the decision to use lift pressure alone as top cement. >> what were halliburton's criteria at the time determining it was successful? >> at the time of the execution when we performed the job on the rig, obviously, did we achieve the density, the target density that we pumped all the additives associated and see the plugs bump? those were the criteria used on the rig to assess whether it was a successful job or not, and

that's execution of the design. >> this is to clear up misconceptions we've seen the press. do you believe they are full returns on this cement job? >> from what i understand, yes, sir. >> mr. bly, do you agree with that in >> yes, our final answer was three to four bail lots which is full returns, yes. >> do you have a view on that issue? >> we've studied it, but still in the process of looking at the cement. >> if you don't mind, i can corroborate that? >> oh, i'm sorry. >> it's one of the areas that the data does reflect certain areas of the cement job and doesn't show any significant losses and as mr. bly mentioned, three barrels. >> demonstrating the attention for cooperation raising his hand when not called upon in this case. do you all agree it would not have been standard industry practice to run a cement bond

log at this time. i'll ask the question better. is it common practice in the industry -- would it have been common practice in the industry to run a cement evaluation log at this time? >> typically no, not at this time. >> okay. >> do you have a view on that? >> it'll be awhile. >> and any view? >> no. >> i agree. >> so all the parties agree here that -- maybe i should correct the question. given all the indicators here, it was not standard practice to run a cement bond log at this time? having clarified the question, does anyone want to change their answer? take a two minute break just to talk with -- >> all right, a two minute break.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] a couple minute break here in the last panel of the day. some more questions expected

next and then closing remarks from the co-chairs of the commission looking into the deepwater horizon spill. if you missed any of this hearing today, you can see it again, the whole day, starting at 8 p.m. eastern time on c-span, and then tomorrow, day two of the hearing begins at 9 eastern, live here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] as we wait for this to get underway here on c-span2. tomorrow hearing comet looking at oil well and drilling operations. also, plans for a new regulation of offshore drilling. that's what we can expect tomorrow. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> is my microphone on? your attention please. mr. ambrose, i noticed something sitting here that i want to touch on. we all saw this before that the 21: 01 and 21: 14 there was anomalies, and the first steps taken by the crew were at 21:41,

and i think we've said maybe nobody in the crew noticed an anomaly until 21:40, when the mud came up on the rig floor, do you recall that? >> i do. >> a day or two ago you sent me the slide on the end of the well activity, and i was sitting here looking at it, and i noticed something, and the issue is this indicates that the kick wasn't noticed until 21:40 and the anomalies were not noticed. let's look at your slide. your slide here says stop pumping to check anomaly. it's not 21: 41 or 21:40, but

21:35, see that? then you evaluate the anomaly to something like 21:38. the slide you gave me, appears, doesn't it, that your crew, it's your slide, you prepared it and asked me to show it, and i showed it, but your slide appears to show that your crew recognized an anomaly at 21: 35 and evalvatted the -- evaluated the anomaly four or five minutes ahead of the time that the mud came up on the drill floor, isn't that true? >> we have a different time lipe than in the -- line than in the bp report. again, you have to go back living in the moment. we've talked about that. >> yes. >> when the mud pump pressure relief valve went off, and that

happened at 9:21. at that time we believe they isolated the mud pump downstairs, and then they opened the kill line on the drill floor for the first time which would have been the first time that the kill line would have been opened, and they could have monitored pressure on the kill line after the negative test. when that happened, it had a very strange trend, and over a period of about 7 minutes, it started to build pressure which would have been expected. it should have built pressure, maybe it was plugged. we don't know, and that anomaly happened as the driller was ramping up the mud pumps after the pressure relief valve which he shout the operation down at that point and ramped mud pumps up again. once he stabilized the rate of

the pumps, the anomaly we're talking about is we believe then they saw a differential pressure between the kill line and the drill pipe. they weren't as close as they should have been, and at two minutes after roughly, two minutes after seeing that, they shut the pumps down to check that anomaly. they stopped the operation to figure out what may have been happening. the pumps ramped down to computer control, assume you get the pump to stop and slow down in a 2 minute period and approximately 9:31 or 9:32, the pumps were off and a steady solid pressure was being shown on the drill pipe. it's a confusing signal with months of works, we've determined it appears as the kick was coming in and the influx was coming in, it was changing heights in fluid

columns in the well, and the geometry of the well was such that as the 14 pound mud that was -- when this all started there was 500 barrels of 14 pound mud below the drill pipe that was pushed up into the bop, and is it hit the b.o.p., it kept a constant pressure, a sign dpliewds were -- fluids were moving. they were scratching their heads why there was a pressure deferential. there is a statement from a person going through the drill floor at that time discussing differential pressure. that's the anomaly we're talking about there. the timeline puts mud on the drill floor a little bit later than bp's. if you look at the actions that we know happened between 9:34 -- >> what time does your timeline

put mud on the floor? >> we're three minutes after that. >> 2 1:43. let's go back to this one. we now see that 21:31-38, right in here, you guys are seeing things that you said was confusing, differential drill pressures seen, they were discussing it. you said it was -- well, you used the word confusing. >> well, actually from the times they started the pumps back up after the machine test, for every action the driller took, he saw the expected reaction on the pressure gauges, so for the better part of the -- up until 9:27, the actions that he was taking with the mud pumps, he expected, and he saw what he expected on the pressure

gauges, and the pressure particularly right around 9:27 was falling off as it should have, so that trend was correct. the anomaly was that now that the kill line had been opened, the differential was causing some concern, and so then they stopped, shut the operation down to check that. >> so your crew in the period 9:34 to 9:38 is discussing this confusing differential pressure between the drill pipe and kill line; right? >> that's correct. >> so something is going on, and they see it, and you say that it didn't come on the drill floor until 21:43. this means you had about before the bp reports the hydrocarbon got in the riser, your guys were discussing a confusing

differential pressure situation. if they hit the b.o.p. then before it got on the riser -- of course if you hit the b.o.p. before the hydrocarbons get in the riser, is makes a difference, doesn't it? >> again it's in the mind set of how they were interpreting what's happening. >> with all respect, if you're having a discussion before the hydrocarbons get in the riser about anomalies, if you hit the b.o.p. before it gets in the riser, that will make a difference, won't it? >> it's hard to say in this particular case with the flow rates that were happening at that point. i couldn't speculate whether it would have closed it 100%. >> that wasn't the question. again, with all do respect -- >> it might have made a difference, i can't speculate. >> i'm not asking you to speculate. what i'm saying if before the bp

report calculates hydrocarbons got in the riser while back here everything is still below the b.o.p., if your guys discussing the anomaly had hit the b.o.p., it might make a difference if you hit the b.o.p. while the hydrocarbons are still underneath the b.o.p.; right? >> any time you stop hydrocarbons below the b.o.p. is better than above. >> okay. that's the only question i had to this. >> does that conclude your questions, fred in >> it does. >> thank you. >> we're running out of time. take another 5 minutes. >> yes, this will be very quick. one question that we had not asked, and i meant to ask, mr. bly, given all the problems leading up to april 20th, my

understanding is the rig was behind schedule with regard to finishing this well; is that right? >> i believe that's right, yes. >> 45 days behind schedule sound correct? >> it does. it wasn't necessarily a focus in the report, so i don't know, but i'll take your word for it. it sounds reasonable. >> okay, but you know it was a fair bit behind schedule? >> yes. >> now, bp sent home the schlumberger contractors on april 20, correct? >> correct. >> how long would have taken to run the cement bond log? >> 10-12 hours. >> okay. now there was some concern about centralizers, and i know there was confusion about whether the right centralizers were out on the rig, do you recall that? >> yes. >> how long would it have taken if the wrong ones wore out there, get the correct ones from

shore to the rig? >> i can't remember, i think it was analyzed, a day or something like that. >> okay. we talked about it with sam that bp did not, in fact, have the final test results before it poured the cement job; is that right? >> we had -- we didn't have the final foam stability tests. >> is there a reason that bp would have poured the cement job before it had the final test? >> i think if you look at the information that was available to the team, they were looking at the conventional aspects of the cement jobs that are important so like hardening times and things like this. >> is there a reason bp would not have waited to get the foam stability tests before pouring the final cement job? >> i think we didn't appreciate the importance of the foam-stability tests. >> is there a reason bp would not have waited to get the centralizers they thought were

in fact the right centralizers before they ran the final production casing? >> there could be a range of reasons. one of them when the realization happened, it was already being run. you don't want to sit with an open hole because that's a risk. you have risk tradeoffs to make once they were in the position they were in. >> if the rig crew had recognized there was a problem or the well-site leader with the negative pressure test, how long would it have taken to actually diagnosis and remediate whatever problem there might have been at the bottom of the well? >> i don't know. it wouldn't take long. if you realize that the bottom of the sheet wasn't holding, you would know you had a problem with that barrier. >> so you would know that you had a problem with that barrier. how long then would it take to remediate or fix that problem? >> i don't know that off the top of my head.

