these friendships, but i say senator conrad, we've especially for the work we've done together. it now you know and it shows that . love politics and i love public service. always have.hat john f. kennedy is to say thatuo every mother hopes that herg asn child might grow to bebut, of cs president, as long as they don't i've run 12 times in statewide elections since age 26. i've served continuously in statewide elective office since the age of 26. never outside of elective office statewide. a long, long, long time. 40 years. it's been a great gift to me to be able to serve and i -- i'm so forever grateful to the people of north dakota, who have said to me, we want to you us. -- we want you to represent us. and now it's time for me to do some other things that i have long wanted to do and that's why

i have chosen not to seek reelection this year. let me be clear to you. i didn't decide not to run for the senate because i'm despondent about the state of affairs here. it's just not the case. these are difficult and troubling times, however, but i didn't decide not to run and choose to criticize this institution, although there's plenty to be critical of. i just don't want to add to the burdens of this institution. this institution is too important to the future of this country. and i could talk, by the way, for hours about the joys of serving here with individuals. you know, i was thinking about the late ted kennedy when i was jotting a few notes standing at his desk back in that row over these years. i think -- and no one will mind me saying this -- i think he's the best legislator i've ever seen in terms of getting things done. but ted kennedy, full of passi

passion. and on certain days when he was agitated and full-throated, you could hear him out on the street fighting and shouting for the things he knew were important for america. i think of bob dole, who would saunter on to this floor and he almost seemed to have an antenna that knew exactly what was going on, what the mood service and what he could and couldn't do and how you must compromise at certain times. he had a knack for that unlike any others that i've seen. i think of a strom thurmond who left us i think at age 100. what -- if everybody could know his life story, what a -- an unbelievable, courageous story. and one of the things that happened with strom thurmond is i was very involved and have always been involved in organ transplantation, to save people's lives. and i did a press corches a bill i was introduce -- conference on a bill i was doing on organ transplants. and strom thurmond showed up. i think he was 90 years old. and he signed an organ donor card. and he said, after he signed the organ donor card at age 90, he

said, i don't know if i've got anything anybody wants, but if i'm gone, they're welcome to it. [laughter] and robert c. byrd, who sat where my colleague is sitting now, and they just don't make him -- they don't make them like robert c. byrd anymore. i recall one day when another colleague was on the floor and robert c. byrd got very angry about what the other colleague was saying. he felt it was disrespectful and so he rushed up to the chamber and the other colleague had left by that time, and i don't know that he ever understood what happened. but senator byrd, being very angry at what another colleague had said that he felt was disrespectful to the president, senator byrd was recognized and he said simply this. "i've been here long enough to watch pi pygmes strut like colasses. he said they, like the fly in aesop's fable sitting on the axle of a chariot, observe, my, what dust i do raise." and then he sat down.

and i thought, you know, they don't make speakers like that anymore. the senator who left didn't understand what senator byrd had just done, cutting him off at the knees. but i take a treasury of memories. i should mention as well one of my best friends, tom daschle, who served here, a wonderful friend and i think a great leader for a long while as well. i just take a treasury of memories from this place. this place, however, has substantial burdens ahead of it. and if we're going to make good decisions, tough decisions and exhibit the courage needed for the kind of future we want, we're going to have to put some sacrifice on the line here for our country's future. so i want to talk just for a bit about a couple of those issues. while there are always big issues -- and i've always been interested in debating the big issues -- my principal passion has been to support family

farmers and small business folks and the people that go to work every morning at a job. the family farmers out there, who live on hope, plant a seed and hope it grows. and they risk everything. the main street business owner that this morning got up and turned the key in the front door and went in and waited because they've got everything in their financial lives on the line, hoping their small business works. and the worker that goes to a job in the morning every day -- every day -- and they're the ones that know seconds. you know, those workers at the bottom of the economic ladder, they know second shift, she she secondhand, second mortgage, they know it all. and the question is: who speaks for them? the halls of this chamber aren't crowded with people saying let me speak for those folks. the first book i wrote, the first page, a book called "take this journal of proceedings and shithis job and ship it," the ft page i wrote about franklin

delano roosevelt's funeral. and as they lined up in this capitol to file past the casket of the deceased president, a journalist was trying capture the mood of people who were waiting in line. and he walked up to a man, a worker, who was holding his cap in front of him, standing there with tears in his eyes. and the journalist said to this working man, well, did you know franklin delano roosevelt? and the man said, no, i didn't, but he knew me. and the question is, it seems to me, for every generation in this chamber: who knows american workers and who stands up for the people that go to work every morning in this country? as i said, there are big, big issues that relate to workers and farmers and business people and others in this country. and let me just mention a couple. you all know and we know for america to succeed, we've got to fix our schools. 30% of the kids going to school aren't graduating in our high schools. that can't continue.

we can't have schools that are called dropout factories. we need the best schools in the world with the best teachers in the world if we're going to compete. we need substantial education reform. we also have to get rid of this crushing debt. we know that we can't borrow 40% of everything we spend. we know better than that. all of us know that. we've been on a binge and it's got to change. we can't -- we can't borrow money from china, for example, to give tax cuts to the wealthiest americans. somehow we have to change all of these issues. it's time for this country to sober up on fiscal policy and leadership from this chamber as well. we need a financial industry -- a financial industry that stops gambling and starts lending, lending especially to those businesses that want to create jobs and want to expand. we need a fair trade policy that stands up for american workers for a change and promotes "made

in america" again. we're not going to be a world economic power if we don't have world-class manufacturing capability. and it's dissipating before our eyes. this is all about creating good jobs and expanding opportunities in this country. it's not happening with our current trade policy. it's trading away america's future. and we know better than that. on energy, we've ridden into a box canyon. 60% of the oil we use comes from other countries, some of it from countries to don't like us very much that. holds us hossage and we can't continue -- hostage and we can't continue that. we need to produce here at home of all kinds of energy. we need to conserve month, we need more -- conserve more, we need more energy efficiency, we need to do all of these things to promote stability and security in this country. and let me just say on one other issue that i've intent a lot of time -- spent a lot of time working on, deals with american indians. they were here first. we're talking about the first americans. they greeted all of us. they now live in third world conditions in much of this

country. and we've got to do better, we've got to keep our promises and we've got to honor our treaties. this congress, let me just say -- and i've had the privilege of chairing the indian affairs committee -- this congress, however, as tough as it has been, has done more on indian issues than in the previous 40 years. we passed the indian health care improvement act, the first time in 17 years. we passed the tribal law and order act that i and others helped write which is so very important. we just passed yesterday the special diabetes provisions that are so important to the indians. we put $2.5 billion in the economic recovery act to invest in health care facilities and education and the other things that are necessary in indian country. we just passed the cobell settlement which deals with the problem that's existed for 150 years in which looting and stealing from indian trust accounts went on routinely. and president obama signed the bill last night at the white house at 5:30. those five things are the most important elements together that

have been done in 40 years by a congress dealing with indian issues. but it is not nearly over and we have to keep our promises and honor our trust agreements. so the point is that we face some pretty big challenges, but the fact is, our grandparents and great-grandparents, they faced challenges that were much more significant as well and they prevailed. the noise of democracy, as you know -- all of us in politics, especially know -- the noise of democracy is unbelievable. it is relentless, incessantly negative and it goes 24/7. and we've got bloviaters onth out there all over the country trying to make sounds from the chest be important messages from the brain. they take everything from anything from all corners of the country that seems stupid and ugly and way over the line and they hold it up on their program and say, isn't this ugly? sure, it's ugly but it isn't america. it's just some little obscene

gesture somewhere in the corner of our country. it's not america. there's this old saying, bad news travels halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes o. that happens all the time. this country is full of good. it's full of good things, good people, and good news. every day people go to work on build, create and invent and they hope the future will be better than the past. you know, there was a book called "you can't go home again" by thomas wolfe and he said there's a peculiar quality of the american soul, a peculiar quality of the american soul, that they have an almost indestructible belief, a quenchless hope that things are going to be better, that something's going to turn up, that tomorrow's going to work out. and somehow that has been what has been the hallmark of american aspirations. i want to just finally say this.