>> that's it. >> thank you. >> we're done. i want to say it's unusual to be questioned by relays of lawyers coming back over the same points, and it's normally not done. i think people need to understand that. the reason it was done here is because we don't have subpoena power and we're still doing probing. i appreciate your willingness to sit here for the same areas coming at you from different directions. thank you. >> senator graham and i will now make closing comments. senator graham. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's been a long day for the audience, witnesses, the comitialers, but i think -- commissioners, but i think a wholesome day marked with the quality of the presentation by fred and his colleagues, and the

candor of the responses by the representatives of the firm for which we are very appreciative. my fundamental take away from this is the enormous complexionty -- complexity and subtlety of activity that deepwater drilling constitutes, and therefore the necessity to be careful about the temptation to come to a one-size fits all reaction to this individual incident. i will say i am concerned, and i think sean's last questions were sort of leading to my concern, and that is there seems to be a compulsion to get this rig completed in that april 19th, april 20th time period, and as a result of that, a number of things which might have made the

outcome of this plight different were deferred or abandoned. i'm curious to find out why was this time period so central and why would it not have been a appropriate to have deferred until you knew whether the cement was stable? every test of the cement up until april the 18th had been a failure, and you hadn't gotten -- you had not gotten the april 18th which was the only one that had an indication that it was effective, and the issue of channeling which seemed to be a major issue, our friends from halliburton talked about the consequences of not having appropriate security of the pipe

could have been corrected in a few hours with substitution that could have been considered to be inappropriate. i hope tomorrow we get down to the question of just what was driving for a decision on that particular narrow 24 hours. we had repeatedly representations of examples of how we can do our job better if we can tell the american people that we've had access to all of the people, all the information that could contribute to getting to the truth in this issue. with my friend bill o'riley, we are going to make one last

effort in the next few days to get subpoena for this commission so that we can go to the american people in early january and say this is the best, most complete objective, independent report of what happened and what we should do about it that is available to the american people with what we know as of today. i believe this hearing today has cricketed to -- contributed to hopefully our ability to be persuasive on those who have thus far been present to give us that authority. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i would say that one of the questions i was asked at the press conference earlier is what can we say to the families who lost loved ones on the rig. with respect to what we now

know, and what caused their deaths, i think we have significantly, our investigative team, has significantly advanced our understanding far beyond where it was when we began this investigation, and i complement them on the thoroughism and professionalism they had as they conducted their work. as i think about lessons for the policy and the commission's recommendations, i'm conscious of the fact that what we heard about were apparently a lot of decisions that simply are difficult to explain or just looked like they were plain wrong. the cement test failures, the negative test failure, the muds that were removed leading to more pressure in the well,

underbalancing, the indication of a kick that was apparently missed or ignored, and the apparent failure to activate the diverter. when i think about what kinds of recommendations we could make with respect to either industry practice or governmental policy, we're going to have to think long and hard to go beyond some of the more obvious points here. the question i raised in my opening statement was there there had -- was whether there had been a systemic issue here or an anomaly, a one-time event, the consequence of unusual circumstance and extraordinary challenges, but obviously the challenges were extraordinary, however, it's very difficult for me to conclude that there was not a culture of complacency

affecting everything involved with this exercise, with this experience. if we had not been complacent, i suppose the most obvious reality is we would not have experienced two full months of a gushing well leading to # 00 million -- 200 million gallons being spilled. we would not have seen congress underfund the regulatory agency consistently over the better part of the last 20 years, and the consequent failure of the mms to rise to the challenges posed by technologies that simply became so sophisticated that they scarcely were any match for the people they were regulating. i think that some of those questions go beyond the purpose of the inquiry today. they are important for the future of the commission's

deliberations. we, i think, learned as much to be concerned about as to put it rest some of the questions that we previously raised. i think we did resolve quite a number of uncertainties and questions. i would, myself, repeat what senator graham said about our hope that we do finally get subpoena pour, and that to whatever loose ends remains and we can and conclude our work by january 11 resolve even more of the doubts and uncertainties that continue. i will thank the panelists for the presentations that they've made, the cooperation that the companies have engaged in with us, and say that i very much hope that as one more indication of good faith, you will go back

and get agreement from your leaders, your ceo's to support subpoena power for us. i think it's fully consistent in the directions we've gone together with you and to the fairness and respect that our investigative team has paid to you, and i hope that you agree. well, we've been looking back today. tomorrow morning, we'll look forward, and perhaps we will have a little less negative information particularly as we learn about safety cultures, and the kinds of experiences companies have had in creating them and improving upon them, and making them exemplary performers. with that, i'll conclude the presentation. it wasn't hard to be attentive to this gripping presentation that was so well-presented. thank you, and until tomorrow

morning. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ..

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] tonight if you missed any of the daylong hearing on the bp oil spill in the gulf of mexico, watch the whole thing starting at 8:00 eastern time on a competing network on the c-span or any time at c-span.org. day two of the hearing begins at 9:00 eastern tomorrow morning, including plans for possible new regulations for drilling. we'll have that life for you here on c-span 2.

>> and now a discussion on the iraq iran military relationships in the regional economy. the speakers include current and former diplomats who work in the middle east, hosted by the national council and u.s.-arab relations, this is about an hour 10 minutes. >> and what prospects for future arab employment and what are the implications for tens of thousands of youths who have no jobs. and by not having jobs, have no, meaningful sense of dignity. and having no meaningful sense of dignity, not puny bull easily

to marry. and the implications of this financial stability and security. securi. anne joyce is a role model for r eany in the sense that she hasns been the founding editor of what his middle east policy, the quarterly journal that is a leading one in the field and the tackles issues of policy related that no other journal does to the same extent. anne joyce has been doing this since the early 1980's.has so more than a quarter of a century she's contributed to policy related articles and essays in the esteemed journal, middle east policy. please welcome, anne joyce. [applause]

>> thank you very much and thank you to john duke anthony and the national council for having this program. as broad and complex and gets us all an opportunity to examine issues that are in the public debate over time, at least from this is.ime i think we have to be a little. humble when we talk about education. we americans tend to preach to others about it as if it werehes the philosophers stone or youby can transform base metals intonm gold.s not quite. education is necessary, but not sufficient. we also have to talk about what kind of education were talkingut about. what is appropriate for any particular society. particular are we talking about liberal lia arts as an education? critical thinking, technical tr?

training? bear many aspects to it.o and when you see ouranwhen unemployment rate at the momente and the amount of discontent inf our society about jobs and forth, we have a lot of questions to askhow d ourselves. we fit our people ino lives that are satisfying for them? it's good to take this up during an election season too because the rhetoric out there is very hostile. you can feel the what the resentment and also the ignorance in the political debate and it's very painful i think for most of us. in our field we also are aware that the political elites, the educated class, are often very guilty of group think and conventional wisdom. it's also the case that, of

course in the public debate there's a great deal of ignorance spanned about. preaching to others about education is something i hesitate to do, but at any rate, we have to all face the social divide that education sometimes produces, and i think the backlash against the educated elite is inevitable. we see it in our own country and other countries as well. before i forget to do this or if there's no time at the end, i want to pick up something on chad freedomman, my former boss, said this morning and that is that public intellectuals should or have a duty to go out and try to mitigate hatred of muslims which is everywhere in our society regrettably, so go out and reprove somebody for prejudice after this meeting. our panel today is wonderful, and i know that because i

watched the video of doctor's talk last year that is inspiring and wonderful. she will be our first speaker. i think i'll briefly introduce all of them right now, and then they can speak in order. i'll let you read the more complicated details, but she's the director of social and cultural affairs at the saudi mission here in washington. the next speaker is ms. dotty rowe. she does polling among arab youths and more than that that she'll tell you about, and i think the polling doesn't all involve why do they hate us. the final panelist is maggie mitchell salem who is well known by her work in the state department and work in the middle east institute.

she's the executive director of the foundation international in washington, and our commentator will be john moran, the distinguished dip mats and u.s. relations this year, a career member of the u.s. senior foreign service as well, so it'll be his job to pick up on what the panelists have said and ask provocative questions, your questions are included of course at the end as well. i'll now turn the podium over. [applause] >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. i'm honored to be here again among another distinguished

panel, an interesting audience of this caliber. my first public debut to western audiences was in 2003 when i started writing. those articles were critical asking for social change regarding women's rights. my western audiences were sympathetic and encouraging. the most frequent question i got was what's it's like living in saudi arabia. like i said it's asked with sympathy. to their surprise my instant answer is always are you kidding me? i would not want to be anywhere else in the world. why? i was living history every day, literally. now today -- well, actually i say for you to understand better because some people criticize this. it was like standing in the

exact center of a tornado where you know if you standstill, it could kill you, but if you move it could be fatal. the country is constantly moving, planning, keeping up if the speed of the world. this panel is on education and employment challenges. i'll focus on just how saudi arabia has met global education challenges and tried to develop human resources in an attempt to solve parts and emphasis on parts on the rising employment challenges in the region. so, first of all, the country has been built on five year plans, developmental plans since 1960. we are currently in the 9th five year development plan, and it includes 385 billion in new

spending. how will they revitalize in the next five years? 50% goes to developing human resources. 19% to social and health, 15% to economic resources, 7% to transportation and education, and 7% to housing. this is that on a pie chart. i think saudi arabia is actually a fine example for a panel like this. now, of course, higher education is key to the new developmental plan. we're in connection in connection increasing the capacity of the universities to jump from 100,000 to a 1.7 million. we are necking graduate students to 5%. we are encouraging university collaboration with international institutions and if any of you are affiliated with universities

here, you must have been contacted by saudi universities, and we're including local scholarships that i'll discuss a bit more later. now, our first university was established in 1958, and between 1958 and 2002 which is about what? four decades? we had eight universities, and then in just one decade between 2003 and 2010, the number of universities in saudi arabia has tripled. here i'd like to make a stop at two universities, but first the university of science and technology which i'm sure all of you have heard of. as a world renown research center it has faculty and students from all over the world to do research, to study, and to address global issues. the second stop, and i'm biased here because i'm faculty at the

second university. this is princess nora university. this is the first female university in saudi arabia, the largest in the region, and it's still being built actually, there's over 8,000 square meters and it's able to accommodate 40,000 female students. the campus has administration buildings, educational buildings. it will have conference centers a huge library, student and faculty housing in addition to a hospital with 500 beds. now, private sector is increasing in saudi arabia and started recently in 2000. in one decade we have eight private universities excluding private colleges, tan when i was talking about local scholarships, the government is funding students to study here as long as they qualify.