when i graduated from college with an m.b.a. degree and got my first job in the aerospace industry at a very young age, the first program or project i worked on was called the voyager project. and we were, with martin marietta corporation, building a landing vehicle for mars. that was 40 years ago. that program was discontinued after about four years. but five years ago, the new program resulted in firing two missiles, two rockets from our country, one week apart. we aimed them at mars. one week aparts, the rockets lifted off with a payload. when they landed 200 million miles later, they landed one week apart on the surface of mars. the payload had a shroud and it opened up, and a dune buggy drove off the shroud. a dune buggy about that big. started driving on the surface of mars.

first one did and then a week later, the second arrived and they were named spirit and opportunity. five years ago. spirit and opportunity. we drove them on the surface of mars. it was an american vehicle. it was supposed to last for 90 days. we're still driving those dune buggies on the surface of mars five years later. spirit -- very much like old m men -- got arthritis of the arm and so they say it hangs at kind of a permanent half salute. and spirit also has five wheels and one wheel broke and so the wheel didn't break off but now it is digging a trench about two inches deep around the surface of mars. and the arthritic arm just barely gets back there, and it buries slightly deeper into the surface.

and opportunity fell asleep a few weeks ago. it takes nine minutes to get a signal to mars. so they sent a signal to a satellite that we have circling mars and had the satellite send a signal to spirit and spirit woke right up. and so it is that two dune-buggy sizessed vehicles are driven on the surface of mars driven by american genius. my point is, first of all, they were aptly named during challenging times, spirit and opportunity. manufactured to last 90 days and driving on the surface of mars five years later. if american invention and american initiative can build rockets and dune buggies and drive them on the surface of mars, surely we can fix the things that are important here on planet earth.

i'm about to say this isn't rocket science, but i guess it really is. this country, it seems to me, is an unbelievable place. and this is all it seems to me a call to america's future. where we've been and what we've done, all of these things together ought to inspire us that we can do so much more. george bernard shaw once said life is no brief candle to me, it's a splendid torch which i'm able to hold but for a moment. well, this is our moment. this is it. i have -- i have -- if i might tell you that about 15 years ago i was leading a delegation of american congressmen and senators to meet with a group of european members of parliament about our disputes in trade. and about an hour into the meet, the man who led the european delegation slid back in his

chair and he leaned across to me and he said, mr. senator, we've been speaking for an hour about how we disagree. but he said, i want to tell you something, i think i should -- you should know how i feel about your country. he said, i was a 14-year-old boy on a street corner in paris, france, when the u.s. liberation army marched, and he said an american soldier reached out his hand and gave that 14-year-old boy an apple as he marched past. he said, i will go to my grave remembering that moment, what it meant to me, what it meant to my family, what it meant to my country. and i just sort of sat back in my chair thinking, here's this guy telling me about who we are, what we've been, and what we've meant to others. it's pretty unbelievable. but it's nothing compared to where we can go and what we can be as a country if we just do the right thing. this senate has a lot to offer

the american people. and i know its best days are ahead. that splendide torch, that momet is here. and i feel unbelievably proud to have been able to have served here with these men and women for so long and i'm going to go on to do other things, but i will always watch this chamber and those who will continue to work in this chamber and do what's important for this country's future and i'll be one of the cheerleaders that say, yay, good for you. good for you. you know what's important and you've steered america toward a better future. i thank my colleagues. bunning:?

the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. bunning: i thank the senator from missouri, a dear friend of mine and someone who has unusual wisdom on his remarks today, and i listened to many of them, and i just hope that i have a few here that follow as well-thought-out as my good friend from missouri. madam president, i would like to take a few moments to thank all my colleagues and other individuals who have come to the chamber to hear me bid farewell. that doesn't mean i'm not going to speak again. that just means i'm bidding farewell, and this is a farewell speech. i've had the great fortune of

having three wonderful careers during my life. one as a husband and a father of nine children and a grandfather of 40. one as a majors league baseball player for 27 years. and one in public service for 30 years. many people often talk to me about how different my baseball and public service careers are, but they really are not so different. i have been booed by 60,000 fans in yankee stadium, standing alone on the mound. so i have never really cared if i stood alone here in the congress, as long as i stood by my beliefs and my values. i have also thought that being able to throw a curveball never

was a bad skill for a politician to have. i came here to washington, d.c., in 1987 when the people of the fourth district in northern kentucky gave me a district -- the distinct honor to serve them. i did not know then that the people of kentucky would bestow upon me the privilege of representing them for 24 years. i have had the same conservative principles in 2010 that i had when i first was elected to congress. over the years i've always done what i thought was right for kentucky and my country. i did not run for public service for fame or public acclaim. when i cast my votes, i thought about how they would affect my

grandchildren and the next generation of kentuckians, not where the political winds at the time were blowing. words cannot express my gratitude to the people of kentucky for giving me the distinct honor of serving them for 12 years in the house of representatives and 12 years in the u.s. senate. here i stand, though, in the senate chamber about to say goodbye after nearly a quarter of a century in congress. i have reflected much about my time here. as i stand here at the desk of henry clay, the great kentuckian , i am proud to have had the opportunity to serve in a place in history. i thought it fitting to discuss the legislative items of which i am most proud.

i have three bills that i am particularly proud that i was able to accomplish signing into law. one of the things i am most proud of during my time in congress was helping pass legislation that repealed the earnings limit on older americans under the social security system. social security used to penalize many older americans for working by reducing their social security benefits by $1 for every $3 they earned if they made more than the earnings limit, which was about $12,000 in 1995. this was an unfair tax on seniors and punished them for continuing to work. i worked hard for many i do noters in both the -- i worked

hard for many years in both the house and the senate in get this unfair earnings limit eliminated and finally in 2000, after i had been elected to the senate, it passed and was signed into law. this law has helped many hardworking seniors stay involved in their communities, remain independent, and contribute to society. another bill i'm proud of is the 2004 flood insurance reformation act. in 2004, i wrote the last reauthorization of the national flood insurance program. that law provided significant reforms to the program just in time for the 2004-2005 hurricane season. including hurricane katrina p. had the law not been in place,

homeowners all over the gulf coast would not have had coverage for their flood damage to their homes. the 2004 law is still the framework for the program today. it was not a republican accomplishment or a democrat accomplishment. it was a bipartisan accomplishment. i worked very closely with senator sarbanes and representative bereuter and blumenthal to write and pass that law. while i believe that further changes are still needed to the program, the 2004 law made meaningful changes that put the program on a more sound financial footing. unfortunately, passage of the bill was not the end of the

story. what happened -- or, more accurately, what did not happen i will strights one reason -- illustrates one reason why people are fed up with washington, because government doesn't do what it is supposed to do. despite the fact the bill passed both the senate and the house unanimously, fema refused to implement all of its provisions in a timely manner. the most glaring example was the appeals process created by the bill for property owners to appeal claims they thought were not settled fairly or correctly. the law gave fema six months to write the rules. fema, instead, took almost two years from the day the bill passed to put even out draft rules, and they probably would