now, key -- king is building new facilities. one way to tackle unemployment is to take the high school students and give them technology skills. within five years those numbers include to 24 or 25 more technical colleges, 28 technical institutes, and over 50 industrial training institutes to help resolve some of the unemployment problem. we're also encouraging innovation in science and technology. how? well, first of all, over 240 million in grant and research every year. the establishment of 10 research centers, 15 technology center, and we're collaborating, and at least eight technology incubators with the king

university and other universities. also included in the five year plan is the expansion of the king scholarship program. now, if some of you don't know what that is, it started in 2005 with an agreement between president bush. it was supposed to be a five year program, but in 2010, it was extended for another five years. why is this program important and the focus of this prosecution? -- presentation. >> well, the mission is to develop and qualify human resources to be world competitive in the market, and to be a high caliber basis for both universities, public and private sectors. to achieve that mission, the king scholarship program offers scholarships in all of these degrees from bachelors to

medical fellowship. what are we sponsoring? predominantly it's medicine with all branches, pure sciences, and medical sciences. is that all our job market needs? certainly not. it's also sponsoring. engineering, computer sciences, and business with all the branches as well. now, how are these candidates selected? this is a question common from university officials in particular. if you're an undergraduate student, you have to have a 90% on your high school diploma, and three years of high school, and 70 op an aptitude test like an act here. if you go for your bachelors here, you have to have a gpa of 3.5, and no more than five years since your last degree.

if you're going for your postgrad, you have to have a gpa of 2.7, and many more than five years since your last degree. if you're going for medical fellowship or residency, it's simple. get administration to an institute accredited by the administration of higher education. now, once these candidates are selected, what happens? we send them almost all over the world from the united states to the czech republic, in different numbers to different degrees of course. can you imagine the collective experience that these young and men and women will have when they come back to the country? okay. before the students go they go to an oration and are told about their rights and responsibilities. it's a three day workshop and cram in as much as we can. we tell them about the countries they are going to and give the

student social and psychological preparations. we have guest speakers from the countries they are going to or former students to share their speanses. now, once the lucky students arrive in the countries they are to be in, they get full tuition in any school. they get full medical and dental coverage. they get reimbursements for attending conferences, workshops, and symposiums. they get rewards for high gpas. if they are married and have children they get financial support for spouses and children, and for the sphows, they get a scholarship. there's annual round trip tickets throughout the years of study to saudi arabia and back. now, every time the discuss the number of students worldwide, i

remember that joke about the multimillionaire who was asked about his net worth, and his answer was before or after you ask the question? when people ask how many students we have, i want to say before or after you ask the question? according to the stats from higher education, at last count it was 98,000 students, and now there's over more than 100,000. in dc alone, we get an average of 300 to 500 a week. are there students studying in saudi arabia? certainlily. students abroad are 18.5% of higher education students. this is a short diagram to show you how much we jumped since 2005. we had about 10,000 students, and now it's 100,000. in five years, we in connection

increased tenfold. we're forth in the world in terms of international students studying abroad. that's impressive from a country young as ours. in residents, we're second in the world following on the greece. if you notice that the numbers in the schedule a few slides back, there were three types of scholarship students. one is the sponsored students, the ones who are fully covered by the scholarship program. the second names are self-sponsored coming here with the hope of getting a scholarship once they finish the language program or start their academic degrees. the third type is the employed scholarship students, and those are fully funded as well, but by other companies like universities or ministries or private businesses. based on degree level, if you're wondering, the majority of students are studying their bachelor degree.

the majority of bachelor is followed by masters, doctorate, and fellowship. females make up about 30% of scholarship students worldwide. if we break it down male and female degree, most males are doing their bachelors with a 57%, and females are equal in bachelors and masters followed by doctorate, residency and other programs. now, what are the students mainly studying? the highest majority of students all around the world in the king scholarship program study business. if you go down, you find they do journalism, mathematics, nursing, transportation. now, this is no surprise to anybody, the top countries where the students study.

it's the united states. we have students in over 1,000 universities here, 30,000 in the u.s. alone followed by the u.k., canada, australia, knew zeal land, germany, malaysia, and austria. i've taken out the arab countries here. students go to the middle east as well and northern africa. the only country we don't have sponsors is south america, but we're working on that. okay. so what are we doing? they are getting a world-class education. in the united states, for example, they go to the top ten universities. is that all? no. they are breaking stereotypes and building bridges and taking opportunities to teach about their country whether it's one on one, in classrooms, or international week on campus. they are teaching about our

attire, even the controversial -- they are sharing our foods, and they are showing up their dance. those are the george maison students in dc here. they are showing the world how to write their names in our language. they are learning about american society and about the other countries that they are studying in. they are contributing with volunteer community service, visiting schools and nursing homes, sharing their compassion and experiences. they are also raising the saudi flag high and proud alongside the american flag here, and all other flags that they interact with. in 2005, king abdul la addressed the public for the reason for these programs with these words.

for them to know the world, and for the world to know them. in august of 2010, the media responded and acknowledged the wisdom and honor of this program by naming king among the top ten world leaders. thank you for listening. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. am i on? at any rate, that was excellent. although she is fast, it was very comprehensible. >> okay, since i introduced her already, she will come to the podium and talk about the surveys she's conducted in the arab world, and i think she's

using the powerpoint as well. if you can't see, please feel free to move. >> good evening. it's my great pleasure to be here this afternoon and to address this extremely distinguished audience and also to showcase some highlights from the research that we conduct at gallup. anne introduced me by saying i'm a pollster. i'm more than a pollster. i'm a social scientist and i work for the gallup organization, and this is a topic that my research center has explored and just afraid

that it would take basically more than the remainder of this panel and into tomorrow to fully explore these ideas with you, so for this afternoon and this evening, i'm going to focus on entrepreneurship, aspirations. i'm going to tell you how we go about doing this research which some of you may already be familiar with, and then i'll be looking forward to hearing your feedback on your questions regarding this work. dr. modi focused on one very specific country, and i think maggie will focus on also another situation. i'm going to bring you the 10,000 foot view, so we have a very, very diverse region from morocco all the way to yemen,

but i really want to bring you the big picture view and from the angle of employment or lack thereof, and looking at entrepreneurship and how that can address this challenge that the whole region is facing which is job creation, so as many of you know about 30% of the arab world is between the ages of 15 and 29, so we have a huge demographic. it is about 100 million strong, and so this is actually the largest cohort to enter in history to enter or try to enter the labor force, so it's certainly a demographic challenge, but we can also see it as a demographic dividend, so

we need to think about how can we make this switch in how can we go from the challenge to the the dividend, and one of the things that we can do is by looking at young arabs as today's vital partners if you like with the stake in their societies as opposed to viewing them as tomorrow's beneficiaries for whom we need to find employment. to basically this whole work is the subject of my research with the center for muslim studies, and gallup has been working in partnership with a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization called ciletec. it was created in 2008, pursuant to the vision of the mission to

connect young arabs with employment and enterprise opportunities in their respective countries. before we can address this challenge at least in a successful way, we need to measure it, and that's exactly what we do at gallup. our research focuses for this particular effort initiative, our research focuses on the voices of young arabs. what we do is we measure their perceptions of basically the obstacles that they perceive in terms of being employed or creating a business, but we also want to better understand their aspirations and their dreams for a better future, so this in turn

on this entire body of research can and will form policies and this is part of our defending nation's efforts in terms of initiatives to remove these obstacles to employment and entrepreneurship in those countries. i'm going to focus on highlights from our last report. just to give you a brief overview, a very, very briefly, i'll talk about methodology and how it is that we carry out this research. we'll look at work preferences whether people prefer young people that prefer to work in the public sector or private sector. we'll look at how young arabs view entrepreneurship in terms of whether it's a good climate or not. how many young arabs plan to

start a business, what kind of demographic attributes and other attributes can we see in those aspireing entrepreneurs, and then we'll look at two key areas, perceptions or attitudes towards business entry variables as well as business outcome variables, and then we'll take it all together and look at key learnings. in terms of the methodology, we are -- we cover pretty much every single country in the arab league with the exception of oman and terms in somalia, a member of the arab league. we can't really be polling in somalia for obvious reasons. there's one region of somalia where we can safely send our interviewers because all of this

work is actually done in face-to-face interviews, so in somalia, we can send people to places without being killed. >> we use random probability samples which simply means that every single person in the country based on your samplings has an equal chance of being selected for this survey, and as i just mentioned, we conduct face-to-face interviews of arab nationals. this is an issue for the countries that have very large nonnational populations, and the cold war h15 and older. we conduct at least 1,000 interviews twice a year, and that's for every single country, so we have very large sample sizes that enable us to do some pretty interesting research, and we, you know, interview

basically the whole gamet, rich people, poor people, the entire socioeconomic spectrum. we are not only in urban areas. a lot of the times the survey research work you see will only focus on urban areas because it's a lot easier. we don't do that. we really have more nationally represented samples that also cover the urban areas, and the margin error of plus or minus 2 or 3% depending on the country. okay. so we know ant -- we know there's a preference. in terms of all young arabs so that's the all the countries that i referenced between the ages of 15 and 29, we can see

that they are twice as likely to say they would rather work for the government than for a business. now, about a quarter say that either would be fine. now, what's really interesting is if you look among people, among young people who say they are planning to start a business in the last 12 months, so we call them the aspiring entrepreneurs. it's still a preference, they were really leaning toward government employment as opposed to private sector work, so this is a pretty interesting look at things. i promised this is the busiest slide you will see in the entire presentation. i didn't even put the numbers.