not have done it then if it was not for the right of one senator to object. i had to hold the nominee to head the agency to get the attention of the bush administration and move the secretary of the homeland security to finally publish the rules. it should not have been that way. the third bill i am grateful was signed into law is the emergency employee occupational illness compensation program. the paducah, kentucky, gas did he fusion plant is the only operating uranium enrichment plant in the united states. when i came to the senate, i

held the first hearing to look at cleaning up the can -- cleaning up the contamination that the department of energy left at the site. after the hearing, i focused on cleaning up the site. a lot has been cleaned up since that first hearing 10 years ago. i also worked hard to provide compensation to workers who suffered serious illnesses as a result of their employment at the d.o.e. nuclear weapons program plant. this energy employment compensation program was set up because many workers served our country in nuclear programs during the cold war, and their health was put at risk, without their knowledge. the first compensation bill passed in 2000 with the help of a bipartisan group of

congressmen and senators. i then became aware that d.o.e. was slow-walking claims processing and payments to many claim mantle pz and their portion -- claimants and their portion of the compensation program. so in 2004, again with the help of bipartisan group of senators and congressmen, i spearheaded legislation that moved the entire program over to the department of labor, which had sped up and streamlined compensation for the sick nuclear workers. along with many of my achievements, i also had time to reflect on some of the disappointments that i wish i had been able to fix during my time here.

i am deeply concerned about the state of the entitlement programs: medicare, medicaid, and social security. it is clear that our government cannot meet its future obligations and ultimately the american people will suffer, unfortunately. too many members of congress are willing to look the other way and let the financial problems of these programs fester instead of making hard decisions. congress just cannot get the courage together to address these issues head-on. in fact, after president bush's second election, congress briefly focused on the problems of social security solvency. at the time, i was a strong supporter of private investment accounts.

but certainly realized that the whole system needed an overhaul and was open to many different options. toward the end of the debate, i was willing to tackle social security reform even if we didn't do investment accounts. as long as we did something. however, it quickly became apparent that many members of congress, even some in my own party, were not willing to get serious about this. six years later, congress still hasn't touched social security reform and the program is even in worse financial shape. medicare and medicaid are in the same position. in 2006, congress finally got serious about spending in these programs and passed the

deficit-reduction act. this bill slowed the rate of growth -- the rait of growth in medicare by $6 billion and in medicaid by $5 billion over five years. let me be clear about this. we weren't cutting spending in these programs, we were just slowing the growth. well, you would have thought the sky was falling when we did this. the longer congress takes to honestly tackle these fiscal challenges, the harder it will be to fix these programs. this means bigger cuts, bigger deficits and bigger tax increases. health care is another area where congress should have done

better. on the other side of the aisle's stubborn refusal to compromise and, more importantly, listen to the desires of the american people on health care reform led to the passage of a bill that is one of the worst pieces of legislation that i have seen in congress in 24 years. the health care bill is clearly unconstitutional, will force millions of americans to lose the health insurance they currently enjoy, give the i.r.s. -- that's the internal revenue service -- the power to police and tax americans who don't have health insurance, and takes over $500 billion out of

medicare programs to pay for new spending. despite all the rhetoric from the administration and democrat leaders about being transparent and open and willing to compromise, it quickly became clear that they only wanted republican support if we agreed to everything they wanted to do. well, compromise doesn't work like that. a compromise means you actually have to take ideas from other people instead of just giving lip service. one of the other recent disappointments was the financial regulation bill passed earlier this year. before my first election, i spent 31 years working in the security business.

that was back when baseball players did not make millions of dollars a year and had to have jobs in the off season to pay the bills. and i spent nearly all of my time in congress on either the old house banking committee or the senate banking committee, so this was something i know a great deal about and care about. there were and are real problems in our financial system, but that bill does not -- that bill is not going to fix them and almost certainly sows the seeds for the next banking and financial crisis while at the same time adding more burdens on the economies struggling to -- on the economy's struggling to recover. that bill did not replace bailouts with bankruptcy. it made bailouts a permanent

part of the financial system. the bill did not force the too-big-to-fail banks to get smaller. it gave them special status. the bill ignored the role of housing finance and left fannie mae and freddie mac alone. the housing crisis could not have happened without fannie mae and freddie mac. the senate failed to act on a bill to reform fannie and freddie passed by the banking committee in 2006 and that failure is going to end up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. congress has to do something soon to get them off the taxpayers' life support they have been on since 2008.

but, unfortunately, that did not happen in the financial reform bill. the bill also ignores the federal reserve's failures as a regulator and instead gave them more power. and worst of all, the bill did nothing to rein in the largest single cause of the current financial crisis and most other financial crisis in the past: flawed monetary policy by the federal reserve. nothing congress has done will stop the next bubble or collapse if the fed continues with its easy money policies. cheap money will always distort prices and lead to dangerous behavior no matter -- no

matter -- no amount of regulation can contain it. for many years, i was a lone critic of the federal reserve, particularly no one questioned alan greenspan despite his policies causing two recessions and two asset bubbles. i was the lone vote against ben bernanke in 2006. i was the lone vote because i thought he would continue the greenspan monetary and regulatory policies. well, he did. he kept it up, the flawed monetary policy, and was slow to regulate. and then in 2008, he took the federal reserve into fiscal policy by bailing out bear stearns and later a.i.g. and just about every other major financial institution in the country.

and as we saw even last week around the world, chairman bernanke compromised the independence of the fed and turned it into an arm of the u.s. treasury. things have not gotten better since then either. chairman bernanke is continuing with the easy monetary -- easy money monetary policy and just a month ago started the printing presses again to buy up more treasury debt. while the fed may be propping up the banks with plenty of cheap money, he is undermining our currency. other central banks are moving away from the dollar and gold is continuing to climb. just like the soaring national debt and entitlement cost, the

destruction of the dollar is not sustainable. congress must act to rein in the chairman of the federal reserve and the fed about they destroy our currency and permanently damage our economy and financial system. public awareness of what the fed is doing is increasing while public opinion of the fed is falling. chairman bernanke had nearly twice as many votes cast against him in the senate earlier this year than any other fed chairman in history, and it's just not outside the fed that opposition is growing. regional federal reserve bank presidents are speaking up and voting against fed policy. and even some members of the fed

board are recognizing the dangers of chairman bernanke's policies. i am more hopeful now than ever that the chairman of the fed will not allow -- be allowed to continue their flawed policies and act as an arm of the treasury and the major banks. as i stand here and reflect upon my time in congress, i can honestly say i am gratified despite the ups and downs to have had the opportunity to serve my country and serve the people of the commonwealth of kentucky. 24 years is a very large portion of my life and my family's life. i thank my nine children --

barb, jim, joan, kathy, bill, barrage et,bridgette, mark, amyd david -- and my 40 grandchildren, who inspired notice try to make this countr country -- who inspired me to try to make this country better and better for the next generation to live. i also want to give a special thanks to my wife, the mother of my nine children, and my childhood sweet hard from the fourth grade. i thank her for being at my side through all of the road trips, the late nights i spent in the house and the senate. she's my better half who supported and stood by me. she's my lighthouse that always shined in the dark during the good and the bad times of public

service. she prayed me to my wins in public service and in baseball, and i never could have done anything of these achievements without her. as this chapter in my life comes to an end and i flip the page into a new chapter, i want to thank very much all the other people in my life who have stood by me. without the friendship and support of so many over the years, i never would have been able and had the privilege to represent kentucky in the house and the senate. as i leave here today, i offer a little prayer for the next congress. pope john paul ii once said, "freedom consists not in doing what we like but in having the right to do what we ought."