i hate, you know, having a lot of, you know, lots of really busy things and numbers, but here this is actually, and i'll just do highlights. it really shows you that there's a lot of variation across the region. it really is reflective of the great diversity that you have across the region. it is this preference for being employed by the government is highest in kuwait where 90% of the young people say they would rather work for the governments than for a business. you go all the way down to say, we'll stop at somalia land. here is a completely different picture because we have 14% of somalia between 15 and 29 who say they would rather work for the government. 70% of them --

74% of them say they would rather work for a business. when you are in the bottom parts, it's not like everybody wants to work or prefers to work for the private sector and the perfect example of this is libya where we have 13% of young libbians who prefer to work for the government, and then you have 33% or a third who prefer to work for a private sector, and then you have almost half, 46 #%, who say either. it's really a very varied picture. what i circled on the slide, lebanon. lebanon is basically the country that divides this entire list between above lebanon is where people, a majority, at least a majority of young people would

rather work for the government, and below lebanon is a minority, below 50% who would rather work for the government. that's it. no more pain. on to the next one. .. at attitudes toward a to the north should indulge panora. ar the positive, negative, michel? so, across the region again among the young arabs between the ages of 15 and 29, we have pretty solid strong majorities who for the most part have pretty favorable opinions of entrepreneurs, and they also

tell us that their communities are good places for rising, aspiring entrepreneurs to launch their business. to so overall it's a prettysovera positive picture. now, i want to show you we ask this question are you planningiu to start a business in the nexta 12 months. ynd this is -- this is a proxypx for really measuring people who haveme thought about thought about what it means to be a business owner and have done some of the homework to make this a reality in the next few months. so across the set of countries that we surveyed in the arab league, 15% of young people say

they're planning to start a business in the next year. now, looking at a number like this in an affirmation doesn't really help us. say what to bring you the view from the united states. whoops, didn't go very well. okay, you can't see it. i don't know why. but it is 4%. so 4% of americans between the ages of faith team and 29 say they plan to study business and the next 12 months. so there may be obviously different reasons for this, but we have much -- much greater interest in viewership across the arab league. let's look at differences across groups of countries.

so here we group the countries according to their gdp -- national gdp information, with a high income countries being of course the gcc countries, middle income countries being places like syria, algeria and the light. and although in countries which would fall into mauritania, somalia, sudan and so forth. we see here there's a lot of variations beginning on where people live. where the highest, the proportion for people who are more what to start a business you don't come from the poorest countries, but actually from the more middle income countries. so what do you aspiring entrepreneurs look like? so, not surprisingly we can see that men are actually far more

likely -- actually twice as likely to say they want to start a business as opposed to young arab women. for men, business creation and pensions are highest in countries that are highlighted they are or at least 30% of them. i'm not going to read the list. for women, we have at least 30% again in those four countries. and as you can see, there is some overlap. what other attributes can help us define aspiring entr the well, we know they are more likely to be employed and to be employed full-time. it's very important to know. we also know -- and this is not only gallup research. there's an entire body of research looking at the relationship between entrepreneurship and civic engagement and this is borne out by a research as well, where

aspiring entrepreneurs are far more likely to say that they volunteer their time or that they have helped a stranger in the past week. one last point on this site about which is extremely important is that the people who are most likely to be creating a business are also the people who are most likely to leave their countries permanently. okay, i promised we would look at business entry items versus is this outcome items, so here we go. in terms of business entry, we see in terms of looking at feeling confident that, you know, i can find the people qualified to do the job i need to be done and my business. we have a pretty strong majority of people -- ofoung people who say so.

the picture doesn't look as good when we look at two other extremely important aspects to launch a business. and that's the paperwork that's necessary to create a business using the formal economy. and also, access to capital and more specifically access to a loan to start your business. so there's a lot of work that needs to be done. and there's some variation across countries, but this is actually pretty true and all the countries where we do this research. so lots and lots of experts will need to go into removing this obstacle perceptions can improve. in terms of business outcomes, the picture is better than for business entry variables. but as you can see here, we have 59% of young arabs who say that

they trust their assets and property will be safe at all times. this is a pretty important business outcome, with 34% who say no. and then we have less than half, 48% who tell us that they would trust the government to let their business a very profitable and 42% say no. so here, there is an opportunity for government policymakers to work on these issues to be improving these perceptions. taking it all together, looking at a summary of the research -- and i just than the time that i have and i can see that i'm getting even less time now, we know that we can see that entrepreneurship is definitely a critical component to be addressing the challenge of the

bulge. we see a majority of young people prefer to work for the government, but there was a fairly large proportion of people who are undecided. so that could eat an opportunity to ice age here sell the benefit of coming in now, and much per nowhere. at the same time, there are widespread perceptions of employing business and venture outcome very or that exists. and finally and very importantly, it appears that those who are the most committed entrepreneurs are also the ones who are the most likely to emigrate. and this seems to suggest that business formation may not benefit their countries of origin. thank you very much. can't

[applause] >> will turn to maggie mitchell salem next. >> good evening. and let me just figure out how to work this. do i hate start first? hold on. sometimes i think that marrying dels with macs is a lot harder than anything else were discussing. perfect. hold on one second. in the meantime, while the presentation is coming up, i just wanted to say good evening to everyone here and u.s. stuck it out through the end of day one of the two-day conference. i'd also like to know what i think the organizers did an excellent job of putting together this panel because it

turns out that each of us are focusing on a very different but complementary area. and so, my compliments to the first two speakers. i'm actually not going to focus entirely on cutter. in fact, i'm not focusing on cutter at all. i'm focusing on a new organization which has the good fortune, but also the misfortune of having the same name as a very large organization based in qatar and that is the qatar foundation. the qatar foundation international is based in washington d.c. and is something very different, although benefiting from the work and from the vision of her highness, sheikh moussa, who was the head of the qatar foundation and is found at this institution as well as solo attack. so let me proceed.

the mission of qatar foundation international you can see it there and leave it at your leisure. you can also find this on our website, qfi.org. the object of qatar foundation international is to build relationships focusing on the middle and high school age students because we firmly believe that if you wait until someone turns 18, you might've waited too long. and were trying to bring cross-cultural programs to young people in the u.s. and other parts of the world and yes, qatar as well and bring them together to learn, to lead, to listen, to find out about the others before they go to college. and for them to have ideas about the world and their place in the world at a much younger age. the freedom of information means that a 10-year-old can know as much as i do.

and i can say that my 8-year-old knows a lot more about bugs than i'll ever know. so information is they are. as they know, information has no meaning without context, without giving it something much richer than the words on the page. we also all know that information can be distorted. and if you give young people a chance to interact with each other at young ages and give them a chance to see the world and be a part of it, we think that can make a significant difference. and so that's what we're trying to do. and i would just read the part that talks about her vision, which is of a world that embraces and respects diversity, values life onwards in and empowers individuals to take action to shape their future. but so were trying to do with these young people in our inaugural programs. silly word about our donor, just to clear up any misunderstanding.

our donor unlike us was founded in 1995. we are operational for the past 18 months. so were young, still growing and still taking in ideas and creating programs. it was founded by the mayor and the head of the foundation and delhi as her highness. and the mission is complementary to ours, but different. enough about our donor. these are the areas in which we're operating. global learning as the one that focuses on bringing people together through programs focusing again on middle and high school age students. these are programs that i'll discuss a little bit later. community engagement -- community kitchen and is an integral part of everything we do. it is not only programmatic color. it's a crosscutting theme for us. we believe that all the things in our program should give back some of what they've benefited from and that's not just presentations then they go back home, but giving their time as

part of are pro-grams. so we have a volunteer service component to all of the programs that we design. global public health is a new area were still working on. scholarships, of course if your middle and high school, you're looking at going to college. we want to provide opportunities for young people who meet the set of criteria that were still forming from all parts of the world to benefit from the opportunities available in doha, but also in other institutions around the world. so stay tuned for scholarships. special opportunities is her area to foster new ideas that may not fit into any of the other areas that we cover the cuts we really do believe their ideas out there that we may not have thought of and that if they come to us and we think they fit our overall mission, then were interested in considering them. so that's a word about us. just to give you some thoughts.