this is the motto i have tried to live by during my time in congress. i pray that the members of the next congress do what is right for the country, not what is right for their fame and their future aspirations. my hope is that congress will focus on the astronomical debt instead of continuing down the path of spending our future generations into higher taxes and a lower standard of living than we have now. godspeed and god bless. with a sense of pride and gratitude, i will say for the last time, mr. president, i last time, mr. president, i

"newsnight" program. >> i was to the right, 323.

the nose to the left, 302. the aye have it. >> day and night and starts with clash of police officers berglund said house of commons, the government won the dan tuition fees. and tonight, even a card-carrying charles and camilla was attacked by demonstrators. [inaudible] >> will ask the government did these arguments under scale the scales of the protest or it will architect plans to make students pay more. you're in the studio, the university faces today. it's been an extraordinary day and night on the streets of london. >> admin on the streets today with people who are very young and intensely angry. so does like like this'll be the last title.

>> how do they expect us to pay 9000 keeping us in college. >> or life at a student debate at london school of economics. for the future of university education. >> that statute is called knowledge. like the university of education, it's not always about just what it's for. >> university of minister david harkey, kristin hunt and david churchill. good evening come in the day began with peaceful protest over tuition fees and descended into the kind of sustained violence in trouble releasing in britain. protesters interred, others arrested police officers and others seriously hurt. government vandals vandalize. tonight they were caught up in the violence and king charles

car was attacked in central london. we look at reactions to tonight seems in a moment from david willard gave inside parliament this afternoon, the mps debated the controversial increase in tuition fees up to 9000 pounds a year in england. i found i found him in the education sector sectors were about tuition fees altogether. am i came to the westminster bow, the revolt by liberal democrats that the measure passed by just 21 votes, michael crick follow these extraordinary events. this report contains flash photography. >> tonight, substantial path of substantial london have quietly made house of control. with some of the most serious attacks on all of the british since the war. around parliament square this evening, hundreds of students and other protesters attacked the treasury. smash windows and broken

science. these riots stop the false kill innovation. the supreme court was also the cause of it. also under siege, the throne, prince charles and oxford street, mobile phone capture the moment is protesters attacked the card carrying charles and camilla to a royal variety performance. the couple looks terrified and still taken afterwards, show how one of the windows smashed and the car hit with a tear in the shot struck forth. >> he was terrified. [inaudible] >> enon mistreats one today, this has nothing to do with peaceful protests.

this is property that shows some of them have no respect for abundant support or for its citizens. the police had done a tough job today an exception. we thank them for their professionalism as they put themselves on the line to keep london street safe. diesel protest is acceptable. violent protests and criminal damage by law. >> some in central london began during this morning even before the common debate started. i've mounted police tried, without success, to stop protesters from gathering outside the house of commons. in fact, lib 10 secretary vince cable must've felt almost as beleaguered as he struggled against labor hackles and interventions to make his case by raising the cap on tuition fees to 9000 pounds a year.

>> we could have made a decision to count the university systems. we could have counted the funding to universities without replacing it. but instead, we have all said for a better policy that provides a strong base for university funding, which makes a major contribution to reducing the deficit and introducing a significantly more progressive system of graduates payments, some inherited. and i'm proud to go for that measures so they pass. >> the laborer, john denham, who rebels over her back and curse coalition mps now to follow his example. >> i do know what you're going through. it is very hard to stand aside from friends and colleagues with whom he shared many battles. so say this, after you've done it coming you realize it wasn't half as bad as he thought it would e. before you did it.

the self-respecting gains far away any temporary loss of position power or income. and the truth is that in any generous blissful party that might is not the only generous in this. there is usually way back. mr. speaker, this matter, this position matters so much to so many teeple. i say to the house, if you don't believe in it, boast against it. >> as the protest and the mayhem crew outside, mps inside couldn't hear them, couldn't see them, barely mentioned them. and the debate was tempted by tory and lib dems rebels. >> it isn't too late. there needs to be a proper review of how we can come up

with the best system for higher education and indeed i'll post 18 education in this country. >> i urge the government to look again, to think again and to come back to this issue next year, six months time when we can have a proper conversation because we only get into this once. we see the principle of 9000 pounds. i'm deeply concerned about the message that pans out. >> after five hours of sometimes passionate exchanges, they voted. >> the aye's to the right, 323. nose to the left, 323. >> the coalition majority of 21, exactly a quarter of what it should be, indicating members in both governing parties. twenty liberal democrat mps voted for the government. twenty-one against and five

abstain. serve on top of all that done and teased out the leadership, meanwhile six conservatives voted against the government and two abstained. as a result of the scum of three bp is parliamentary aides to resign their posts of the whips. and lee scott of conservative. >> so as in the end, the government went to base both with tuition fees for probably the most difficult issue on the coalition immediate agenda. the government business managers will be whether the nearly 10% of the coalition mps today fail to support the government. everything about rebelling a parliament is parliament is that it can become something of a habit. the votes in parliament may not deserve violent protests or quell public anger.

parliament square has been fled tonight for now, but many demonstrators are inspired by what happened with the poll tax 20 years ago. i too was agreed by mps and ministers eventually dismissed it after violent street battles and deep public hostility. >> michael crick, we have the latest update on injuries after observances. forty-three protesters attended hospitals. thirty-six are taken by the ambulance service and hope officers have been injured the sixth hospital tonight. janeway university administrator, were going to go through the issue later on. first of all, bush is due with the protest. the metropolitan mark had warnings for scenes that had in building power. do you think they were prepared for this? >> i saw with my own night the metropolitan protest. sadly it looks as if he were

violent or in some case for a violent. i think people were very shocked by what they see. i think the police did an incredibly professional job in circumstances. and i think many of the students who came wanted to protest peacefully. it's such a tragedy that a small number of violent protesters can really sort of completely or what could have been an opportunity for people to express. >> i'm not sure about that. it doesn't seem to me that were in that same situation at all. i mean, we're talking about something. that is a full proposal and i don't actually think that these protest -- i think they are not something that can be sustained because i don't believe the underlying grief his accent. >> you don't believe that protest can offer the politician minds in the poll tax? >> politician is a democracy.

we've had the shocking protest by people who are not willing to participate. -- >> one thing we weren't expecting that the car carrying her in strauss and camilla would be attacked. what to make of what happened? because apparently they were separated from the cardinal directions and really they were left alone. >> i think one should be careful of commenting on operational police matters. the police have an incredibly different job to do across london on daily kos this from another protest break up into different groups, small pilot groups in the ground. >> to be honest, they were taken to the hospital. to think there was an inquiry about the click >> i don't think it's right for me, a politician who didn't have the promise of seeing the work we do. i will say that the police has soured been incredibly resilient and displayed extraordinary courage and incredible difficult

situation where some protesters are behaving with extreme violence. >> thank you prematurity. well, thousands of protesters in the capital today have their own reasons for being there, be they university students, school people, academic ratchet taters. paul mason said today with some of the protesters. >> use the occupation, they began the day knowing it would be decided with up to 22 days here, they're already thinking about the things and a vote in parliament. >> i think you really showed other people but if you are in government and you're organized and unified in your public, that actually government does listen to you. i think that message will be so strong that we will follow it and there's a big society forming that cameron had been passed with the backlash and you can see it just increasing.

i think the student movement is at the forefront of that. >> if it supports anybody, this movement is about people like chris, a school student who just turned up from lincoln on its own. >> i like to see myself as independent and free. and for me, being a dad is not free in being able to make choices. and if i go to university or not, will i be able to get a job at the end of this year it >> you might not go? >> i might not go. that is the honest truth. i really do want to go to university, but i come from a not great -- not brilliantly well-off background. my parents can't support me. for sodas middle class. >> by lunchtime at upwards of 30,000 people lined here were marching through the streets of london. the official leaders of the nus could not bring themselves to take part. the seasoned political spoke think the party changed the whole game of politics under the

coalition. >> what has really changed or is this new sense. people thought there's no alternative, you can't resist the government. there's no means means of defeating them because there's an alternative to what was happened to the homeric agenda. that's what is change. people think it is possible. >> i think they're almost the driving force. >> their differing slightly to it. >> we are deferring to the men in white. the leadership in a way because they are the ones who immediately been invited. they are the ones who are panicking about the impact of the huge amounts of debt if they have university education. with the march reached parliament, it hit a dead-end. nobody knew where it should go. >> it's 2:00 in parliament square and there's nowhere to go

other than into the police lines. >> this is where the police begin to lose control. what defenses down, soon there were skirmishes beyond parliament. with the majority did not want to skirmish. they wanted to dance. above all, the very youngest. this is the unlikely force that blew a hole in the coalition in the first time many of them will get to vote will be at the next general election. with events began to break away from parliament it started the battle lasted long into the night. recharge completely. protesters attacked routine fireworks and some heavy

objects. at times, the crowd overwhelms the police and they used their batons freely. the police too suffered numerous casualties. through it all, a sense of a break with western protest has meant in the past. >> are from the slums of london, yes? how do they expect us to pay for university and keep us in college, what's stopping us from doing drug dose on the street quite >> the day draws to a close quite ugly for the coalition government because the people fighting here in the streets that they been covered in full view of the cameras by and large of a young british people and they just paid that they're going to have to pay for their education. >> the streets around why tolerancing clashes before and didn't movement combo never before before has the government

majority teetered under the majority of six farmers and to decide that dog stand. >> paul mason, with the architect has arrived and democrats these. i spoke to him earlier. people amount the liberal democrats can't be trusted. >> no, that not correct at all. where the coalition agreement for implementing the coalition agreement, we knew that it wasn't going to be possible to deliver the pre-election commitments on tuition fees. if we had a challenge, which responded to, which was to enact policies which contribute to reducing government deficit, while finding other ways of providing something for universities to keep low-cost standards and to change the system they inherited for labor of a graduate contribution to make a more progressive, more related to the possibilities. we've done those things in difficult circumstances.

>> so yesterday, nick clegg seem to suggest that this was a compromise were not a need to act with the coalitions. he seemed to be saying this is the best policy possible. what is that? >> in an ideal world, would spend lots of money and everything would be free. when not in an ideal world. what a very, very tough financial environment in which universities and other bits of the economy are very difficult, painful cuts are having to be made. >> and makes it quite clear, before the election, liberal democrat mps find against tuition fees. now is that because he believed in it or because you thought you'd never get into power and therefore you would never have to actually stick to your principles? >> was a policy of tuition fees and getting rid of tuition fees that have signed up to it. i was part of policy. when we join the coalition government -- >> did you agree with that or not?

>> i supported my party -- >> tearjerkers getting rid of tuition fees are not? >> i supported my party's policies. only after the coalition, we have to make compromises, we did make compromises. the tories have dewdrops and their favorite policies. we need a tuition fee or want to be a difficult one. we agreed we try to make the system better and fairer than that the we've done in the context which i've inherited as a departmental minister having to make very painful cuts. some focus not on what happened moments ago because we're having to make tough choices peered >> output it output it to you that it's inconvenient to remember, but the problem is the liberal democrat that is member decisive interesting is the level democrat except for two gpss voted for the policy, literal democrats voted against the biggest ever rebellion and the liberal democrat that was formed in you couldn't carry a party with you. >> we did as you say have a

substantial number of colleagues. we knew when i went to government that this is probably going to be one of the most difficult challenges that have faith. my job as the secretary of state is i inherited a system based on things that they were going to rise substantially. they were fully committed to making very deep cuts in my department, considered universities to read some of the brown reporter. my job was to try and make the system fairer, better and that's what i've -- >> that you haven't been able -- if you can't convince your own back and just, how do you convince the country? you can certainly hear the noise outside. people see this as a betrayal of principle at the first hurdle. the liberal democrats have failed unexpressed principle. >> no, we haven't filled it all. the first test we have with the coalition and was a difficult test because we entered into

government. if you may remember the context come the country needed government. it was a financial emergency. the country when the parties to work together in the first big test remained was entering into the coalition, accepting compromises on things we believed in and were very committed to. >> this is the first evidence of the impact of that. and sure the evidence liberal democrat had two parties now. if the guys in power and the guys in the back inches in your split now and the split will continue. >> no, that is not correct. i think actually we significantly stronger having been through this very difficult process -- we've met together several times in the last few days to debate with each other how we should do with this. people have strong views, but we are of colleagues. we going to work together as a team. there's no permanent position. we're going to put behind us. >> you've got your fingers crossed on that. >> all my colleagues are now fully committed to the coalition governments, including those who voted against it.

>> can ask you one final question because this is that in exercising many liberal democrats. the assertion that this will actually be good for poor students because of poor students poor families are that they are. when you are essentially doing is condemning them to decades of death and i will put about it then off to university. >> i think that is absolutely wrong. we've built into this policy he holds series of commitments, which many will not have been. first of all, i went to graduate from pay any contributions. if people graduate and they're in low income, take time off to a family and are unemployed. >> with this hanging over their heads? >> is a more progressive system. large numbers of people not have to pay the full contribution. it is going to people's ability to pay. this is not dead in a commercial sense. student loans are not a commercial scheme. they are not affected by it in any way.

i'm also hoping people from low-income families in other ways. a scholarship scheme will help with that. we've increased the availability of grant to people in the study university. the assistance has been made considered more aggressive than that was. >> vince cable, thank you very much. so off the trouble, what happened down the student movement? map roger and some protesters at the london school of economics. not. >> yes, kirsty kameny osseous of course one of the most prestigious universities in the world are at a critical point for generations of leaders. but you can see from the poster under occupation at the moment. all the thing people have been coming back from the protest of students failing to hear through the entrance of the university and appear on the right is where they have been occupying for the past week one of the rooms here.

it hasn't disrupted studies here because of large proportion of students here are foreign students were largely unaffected by this whole debate. but the british students have occupied this room here. as you can see here, just tear in this room is where they've been preparing their size, their placards. and here now, they've been glued to the tv coverage tonight, seeing how it's going going down. we've got a group of them here to see how they feel about how the protest is going. i'm going the first of all to sasha came in here, one of the organizers. asha, let me ask you first of all, how did you feel about a protest that began as a peaceful protest against tuition fees and the news headlines who are watching tonight with attacks on shops on oxford street and the attack on charles and camilla, please been injured. >> we all want peace, but i think it's been completely under barto pilot the police where.

i didn't have a glass of water, i didn't see anything from 12:00 until 6:00 and the only reason i could add 6:00 so i faked a panic attack. so realistically, it's not student violence. it's a reaction to the fact that we were stuck, like i don't know how we were stuck there for so long. their kids there come apparent there come a tourist who were there. >> did you see people attacking police at all? >> i thought it made, i saw a stick. i saw people not moving when they were being pushed. yeah, i mean, people retaliated. they are angry. as their futures. the brothers aren't going to be able to go to university and that's a tragedy. it's a passionate issue, so people are passionate and people might have been bit rough. but it's nothing like -- were not terrorists.