the crosscutting things i discuss one before, which is volunteerism, and others into cooperating with the best organizations in the field. we don't want to own any of the space wherein. we can't reach every young person in the world. and we know that there are many young people out there, including some of the names behind me who are equally interested for other reasons in reaching young people and designing programs that engage them effectively, whether it be an academic discipline or just as people who cannot a conversation and not scream. and if there's anything we can do at the end of this, if we can produce people who can disagree and walk away and shake hands, then the atmosphere we all live in has been alluded to before i think that would just be a huge coup. but enough of the soapbox. we support multiyear programs, recognizing the programs were engaging and require a long-term

commitment. we seek areas, ways to incorporate our programs with appropriate technology. again, this goes to my earlier point that we cannot -- not only can we not reach everyone, we can't fly them all over the world is much as would like to throw them out on qatar airplanes and take them or with a bite to go. it's not going to happen. it's costly. so how else can we reach young people and put them together without putting them in the same room? at last, we emphasize cross-cultural collaboration and diversity. so our programs, what are we actually doing? what are we doing with these young people and places like d.c., doha, boston, portland, honolulu and south were still? were teaching them aerobatic, obviously not the ones in the doha. were also providing them with science and technology programs at the teachers engage on as well as the unit.

and in doing all this, none of this is unique to me point out. teaching and aerobatic is a war one hot path and one that these foundations are investing in. but we're trying to bring to this is a bit of a different angle, which is having teachers and qatar and teachers in the u.s. have reach other. some of the concerns are the same. teachers have to do a lot, often with very little training. how can they work together to build a curriculum that engages their student? away party organized with the help of cisco, sun telepresence meetings, putting these teachers together to do just that. looking forward to having many more of these. for the students, we did take students from d.c. and boston to qatar during their spring break after they've been studying arabic for six months. they met with qatar students

from sister schools. we have a network of qatar schools so were reaching qatar schools and not just ex-patriots. and the boys and a girls school. because if you know about how to raise public school they are generated. and so, each school had two sisters schools and qatar. and the students met and interact it. and then we took all of the students to d.c. and florida for a science trip in july. and it was astonishing to watch these kids would have a week to and track previously. and actually the girls had a little west and the boys did, to watch them all together for 10 days and to see the sort of community that they've built. and i can tell you and i know i'm in a sympathetic audience. if you could've built a bubble over those young people and protected them from the insanity around them, it would have been

a wonderful thing. because for a moment in time, it didn't know what label they were. they were kids. they had differences and that was good because we don't want everyone to look and sound the same. we want them to be different, but we want those differences to be respect good. and it was a really wonderful environment. the kids noticed that the adult had a really hard time with some of this because there were some qatar teachers and american adults on the trip geared to kids did sign, so good news. evolution might just work. but in noticing the tensions between some of the adults and some of the conversations that were taking place, to of the young qatar came up -- actually one young boston student who would become very, very good

friends decided that the kids needed just that double to operate in. and to talk about the difficult issues out there, as one of the young qatari girl said to me, the boys are supposed to swim and they don't and all of the american girls -- all the boys were in the pool swimming together and i noticed the qatari girls wanted to go in, but they couldn't go in with double group was there. and so, i asked them all to leave and they did and they were very gracious about it. at the young qatari boys is that i would not like my 13-year-old sister swim in this pool. and i said, i understand, but this is their choice. i'm not going to tell them what to do. some well, some won't and that is their choice. and i can tell you quite honestly that it was a very difficult conversation for me,

because my response -- and i spent a lot of time in the middle east, but my response would've been typically american. but that's not their. that's not an issue of fairness. it's an issue of cultural standard. and so i realize in thinking through my response that i would not have been responding in a way that made sense. we would've been speaking on different levels. and when the two students came to me with a different idea of developing an online forum where the kids could talk about some of these issues. we're calling it the tough stuff on the foreign, but also fun things like games and books they like in movies they've seen. one of the qatari girls i think is going to grow up to be house, if any of you watch house. she is amazing. so to give them a protected zone here at work went to be expanding it carefully, because when you build a protected space, any of you who aren't both 2000, no often what you think is a safe area is not

actually safe and people expose each other's comments that's not right. so again, hoping that kids can do better than the adults, were going to carefully vet the joint community. but that's what they've built. that was their idea. and we're incredibly proud of them. and again, that goes to the fourth special opportunities category the qfi house. when we see a good idea, we like to try to encourage it and this is one that will most certainly fit our mission and were very proud of damon and saha who are both now underway to ask alexandria, egypt for young, civil leadership civil societies conference, so we're just thrilled with them. this is just a little blurb from a company that did not mind for a on the company we built. they said it perfectly. participants on both sides come from democrats were likely to be future influencers. not every american teenager

whose able to travel to qatar and it's not every resident of qatar that can travel to america. i myself benefited from a full right to right into syria, never having set foot outside of the united states, ever. this was in 1991 havel assad, it caught up with him. so it was an amazing experience. but again i was 21, 22, so i've now completely did it myself. and you know, i'm glad that her highest vision to create an organization to carry out a program like this for younger people, because it's too late to wait until your 21 or 22 to see the world or least experienced a difference in the world if you can't see it directly. so, with that, qfi in the future, we're very happy you can see the last line. and being cut off, so you can go

home and have dinner or go to the iraqi conflict. we are actively seeking partners and ideas and ways of working with others. we don't own the landscape. we have some idea of what were interested in doing, but all this going to the title of the conference, going nowhere -- i can't speak to u.s. arab relations on the political space. but i can't say having watched these kids and again at on a gallup sample size, and i don't know that we randomly sampled very well, but we took inner-city kids and kids from qatar and we put them together. and they went places physically, mentally and emotionally, socially. so i have a lot of hope and i think e saudi ambassador is quite correct. this is a resource. i have four kids, so i also say it's a challenge. but the young people are

resource and will surprise us if we give them the chance to think and be and build the world that i think would all rather live in. so with that, good evening. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, maggie. we're running out of time. john sub or will do some some enough and perhaps commenting and asking questions. we won't have time for questions from the floor, but dr. will put the questions online that have been submitted. john? [inaudible] >> good afternoon. i'll be very sustained in my role as common as to this distinguished panel. if i may, i'd like to touch on the issue that some of our previous speakers and certainly dr. hall of product today and

that is the burgeoning youth population in the arab world. and its implications, not just economic implications, but in the strategic implications as well. this is a particularly important challenge for saudi arabia as many of us have noted. and it is a difficult issue to address the might of the very large expatriate population throughout the gulf, but particularly in saudi arabia. if i recall correctly, according to a 2009 saudi censors, there were approximately 18.7 million saudi citizens and 8.4 million expatriate workers, which of course is very large percentage of the population. i don't know if that's correct, but i'm sure dr. anthony will correct me if it's not.

and i remember -- i serve twice in saudi arabia and most recently in riyadh. when i was in jeddah in the 1990's and our consulate there, the conventional wisdom among the expatriate community was that saudi is were not willing for complex, cultural and social reasons to take entry-level positions, hourly positions in the services industry. i remember when asked a tree at telling me there was a syndrome called sicu, saudi in charge, whereby you had saudi's in senior management position, but not many and junior management positions in virtually none in entry-level or indeed hourly positions. and i think this has been conventional wisdom for some

time. so i was very surprised my turn to saudi arabia's public affairs council in 2008 to find so many young saudi is working at starbucks, working in grocery stores. in doing a very good job, being very well integrated into the workplace in which they are saudi and non-saudi colleagues. and i think, you know, i don't want to under -- overstate that trend, but they're certain pragmatism that i've noticed among both the saudi leadership and the saudi population. there is not a cultural, from what i saw, previous position not to take these entry-level positions. and i think that is something that perhaps does well for the country suffered to implement

saudia station as they collect and find jobs for this useful demographic holds in the population. i'd like to touch on also the efforts in education which my colleagues have addressed. and if there's one thing, i've served in seven arab countries. if there is one commonality i found among all of them, it is the absolute obsession with education for their children. this is something that cuts across class lines and cuts across sectarian divisions. it is something that liberals, progressives and saudi arabia have in common with conservatives. and that is based the education from a pragmatic sense as something that will utter the life of their children.

and i think this is again important in looking at works for use in saudi arabia and other parts of the airport world. the saudi's, my impression as they're approaching this problem in the same way they did, the challenge of industrialization. as you know, it went very, very quickly from a premodern economy to a very modern infrastructure. and they did this by taking an innovation here from outside, a model for mayor and bringing it in, assuring that it was within their own cultural context. but it bespeaks a very non-ideological approach to dealing with problems in a very pragmatic approach.

in a very pragmatic approach. i think there's a good possibility and i would say we in the u.s. embassy when i was there were fairly optimistic about the direction of saudi educational reform. often, the leadership trying to impose modern values -- values of tolerance and understanding mutual understanding among cultures on a population that's not ready for it. but in fact, from what i've seen the population was very interested. again, obsessively so in education and i think generally i agree with the approach of the saudi government. [applause]

>> thank you very much. i think you all know where to go now. i'll turn the podium over to admiral branson who will say goodbye. >> thank you, ms. joyce and the panel was marvelous, very interesting for all of us. this ends our session today. it's 6:00. as you know, if you've read the program, you're all invited to the iraqi consulate, which is located at 1801 peace now state department spokesman pete jay crowley speaks about the remarks to india's parliament. other topics include the middle east peace negotiations, north korea multilateral talks and the elections in burma. this is 30 minutes. >> sar dvr a few minutes late. the secretary is on route back

to the united states from a link the trip to the specific region. she come over the weekend she met with prime minister julia gillard and tony abbett to discuss ways to further strengthen the alliance between the united states and australia including continued efforts in afghanistan and greater cooperation on this base and cybersecurity, and of course she was joined by secretary defense bob gates along with foreign minister rudd and australian defense minister stephen smith for the 25th annual australia u.s. messrs. real consultations or ausmin that were completed earlier today. she made a brief stop pago pago, had some meetings there as her aircraft refueled and we look forward to having her back in the building tomorrow.