>> the police of course can contest that account. sharon, do you feel the protest today was a success? i mean, of bill went regardless. >> i think it was a success and the fact that we kept the opposition up and showed them after the vote winfrey were still going to be there comes a point to protest him is so going to show we're going to do everything we can to make sure they oppose as much as possible. >> so what now? is this occupation, is a sober now? >> now. no way. >> no? so what to do? >> we went to the chancellor to write a statement and until he does that, were not moving anywhere. >> so you're not moving anywhere? the students are going to be putting out here tonight. there's a paper here from

sheffield as well. as i say, dirt going nowhere. >> thank you coming up. we are joined by the university of manchester and peter walston from london school of economics. before i come to you, speaking up on what with sasha sad day. first up, she knew it was the university and she realized it were going to carry on. >> i was shocked when she said we were engaged in the university because they're paying the fees. of course are not going to pay the fees pay the taxpayers going to provide the money for students, of course, i will be passed onto the university. no fan family have to reach and impact pocket to pay for the child to go to university. when and if they graduate and earn well-paid jobs, appointing a contribution. i don't think that should deter. i very much hope it doesn't detour. >> i think that's exactly the

point. people will be deterred from going to universities because of the deception, because of the problem of the 9000 headline feed. one of the iranian dr. lewis said whether people can be as fair. and it is quite clear from the protest, from the petitions that they don't. >> the 9000 for tuition, but you've also got standard of living. >> so you end up with 50,000 by the time to be the university possibly. >> how do you feel about that? >> i have a problem with it. it makes me feel like i don't have the freedom to do what i want to do. it remains true that those in the poorest backgrounds tend to be the most perverse. >> director question. >> if you look at, for your course at rutherford university come a student on, courts cannot expect to graduate with 40,000 pounds debt. i would call the progressive. i you might argue that after 30

years to wipe off that day. being in debt for 30 years is that progressive. i guess what i want to know from you, david come as you said yourself a short while ago, a few months ago, that the universities had not made the case for being able to charge higher fees. now the fact that i seize up up over the next decade, it has not appeared renouncing a bonfire community subjects being cut. are you telling me that with the troubling if he is, the quality of our education is also troubled? >> i think you put your finger in one of the key challenges. part of the thinking behind proposals. i think there is an issue about universities providing high-quality teaching experience. i think what we've got at the moment is very strong incentives to focus on research. but there's a large amount of students who don't think they get enough contact time and academics. they think the seminars are too crowded. they do things that the big-name professors don't need to be around teach something much

could be to want to change and i think these proposals, with the universities to the students bring something we'll address precisely that. i think you're putting your finger on what many people are frustrated with. to make a really placed in state funding by pushing it onto the student. funding has not been increased. >> it is accepted contributions from the graduate. it's not on the student. you're right. our philosophy is the money should come to the choices of the student. i think what is going to do -- and you can hold me to account away what you see his universities looking out and see what exactly is the teaching experience we offer prospective students and hockley make sure it is what classes to students who come to this university. that is a challenge for these reforms. they won't be able to get money anymore. >> i think it's quite a false the universities have low standards of teaching compared to their comparative equals the

university sector, yet they have ridiculous place. and that's what is going to change. obviously does not do that much. they can rely on always having those applying. i think when the framing questions is that student that policy are angry that our teaching grounds of social science is is being cut by hundreds of cents. were angry about that. we protested peacefully and i was questioning the police areas by police. my friend was completely peaceful with her collarbone broken. we are angry about the social sciences being cut. and by exercising our democratic rights of peaceful protests come as acceptable were being treated this way? >> before we can one come i must point out a number of officers were injured and students as well. >> i do think that it's sad that interest people who wish to protest have been cut up in

violent protests, which i'm sure a small portion of people over demonstrating. first of all, going back to teaching, i think actually are a bit harsh and i think the director of the loc themselves with a one of the things he wants to do is focus is focus one of teaching experience. and also, this is crucial, we are not against social scientists. these are changes that operate fairly across. i'm not sitting trying to pick the subjects the student should do or tilt the playing field or in favor of another. while we believe in us well informed choices by students. >> thank you very much indeed. today's rise in tuition fees and the cuts in direct funding of university are likely to have a profound effect on universities do we just been hearing. how will the social and fact the cultural campus change. david dawson reports. >> there's a joke that your queen mary's university of london rather enjoy. if an experiment to screener,

it's biology. if it's stinks, it's chemistry. if it doesn't work, what will be the outcome of the changes to higher education? well, that is still very hard to calibrate. academics are clear and one thing. it is very much an experiment. >> that have to be a godlike economist psychology politician to know it's going to look like because the government is so radically changing the rules that we don't know what it's going to look like publicly until four, five, six years down the line. >> focusing simply on the rising tuition fees, they distort the wider picture of higher education funding. >> so does the fees feast of will be charged to the potential to be trouble. designing places like this will not be awash with cash? the extra income from students will be offset sometime more than offset by the reduction of the amount of money from general

taxation. >> at present, universities get paid by central government per student in four bands. the top is the medicine and dentistry is 14 and a half thousand per student per year. the lowest ban from our classroom-based courses typically offers the humanities currently overdid 2641 pounds per student per year. look at what the changes will need. in the future, that toppings that is being cut to 10,794 pounds, with the bottom goes to zero. the government will not be hoping to fund those courses at all. >> when tuition fees was at their current levels in 2004, there what was referred to as toughies. another is in many cases the government contribution to top that. professor simon castle is the principal of queen mary university of london. it is a concern that they will be in future too much emphasis on earnings and not enough on

learning. i think we should be asking the question of what was the fundamental purpose of higher education? it is certainly to improve skills and individual employability. they're actually wider functions map. the robust in the current debate as we become too focused on university for skills for increasing employability and increasing income. it should also be about rotter benefit to society, enriching society both for technical advances and also cultural advances us well. >> crucially which courses they choose. >> students at the moment are not only going to the university to improve, they are going there to study a subject that they love. without personal development, both in academic terms and personal terms. however, there'll be a rising tuition fees, the majority of students who are now going to university to improve their

future guilt of income and improve their graduate prospects. >> i'm worried about the nature of this policy, which does seem to me like a rather huge gamble with a few hedged bets, if you like him in a progressive direction around the edges. the campbell which the government itself can't be sure how it's going to turn out. they are throwing him to estimate individual choices of students but the outcomes may be. we can plan for the various outcomes. we can conjecture, to market analysis. we can to plan budgets for the next two years. redoing all of those things, but we do feel this is an unnecessarily -- raphael this is an unnecessarily large campbell. >> the farmer's market at queen mary suggest a more businesslike administration, looking at ways of maximizing revenue. customers who chose this is to chevron assents shopping for an education spending their own debt. a couple of decades ago, mr. next it was to preserve.

now it's part of all the lives of all young people. some were the results of these current changes will be further move towards commercialization. >> there was no public universities be more businesslike, but they're not businesses. they are core values and universities come which have existed for hundreds of years and will continue for hundreds of years to come. and those are to do with a generation of new knowledge, the creation of knowledge and the dissemination of knowledge through multiple channels, which is treating the graduate students and so on. the risk and the current debate are forgetting those core values. thus the universe these are fundamentally about. >> went back to the changes is the universities more and more have to offer better and better facilities to attract all those teen students. queen mary has just opened a shiny new library with room for expansion. somewhere though that the real cost of these radical reforms

might be measured in the books that will now be written. .. enormously important different spending than students, reciting the poll tax. the difference is most people don't care the tax affected every family. students -- these are middle class people.

>> people are very eloquently talking about the future of their own education and brothers and sisters education and do you think fundamentally what universities have to offer for educational change as a result of this? >> absolutely. today marks a very profound shift and the parliament was given little time to discuss this profound move which we are going to have because of the nature of the cuts, because the nature of the state funding for all sorts of subjects, the humanities being taken to task social sciences, and as a result of that, the cost in total laid upon the graduates, and david wrote some interesting books and had interesting thoughts about his generation, the baby boom generation effectively stealing the money from the younger generation. we thought it was a critique. we now know the manifesto strategy, and what we see today i think is a remarkable assault

on the english university and the post war settlement of education. >> can i just come back to some of these points? first, the taxpayer funding is not being taken away, and if i may say so, the presentation before, the tax payer funding will go by the student. and then as people graduate they will pay it back but the public money, and the teaching ground is going to go through the students. there is no decision to take teaching away from humanities whatever. it is all going to the student. the only thing to be made is the extra delivering. this is not -- this is not an attack. i keep students will continue

and actually what we call learning. i have to say a lot of people go to the university -- there's a significant number of people that universities are in all its range of institutions getting qualification which will have security. that is what you need to do. it is not the only university. they're also people going to the university because they want to because they love them and their worthwhile and that can carry on. we will provide them with the funds to do that. we're not saying that somehow that should be -- >> you expect you didn't exactly know what she wanted to do at 18. >> you don't have to know that. there's honestly no reason. what i hope you do know about is exactly how many seminars will i

be able to attend? exactly how many essays will i be expected to write? how well equipped with a lad p.? at the kind of information -- >> before we go on to talk about the actual transactions between sunni university, speak at david starkey's point, stuck in that the chief of degrees i would've thought of condescension. but is there a danger that people are worried about debt will offer the shorter decree that will lead them further onepass? >> there is a cohost of different issues. i was a fantastic university the other day which used the furniture industry. what they do is upholstery,, study history a furniture design. it is the kind of university that it very much expect will have stronger links with businesses. they want to do those in two years rather than three. that's all going to be part of

it. >> we're been absolutely, unbelievably concentrate on this. you raise a point about how do we protect research. had we protect the humanity? .. looking at their humanities courses, looking at their social science courses and enjoying a great deal of -- i think

students will continue to choose and when they choose a subject -- >> 20 seconds for you. >> even if we bring the american system what we are not allowing is the scholarships, all of the assistance -- >> we are launching a as well. >> thank you very much indeed. i wish we had another hour. the bbc has a new picture of the attack of prince charles tonight and you can see more of that on the news channel but of course it dominates the front pages after today's protest. the picture of the times is in shock attack after tuition fees, how could they get it wrong again is the story on the

telegraph. on the independent there are pictures of the protestors and finally on the daily mail, pure terror, charles and camilla's cars attack by student be mauled. that's all tonight given at least two of two nights a relative who wrote the early editions we thought we would leave you with a scene our

fourth annual terrorism conference. this has become an annual thing for the jamestown foundation and we are just excited everyone is here today. we have a full program ahead of us and we have a lot of exciting discussions and -- in store for the day and we are going to give you a whole, kind of a glimpse of many regions of the world. we felt that it is always very appropriate to begin each conference with kind of a strategic overview of of the state of al qaeda and i think that's there is probably no one better in washington to do that than roos hoffman. my name is glenn howard, and we will have an exciting program today. usually we have one keynote speaker. we are lucky we have two keynote speakers today and we have all the way from afghanistan -- so

we are a busy doing a transition here with the conference and so he is getting ready for his presentation at noon, and then he will be followed by the former director of cia general hayden at 4:15. is going to be great time and we are happy that everyone is here, and we are going to be videotaping this event arts of it will be available after the conference. i think first off we need -- mad bruce hoffman needs no introduction. he will be speaking on al qaeda strategy. i think the most important about bruce is he has a new forthcoming book called anonymous soldiers, the jewish underground, the british army and the rise of israel which is a history of political science at palestine between 1917 and 1947 and it is going be published in 2012 i alfred knopf so we will look forward to this book but bruce is also, you know

many of you have probably read his book inside terrorism which remains one of the standard books today on understanding terrorism and so on that note, i would like to go ahead and introduce bruce hoffman to you and also note that he is also a member of the jamestown board, so bruce. [applause] >> thank you, glenn for the very kind introduction. welcome to everyone who is here today. i promised glenn i would only speak for 20 minutes so i'm going to move rather quickly. let me they'll begin by saying you know i have been studying terrorism literally for 34 years since i went to graduate school in 1976 and i have to say really one of the neglected areas in this field both in academe and also in government research and analysis is an understanding of what a terrorist organization or a terrorist movement strategy

is. i think too often we all tend to focus too much on the individual tactics or targets of terrorist attacks rather than stepping back and trying to understand what is the strategy, what is the broader plan that animates and motivates, that enables a terrorist group quite simply to survive and in that case in this respect what we can see is that al qaeda is surviving. if i had been invited to years ago to give the same presentation to this audience i would have shown a map for example of an al qaeda network or an al qaeda universe that had about eight separate entities or eight separate networks are theaters of operation throughout the world. one al qaeda and the far east would be the real success story, the one area where al qaeda has really faltered but i think remarkably over the past 12 years, while the rest of the world is undergoing a very depressing and melancholy

process of financial and economic retrenchment, declining budgets, the shrinking of personnel, nonetheless what we have seen is that al qaeda movement that astonishes -- astonishingly has been able to expand its network by more than 50% for eight entity since 2008 to 11 today. of course two of them have been prominently in the news for the past year. al shabaab in somalia and al qaeda in the arabian peninsula based out of yemen. and in fact, the current director of central intelligence agency has said that these two entities have become as threatening if not more threatening than al qaeda central, so that alone i think is evidence of the viability of the al qaeda message and the resonance it continues to have throughout the world. fleecy expansion is well with al qaeda returning to the sudan establishing at least an embryonic operation in khartoum

and then even more astonishingly one has to say al qaeda has put into place a very small miniscule perhaps, but nonetheless viable means of. routing and radicalizing individuals, american citizens and american residents in this country. that was rather bold i have to say to put up there on the slide al qaeda in the usa as one of these networks but i feel on fairly solid ground because when general petraeus was in washington last april and gave a public address at the woodrow wilson center he had his own slide that he called the star slide that had the al qaeda network throughout the world and general petraeus had a few usa on it so general petraeus says that i feel i'm on firm ground in including it as well. the point is what we see today is all qaeda has created a transnational, and networks transnational movement.