she will do a number of things this week focused on the middle east peace. on wednesday she will hold a video conference with palestinian prime minister fayyad. she will also meet with egyptian foreign minister aboul gheit and dome thursday in new york she will meet with israeli prime minister netanyahu. the timing on the meeting of their stay is still little bit of in the air but we will have more to say about that tomorrow, i expect. >> what location? >> new york. again, more details to follow. but that's what i can tell you there. >> since we're on the subject, i will mention with regard to the announcement of plans for the 1,300 units in east jerusalem, that we were -- with the start again. we were deeply disappointed by the announcement of an advanced planning for new housing units in sensitive areas of east jerusalem. it is counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct

negotiations between the parties and we will continue to work to resume direct negotiations to address this and other final status issues and i would expect this would be a topic of discussion when the secretary meets the prime minister on thursday. turning to africa, the united states is pleased with the manner in which the second round of the presidential election was conducted yesterday in a guinea. there were no reports of clashes were incidents of violence as seen in october and those displaced were afforded the opportunity to vote elsewhere in guinea. we hope now that guinea will work through the agreed 72 our period has the electoral commission tallies the results. also, in nigeria we are working with the government of nigeria on this particular attack, or this particular kidnapping that

occurred earlier today. we can confirm that of seven individuals taken from a raid in the niger delta, two are u.s. citizens. we are, of course, concerned about their safety and hope for their immediate release. we are working with nigerian authorities to pursue their prompt release and there's an investigation already under way. in russia, the united states condemns the attack on kommersant journalist oleg kashin and calls on russian authorities to bring the perpetrators of this hideous crime to justice. freedom of the press is a fundamental right in the united states and other countries and we are committed to upholding international and regional commitments. as the 2,009 humanitarian rights report noted, eight journalists, many of whom reported critically on the government, were killed over the last year in russia.

with one exception, the government has failed to identify, addressed, or prosecute any suspects. a free and independent press is central to a vibrant and well functioning democracy. journalists around the world must feel free to do their jobs without fear of intimidation or physical violence. turning to haiti, you will note probably in the next couple of days and increasing the number of cholera cases and deaths. we would caution you as you see those numbers, having worked with the government of haiti over the past few weeks and months, and seeing improvements in the haiti public health situation, we have been working to improve their surveillance detection capacity. and so, as we see some members rise, it doesn't necessarily by itself indicate that there is a significant increase in the

number of cholera cases, only that the surveillance system that they haitian government is employing with the support of the united states and international partners is actually improving. but this is an area that, obviously, we continue to focus on intensely in the aftermath of, you know, last week's storm. we are gratified that on the one hand, he received a glancing blow from hurricane tomas, and the other hand it did experience an enormous amount of water, and obviously that has significant potential for danger for the people of haiti. and finally, we congratulate edison pena, the 12th minor rescued from the san jose minor in chile less than a month ago from completing yesterday's new york city marathon. he has provided the world a story of true personal strength

and resilience from his training in the dark tunnels of the san jose line to crossing the finish line in central park. he serves as a testament to the human spirit, and we join the american people in saluting his accomplishment. >> about the ethiopian and the candian winners? >> we congratulate them as well. [laughter] >> on the kidnappings on the nigerian railway come off nigeria. you said seven people were taken? >> seven people were taking to, to americans. is the dean of the nationalities of the others? >> i will defer to other governments who may want to confirm their citizens have been affected >> were there when the door injured any of the two? >> i think there were some injuries of those who were left behind, but again, we can't sing at this point that when of the state of those who have been kidnapped, but their condition is pete >> i thought there was an american injured in this. i felt there was one in addition

to the two kidnapped, i thought there was one american injured in this estimate yes. there were two others the were left behind, and one of those wounded was an american citizen. he is undergoing treatment as we speak. >> on the talks? >> yeah. >> do you notice that there is a pattern here concerning the truth, yosef's announcement on building the -- of the new buildings and so on coincide with the vice presidential speech in new orleans? it seems that every time there is a visitor, a high caliber visitor, be it an american visitor to israel or an israeli visitor to the united states there seems to be an announcement of building settlements. >> i don't think the vice president is taking this personally. look -- obviously this is a process. we've seen these kind of announcement before. actually, some of this might date back to last month. and it could very well be that somebody in israel has made this known in order to increase the prime minister and to undermine

the process. this is expressly why we have been encouraging the parties to remain in direct negotiations to return to direct negotiations and to work through these issues face-to-face. this is the only way that they are going to be resolved, and just demonstrates again why it is vitally important for us to find a way for the palestinians and the israelis to be able to resolve the core issues in a negotiation and not through jockeying which brings of those who may well be opposed to peace and at -- in the middle east. >> okay. is there -- just a follow-on -- is there a concern that the premier shut in israel seems to be working independently of the foreign ministry, on the one hand, and the authority that negative use permits to build and so on, on the other? this seems to be confusion. is there a concern in that area?

>> right. as i said, i expect the secretary will talk to the prime minister about this. as you said, this is not the first time we have experienced a situation where one element of the government or a government may not know what is happening in a different bureau, a different agency, or a different level of government. but all we know is this kind of announce that is counterproductive to what we are trying to accomplish. >> i'm sorry. just to follow-up on that, i mean, does this realization that you have now that one arm of the government may not know what the other arm is doing is that readers from mr. netanyahu's usefulness as an interlocutor? i mean, what is the point of talking to him if he can't control the people in his own government? >> first of all he is the prime minister and ultimately he is the one who has to sign on the dotted line and if there is an agreement that in this the conflict.

so prime minister netanyahu is central to the process, in fact on the key decisions that have to be made, only an israeli prime minister can make those decisions on behalf of the israeli people. >> just to follow commodore not dismissing the notion that the prime minister me know and have the decisions made any way, are you? >> welcome again, we look forward to the discussions later this weekend i'm sure the secretary will be clarifying exactly what happened in this case. >> why that meeting will be held in new york knott washington? >> i think the prime minister will be in new york and of the secretary will be up there to meet him. >> is it your feeling that the prime minister netanyahu after his meeting with secretary hillary clinton could reverse this decision? >> welcome on the one hand there is a process that these kinds of advanced plans go through. all we are reflecting is that the fact that these kind of

announcements undermine trust. they make it more difficult for the leaders to move forward. that's why, rather than trying to resolve these things outside of negotiation, we once again continue to encourage the parties to get back into negotiations. this is the only way that you resolve issues like borders. and if and when you're able to resolve issues like borders, then some of these issues become academic. >> is the administration ready to discuss the release of jonathan pollard from the american prison -- >> i'm not going to get into particular areas of discussion. >> a change of subject? the president today, in his address to the indian parliament endorsed india for the permanent member of the security council. but his speech was quite silent on how he intends to take forward the reforms on the u.n. security council. it has been going on for past

several decades. has he spoken to some of his key allies or regional partners, how to take it for what and when it is going to happen? >> well, the president did highlight the fact that as we continue to promote reform within the u.n. security council, it is inconceivable that you could contemplate u.n. security council reform without considering a country like india. but we have to recognize, as you said, lalit, this is a process that has been going on for some time, and it is a process through which we must consult with others within the u.n. and within the security council. but the president was clear that as we contemplate reform, we are mindful that, on the one hand, we need to protect the effectiveness and efficiency of the security council, but on the

other hand, we are open to countries that demonstrates that they are prepared to contribute significantly to the peace and security of the world. and india is such a country to reduce the axle of the five permanent members, only china is left out, which has not endorsed india for the security council. have you consulted with china on this? >> well, we have talked to china about security council reform. we've talked to all of our partners in the security council, and i'm sure we will be doing follow-up discussions. we have reached out and explained the announcement that the president has made today. i just can't say whether we've reached out to china at this point. thank you. >> in most of the cases, president obama usually puts a target date. in this to you have a target date? >> well, we are not -- we are not able to dictate the terms of reform. you know, this is the security

council. there are five permanent members, and so this will be a requirement for us to continue to consult with the u.n. and within the security council on an appropriately for what we estimate another one on the president obama's speech. he said that pakistan is not doing enough to fight terror, and you have given billions. are you going to talk to them about this? >> welcome your cherry picking. the president said a lot of things in his remarks in india. he was asked about pakistan, and he made clear that india itself has an abiding interest in this stable and peaceful pakistan. the president reinforced our view that pakistan has recognized the danger to itself of extremist elements within its borders. and the president did say that while pakistan is making progress, more needs to be done. >> but he said that -- he asked pakistan to bring to justice

perpetrators of 26/11. >> yes. that continues to be our view, that these kind of attacks can't be tolerated. there cannot be impunity. and we -- it remains our view that pakistan has to redouble its efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the mumbai attacks. >> so is this the u.s. taking any steps to -- or just the statement? >> well, we cooperate with pakistan and india on counterterrorism cooperation. but ultimately, the solution here, first and foremost, rests within pakistan. >> the president has now concluded -- almost concluded -- his trip to india, three day trip to india. how do you some his visits, his first visit to india? >> i will leave it to my colleagues in mumbai who are closer to it -- >> how does the state department see its foreign relations?

>> how does this the department see it from the perspective of indo-u.s. relations and where it is -- >> we believe that the visit has achieved everything what we'd hoped for. as the president reinforced today, his was the third consecutive that mr. shen of democrats and republicans to visit india. it demonstrates the importance of our relationship and the importance of india's emerging role in the world. and as president of amit career, he will not be the last president to visit india. >> whatever the -- >> i've got another -- no, no. [inaudible] [laughter] >> afghanistan, he said that india has contributed a lot to the buildup in the construction. so is the state department got into an fight in the eye in the next meeting on afghanistan? there has been a complete absence of the name india or even invitation to india to -- when you deal with afghanistan.

>> well, we've talked to india regularly, repeatedly, and every high-level meeting about afghanistan. we completely support in the plea in a constructive role in afghanistan as part of our regional strategy. we recognize that a number of countries in the region, including india, including pakistan, including others, can play an important role and constructive role in the advancement of afghanistan. so we have not excluded india in any way, shape or form. >> another subject? >> yes. >> this is about sweden. >> sweden. >> it is a similar story to the norwegian story last week. the u.s. embassy in stockholm is being accused by swedish authorities of conducting intelligence activities but has not been authorized by swedish authorities. and this morning a prosecutor in stockholm opened a probe into this matter to investigate if there has been the legal --

illegal spying the win on from the u.s. embassy. >> let me pushback knorr terminology. we have acknowledged that we have a program around the world where we are alert for people who may be serving on our embassies, because we recognize that they are potential targets of terrorism, and we look back to the origins of this program, which the back to the attacks of east africa on our embassies in kenya and tanzania 12 years ago. and we will be happy to answer any questions that any government has about the nature of the security measures to protect our embassies. >> and wind swedish authorities and the swedish justice minister says they have not been informed, is that true? >> welcome as we reflect in different contexts, governments are fairly large, as there may be done as a -- some instances

where one agency of government has information the other agency of government does not. as we just said, if governments of questions about the nature of our efforts to protect embassies we will be happy to provide answers. >> a libyan newspaper has reported yesterday that an american diplomat has been ordered to leave libya within 24 hours, following an alleged breach of diplomatic rules. do you have anything on this? ..

>> i'm not up on that today. >> what do you say about your suggestion to be held in turkey? >> actually, iran, they have made those preferences node to the media. they have not yet named a note to catherine ashton, so we lit forward to having an official response from iran as to a date and location of our proposed meeting. >> any follow-up, if it's in turkey, what will be the role of turkey apart from the country? >> well, we look forward to a response from iran and when we get that response will consult with our partners in the p5 plus one -- [inaudible] >> -- president about a asked

india changes policy. is the state department happy with the policy were you looking -- [inaudible] they've been too friendly. because india has the u.n. -- >> those kinds of questions about the nature of the conversation with the president and the prime minister always to my colleagues to answer. >> they just announced they'll be receiving 140 christian nawrocki. have there been any request by a number for the united states? >> well, we have a very significant resettlement program here in the united states, but i'll take that question too -- >> are you concerned about the targeting of christians in the number of countries whether it's iraq -- >> let's be careful about taking one tragedy and then making too

broad of a statement. are we concerned about the freedom in the world, including in the region? absolutely. this is a significant area of focus, you know, for us. we are concerned with anyone of any religion is attacked, you know, based on their beliefs. everyone should have the right to freedom of religion of pack as they see fit and we think this is in trying to get the rights it should be available to all citizens of the world. but you know, we spoke out very significantly last week, you know, during the aftermath of this tragedy and we continue to do whatever we can to help promote whether there is tolerance in iraq and also.

[inaudible] >> you were very, very close. >> during a speech this morning she referred to the policy, she said i think it's time to reserve a negotiation. i just wanted to reconfirm, this doesn't mean i'm no condition. the >> i'm sure -- i haven't seen roses specific remarks. we've -- is fully consistent of what we said that we are prepared to resume multilateral discussions at the point we feel they can become start this. >> p.j., do you think there'll be a new proposal to north korea at the president of understanding with the south korea president lee myung-bak this week? >> the president looks forward to his visit to korea.

i'm confident that north korea will be a major topic of discussion since he will meet with many of the leaders of the six party process and we'll compare notes as we have been and see what happens in the aftermath. pinnock also coming to thank ambassador bosworth [inaudible] insole or will be visiting seoul? >> i don't know. who will have on hand the president in korea. >> mr. crowley, upper search on in the journal reported in the process. i was just wondering if state department has monitored elections? >> were going to the statement, it's a a little bit later. >> on burma, the elections are now over. when do you plan to resume your engagement in the next round of talks with the deal burmese

government? and you can kill a point to new permits envoy, a special envoy in burma? >> were still evaluating. underlie a point, that if something were we're still evaluating. on the first point, obviously burma is going through the process of announcing, you know, the winners of this election. we've made our position clear in secretary clinton statement yesterday that this was not a free or fair or legitimate election. where we go from here, let's wait and see what emerges from burma. >> we were still looking to have talks with the new burmese government that comes out of this election? >> well, we are prepared to have discussions with irma. we've had them in the past. prepare to show them in the future, but were disappointed we see this as a missed opportunity to burma in the context of his just completed election.

>> thank you. >> south africa. can you confirm that the u.s. is seeking the extradition of a man name said to? [inaudible] >> what about the statement or information from someone that you have not shared yet this year? >> i'm not -- all right, one more time? >> there was a request for someone's extradition. will you comment? >> let's put that aside. there is a statement by the director of national intelligence's office today on their preliminary findings in the investigation of the headley matter. i'll defer to the statement. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> now an update on the situation in iraq. lieutenant general robert cohen is the deputy commander for

forces. he briefed reporters from iraq on the state of stability operations involving the training of iraqi security forces, counterterrorism operations, the u.s. troop to plan the schedule and the coming fort hood shooting trial. this is about 20 minutes. >> i'm ready. good morning and good evening to general cone in iraq. i like to welcome to the pentagon briefing room attendant general bob cone, deputy commander general for operations with u.s. forces in iraq. he is also the commanding general for three core and fort hood. lieutenant general cone assumed his duties as deputy commander in iraq in march of this year. this is the first time he is joined us in this format. he will be speaking to us today from al faw palace in baghdad and providing updates on current operations in the new mission profile under operation new dawn.

general, without i'll send it to i'll send it to you for any opening remarks today to make of them will take. >> is very much. i'll keep my remarks very brief period and first of all, let me thank those that are here today are coming out and asking questions. really appreciate your participation in this conference. let me begin by saying that although the role for u.s. troops in direct combat operations here in iraq and on the first of september, the united states committed to iraq and its people has not ended. our work continues every day under operation new dawn with three primary mission sides. and those are advised, train and assist the iraqi security forces, to continue to conduct partnered counterterrorism operations, to support the government of iraq, u.s. embassy and u.s. agencies and improving iraqi civil capacity, and of course, inherent in all these

missions is a level of force protection for all u.s. forces and civilians as they go about their duties. as the deputy commanding general for operations, i am focused on several subtasks within this mission said. first, strengthen the iraqi security forces to help continue to build their capacity for providing security in iraq. this includes a wide array of task associated with iraqi task units in the conduct of combat operations across iraq. however, equally important is the emphasis we have placed a note being iraqi security forces develop complex systems, such as intelligence and logistic functions, that will be essential to their future success. i would also add that we are focused on working with the iraqis to ensure they are both a learning an adaptive organization, with the practices necessary to professionally grow

and improve in the future. the second part of my job is keeping pressure on the extremist networks in close partnership with the iraqi security forces. in this area, i can also save significant progress on the part of the iraqi special operations forces community. the capability to conduct counterterrorist operations is essential to maintain the security environment over the long haul here in iraq. let me be clear that nearly 650,000 iraqi security forces are fully able for maintaining the security environment in iraq today. we are supporting them in their efforts on our proud of how far they've come today. despite several recent high-profile attacks, iraq he security forces have created an environment where violence is 20% below the 2009 average. it should also be noted that september and october of 2010 has been to at the lowest month on record for violence since

2003. sadly, iraq still has extremist that attack iraqi civilians to try and stay relevant, but iraq and the iraqi people have rejected an extremist ideology of sectarianism. the celebrity do here in the just under 50,000 brave men and women i have the pleasure of working with are focused and committed to ensuring that iraq becomes a sovereign, stable and self-reliant country. with that, i'll be happy to take your questions. >> viola. >> general cone, viola gienger from bloomberg news. how do you see the iraqi security forces expertise currently and how is the default theme on some of the capabilities that you provide to protect the u.s. civilians working in iraq right now and that will have to be turned over to someone else in december -- after december 2011? such as counter ied capabilities

and so forth? what are some of the key areas that you feel that they may be able to take on? what kind of expertise do they have in this area? >> yeah, the iraqi security forces are incapable going for us, and it's focused on counterinsurgency and internal security. and as a result of their efforts, we've seen attacks at a level right now of 14 to 15 attacks per day across the nation. they have work to do any number of specialty type capabilities that they'll continue to need work on. they have an emerging explosive ordnance detachment capability. they have some emerging forensic capabilities. they have some route clearance capabilities. and all these things are on glidepath in the next 14 months as we continue to work with them

and assist them, but they are merging and carrying on. i'd say, to your question, we will always have a requirement to provide some level of security for americans that are in this country for the foreseeable future. and i think it's important to understand that the proposals were talking about post-2011, i think, have provisions for security -- personal security detachment, et cetera as we transitioned responsibility to the embassy. so, good progress. a lot of work to do, and it ain't a good plan ahead. >> kevin. >> cone, this is not pfeifer stars & stripes. a political statement has gone on for much longer than anyone has expected. it has to do some sort of effect on your mission with the training your counterparts in the iraqi forces. where does that stand out for you guys?

your level of any frustration? are you completely immune? i can't imagine you are. how is this affecting your job. be like well, i think i view it as a real opportunity. the iraqis that we work with on a day-to-day basis, particularly at the higher levels, you know, were not certain they're going to keep their jobs. like the ministry of defense traditionally have turnover. but i think what's been expired for us is how hard the iraqis have work in this environment. and again, not for a single individual or a particular party in power they've done it based on an emerging understanding of the role of military forces in a democracy -- an emerging democracy under constitutional law. many of them will point out to you that what they've done in the last eight months is really about the iraqi people in the constitution. i think if you look at some of the polls that show the acceptance of the iraqi security

forces by the iraqi people, i think they recognize the fact that a lot of these iraqi policemen and soldiers frankly have carried on in this postelection timeframe and performed some of their best work. a lot of people speculated, you know, in the march timeframe, what happens if there's not a government? how will this work? i will tell you it is really cost the iraqis to do some self-examination in some ways and step up particularly in the senior leader ranks. and so i think it's been a positive development overall. i think it has some modicum of success. you know, certainly attacks like we saw on the 31st of october and second of november are exciting to them. but the fact of the matter is overall the security situation has been maintained and the big difference of courses a year ago it was the u.s. insisting that are actually out in the street sweatbands and this year they've

actually done better and it's largely been exclusively through their efforts with us in the advisory role. >> general, charley keyes from cnn. you spoke several times about the lessening of violence. you just mentioned those attacks last week, most coordinated attacks. could you speak in a little more detail about how you react to them, what impact they have on the overall security of atmosphere and what you see as their purpose? >> right, first off, i am in sort of a learning and teaching mode at this point. and so i think as i talk about the iraqis being then in an adaptive, one of the things i give them credit for his favorite in national review on saturday day at the ministry of defense in today's very logical assessment of the attacks and

they were quite critical of their own performance i think in a healthy way in terms of improving. i think again they work tirelessly. i can tell you in terms of them been on alert for an extended period of time and then frankly looking hard at how they're doing check point operations, whether they're getting intelligence to the right places they need to get it to. again, our job is to coach and teach and support them as they work through that analysis. i think first off there's a hulking analysis. we assess, i think, it's no secret i think al qaeda has taken credit for both the christian church bombing and the attacks on to november. and again, we analyzed that is the al qaeda campaign. of course we have been really since the 25th of august without, you know, a significant

attack. and then we thought these attacks, again, targeted against the christian community. and i'd point out that the grand ayatollah, sistani has condemned that as of other sunni leaders in the country. and again, the iraqis are working very hard for protection of minorities, both ethnic and religious minorities in the country that recognized their responsibility and i think they're up in the nt, as we continue. as you know, there's a series of meetings going on today they are on high alert, taking everybody back from leave and they at 100% focusing on security and critical areas and notes. >> show. >> general, this is joe tabet with al hurra. are you noticing, sir, any potential interference from other funded groups from the neighbors like iran, for example? >> well, you know, there is a

history of some influence here from iran and again, you know, this is a very complex region. iraq has to develop, you know, positive relationships with its neighbors. and i think that's very important that iraq masson in that direction. we see all sorts of iranian influence, some of the positive, in fact, and, in fact, we believe some of it negative, although it's very difficult to attribute that to the iranian government or in fact do some of the lethal it come across from other sources within iran? i think you would say that probably in the last couple months, the period of government formation, i think that we think the iranian influence has diminished somewhat. i think overall it's probably appropriate with where we are at least on the violent side at this point in the formation of

the government and the current delicate political situation we're in. >> regarding al qaeda activities in iraq, juneau al qaeda in iraq appears to have become increasingly disconnected from al qaeda in pakistan, al qaeda leadership in pakistan? >> there are -- there is the belief that since the major attacks that took lease in april, al qaeda has been under significant duress or at least the leadership of al qaeda in iraq has struggled to reconstitute at least a tie and authorities and linkage back to al qaeda senior leadership. although, i would argue they clearly are still affected as evidence of the attack was on the second of november. again, this is a different form of lower level cellular

formation and there have been we believe some interim leaders that impact has been named. but the level of comic dignity between those leaders and al qaeda senior leadership is uncertain at this point. >> general, higher. it andrew tilghman with "military times." i'm wondering if you could give me any insight as to what the deployment schedules might look like heading into next year. i think that general odierno had something about the possibility of a six-month deployment schedule. does he look into 2011, do you see any changes on the timeline? >> no, i think the army has a plan in terms of sustaining the 50,000. and obviously when we reached the point where we will begin the final draw down, some of the units coming in. i think as we have analyzed,

what we tell our units is to plan on a 12 month rotation over here. and i think that's prudent. there may be some point and takes as we go along the way, but in fact they think what the soldiers are being told whether army leadership right now is pretty much on top. the 50,000 force has worked out well for us. you know, we've been in that sets out for a couple months. we did an assessment across the board to make sure we had everything we needed we have things we didn't need him in fact have managed, underneath the 50,000 number, some minor, minor changes, probably less than a thousand in terms of adjustments of little things like aviation or mps were several capacity teams, and then identifying some excesses in sending them back. but by and large, the current brigade rotation of one year set will continue. >> general, hi. it's david cloud with "the l.a. times."

i want to explore the glide path he talked about over the next 14 months. i'm curious whether the iraqis do you deal with speak to you about the desire to have u.s. forces at some low-level continue in iraq after -- after a year from december. aiming, obviously that question is kind of in advance for a while because of the political turmoil there. but it's not completely out of the question i would assume that there would be some follow-on agreement that would allow some continuing small level u.s. presence. what did the iraqis say about their desire to do that? >> yeah, if they were to say that to me, what i would say is take it as an opportunity as a learning point about the fact they're soldiers and their job they should leave political decisions to politicians. the reality is that make sure you give your best military

advice when you are asked in regard to what capability, what are needed, et cetera, not trying to buy into the situation in any way. i think it's very important that they learn what the role of the soldier is for the military leader is in terms of providing advice as time goes on. again i will be a political decision and it will be i presume at some point between the iraqi government and the u.s. government and it will be based on higher-level objectives. the right now we have a security agreement that says we will be out of here by the first of january 2012. i think what's been really interesting from my perspective is sort of the credibility that we get by making an agreement with another nation and in honoring and self enforcing. i run a committee that basically tracks sound violations of the

security agreement. and in my time here, a little over eight months, we have not had a single incident. i mean, we've had accusations of violations insecurities when investigated what they find is there none. we hold these meetings and basically say that the united states, literary the iraqis step forward and say as the united states violated security agreement? a senile and we move onto other issues. i think that's important in building credibility in this part of the world. we said we'd be a 50,000, and the fact that bahraini political change, we will be at zero on the first of january, 2012. >> leaving aside the politics, though, which i understand, in her military judgment, will the iraqis need continuing partnership in assistance after 2011 to fulfill the security requirements they face? >> we have a comprehensive plan right now to work with the

iraqis. that's why we'll solve frankly were really busy right now working with the iraqis. really, when you focus on sort of their 19 major capabilities that we work on with them and then identifying the conditions that need to be established at the time we leave. we're working, we have a plan where we can leave here as scheduled. there are things that someone might like to do our thing could be done better, but again i think those things that come into the political negotiation. >> okay. general said they wanted to ask you about your other roles at iii corps imported. after the major hearing from general hasan is done another pre-trial matters are done, the commander will decide if there is a recommendation for a court-martial to either go ahead with it or not.

and then there might well be a recommendation for a death penalty. will you be involved in not in any way, as the commander of iii corps? >> i will from here. and again, depends on the time of all this play now. in fact were left his hand over legal responsibility of the general for martial convening authority to make deputy when i departed the country. so i've been over here. it depends how far this progresses and will depend on other legal considerations that will be assessed at that time. but again, right now, i am removed from the fort hood case, and i have some legal authority here over a like number of soldiers. so again, we'll do without i think in the future. >> there was a legal fight over whether or not you should be deposed in this -- and not hasan case. did you ever sit for a

deposition in the case? >> i did not. i was in the process of deploying as i came down. and again, certainly given the technology we have today, you know, we could've done it from here. but to my knowledge, there was never any requests to be deposed since i've been here in iraq. so again, you know, these are all, you know, important legal processes that we follow the procedures exactly to the loss to make sure that this is -- this case is fairly tried. >> okay, general, it looks like you've exhausted the pentagon press corps of questions, soften it back to you for closing remarks. >> again, i'd like to thank everybody again. you know, veterans day is coming up and that's very important for so many who have served this country and served as an inspiration to everyone. and again, they're in our thoughts and prayers here in

iraq. here we are continuing to grow capabilities and capacity for the security forces of iraq. and again, things continue to move -- all the trends in a positive direction. again, i'm proud to work what our servicemembers are doing and i can tell you each and everyone of them is making a difference. again, thanks for coming to the press conference and i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. thank you very much. >> general, thanks again for your time. >> coming up in a moment on "the communicators," congressman joe barton talks about telecommunications policy under a new republican-controlled house of representatives.