al qaeda is no longer a single entity in one place to be destroyed but rather what we see of many al qaeda's. each of them with different capabilities, different resources and also each of them presenting very different and often very unique challenges to the particular countries in which they are situated and the governments that they are against. so what this means is at a time when we are enmeshed in tremendous economic retrenchment is that any hope for a one-size-fits-all strategy to counter al qaeda really is inappropriate given the different strengths and the capabilities of these other al qaeda's throughout the world. how has so cut it shaped the. even though it is under immense pressure not least because of the drug program in pakistan and also i don't want to paint a picture of a resurgent al qaeda orbit al qaeda that one might argue it's as powerful as it was

on 9/11. is completely incorrect. in fact the current al qaeda want to emphasize is just a shadow of its former self but what what we see as a shadow that is demonstrated remarkably formidable ability to adjust and adapt to even the most consequential countermeasures directed against it and to survive and i would argue a movement like al qaeda that is under the intense pressure, it has been in recent years, can only survive if in fact it is embraced the strategy in my view that strategy is six critical components. first and quite simply is the strategy of all the insurgents throughout history to wage war of attrition in essence, to exhaust one's adversaries and in this respect verse and foremost what al qaeda attempts to do today and also link urges its allies and associates throughout the world to do is to overwhelm, distract and exhaust its adversaries nsio to the strateg.

one that is economic. al qaeda has never claimed that it would defeat the united states militarily. they are smart enough in fact to know they can never defeat the united states on the battlefield. rather, their strategy is to wear us down. and also the forethought to spend more money on domestic security and prolong our overseas military commitments to the greatest extent possible. so in other words during the cold war adversaries and the soviet union, we could have takeda khrushchev visiting the united nations taking off his shoe and dramatically banging it on the table and threatening to bury us. that is not al qaeda strategy. al qaeda acts accident is repeatedly stated in its propaganda in the last significant public appearance on october 31, 2004 before the presidential election. they intend to bankrupt us. i'm not saying there is necessarily any firm anchor

between reality and their strategy but all terrorists live in a fantasy world. they all believe their own propaganda. they have to otherwise how could they sustain themselves? but in this case al qaeda finds that this message which had i would argue dubious credibility, dubious resonance when they first tried it out in the summer of 2002 when the economy was growing great guns than when our allen's of payment deficit was not what it was today when her gdp was much longer no one paid attention to it. however today as divorced as it may be from reality, al qaeda repeatedly per in ariely claims, takes responsibility for the economic travails of the united states and the west is suffering and promises its followers that if they are just patient, if they just stay with the struggle, eventually they will topple the united states much as the mujahedin toppled, defeated the red army, toppled topple toppled the soviet union and destroyed communism in the 1980s. again, the propaganda doesn't

have to be through to be believed. it just has to be believed and this is a message today that al qaeda, the message of al qaeda today that has greater resonance than ever. secondly there is an operational dimension i would argue where al qaeda seeks to flood already overstressed intelligence agencies, information inundated intelligence agencies and law-enforcement departments with noise, with low-level threats from lone wolves or self radicalized individuals. another was the low-hanging fruit of terrorism that has to consume the attention of the authorities but nonetheless what i think al qaeda's goal is a low-cost manner to engage in widespread radicalization and come encourage self-radicalization, flood the system with this noise in hopes of distracting us. in hopes of fixating us on these low-level threats so a more serious al qaeda threat can sneak under the radar and deliver what they hope will be a

devastating to us at least psychologically. second, al qaeda seeks to create fishers of divisions. this is one of the reasons that southern afghanistan, al qaeda's allies have concentrated on the tax on the united states's closest allies in isaf and the canadian contingent, the british contingent, the french italians and dutch as well. they believe the strategy is succeeding. why? because just last summer the dutch parliament decided to pull out the dutch contingent from the peacekeeping force precipitated the collapse and fall of the government that was then in and power of the netherlands and they see their ability to focus on our allies is not only succeeding but is gradually not only isolating the united states at imposing even more burden on the united states in terms of and financial spending.

third, al qaeda if anything has so it's been as opportunistic as it is instrumental seeking to take advantage of opportunities in failed or failing states or in other states where they have close allies and supporters and sympathizers to establish a foothold or gain a toehold. here we see al qaeda deliberately supporting and encouraging local campaigns of subversion and the destabilization in arenas it describes in his key or it regards as key operational theaters and this is afghanistan, pakistan, yemen and somalia. fourth, al qaeda works behind the scenes. al qaeda deliberately does not put an arab face on its support to any of these entities or indeed in its on its presence in these countries. al qaeda one could argue has learned its lessons from the 1990s when it was front and center in sudan when it was prominent in afghanistan and impact when it became the controlling force arguably

behind the taliban. today it is very different. the al qaeda does not have that strength and it doesn't have the numbers but nonetheless al qaeda operatives played a key force multiplying rolled in strengthening or posting up the capabilities of its allies and associates elsewhere. just as we and our allies embed officers and ncos with host nation forces to train them up and strengthen their command capabilities to provide them with additional training and intelligence and so on, that is exactly what al qaeda does. but interestingly i'll qaeda's focus in improving the capabilities of its allies and associates isn't just restricted to kinetics. they play a very extremely important non-kinetic role in improving information operations and psychological operations, the propaganda capabilities of its allies and associates and al shabaab and somalia i think is the perfect case in point that

demonstrates both of these but as i said this is across the board. on the one hand we know a senior al qaeda commander indicted in u.s. federal court for his role in the 1998 coming up u.s. embassy in nairobi subsequently went on to play a command role in the 2003 attack on to israeli targets in kenya was in somalia training not only members of the al shabaab militia but also many of the young somali americans who left this country who radicalized and recruited in minnesota and departed to be trained in somalia where it was training among other things suicide terrorist tactics. in fact it was a somali american had committed the first known terrorist attack by a u.s. citizen already now over two years ago in october of 2008. so it was that important kinetic role but at the same time al qaeda was advising and helping al shabaab to develop its information operations and we

see this in the appearance two years ago of the faith of abraham. al shabaab's on line magazine, swats jihad and so on. and they see this replicated in pakistan as well as the pakistani taliban, afghanistan as well as the afghan taliban. adversaries who 10 years ago we dismissed as technophobes or technological luddites now have multiple on line magazines, multiple web sites and one has to say too very slick pr operations that in some cases trump our own efforts in those respects. fifth, al qaeda continues to seek to obtain the access to citizens of enemy countries who possess quote"mack clean passports or what the media describes as clean skins. they are invaluable in two respects. first because they can navigate

within those societies that they have lived and worked in so can provide strategic intelligence and planning and secondly because they have no prior experience in no prior background in terrorism or sometimes in any form of lawlessness. they too can more easily state in a few radar and avoid detection. this is why such a tremendous emphasis is placed by al qaeda on the recruitment of conference. their passports air the birth name, not necessarily the name they have chosen when they have converted and we can see in recent years how this focus has shifted from europe to the united states as well. they have included trained operatives like nazi bullets ozzie, key sleeper agents like david headley who changed his mind -- name from gillani motivated recruits like a somali americans are just described and faisal shahzad the times square palmer and then the panoply of lone wolf said hangers on like nidal hasan and four ex-convicts

implicated in the bronx doubtless i would say the individual arrested yesterday in maryland plotting an attack against the military facilities. these are the self-selected self radicalized individuals that have been motivated, inspired and animated by al qaeda propaganda to engage in violence themselves in hopes of furthering al qaeda's cause if you who are not part of al qaeda's command and control apparatus. and finally, we see as a just described al qaeda existing and surviving because it has always had -- in opportunistic. this is a movement that asides been able to take advantage of opportunities simply by continuing to monitor, identify and exploit gaps in our defense. this has been one of the keys to al qaeda's success. we tend to look at al qaeda's media arm for its output

mission, dissemination of propaganda. from its conception 22 years agy important input capability. strategic intelligence of its allies and to give you two brief examples, we know for a fact that al qaeda has downloaded the web sites of every major think-tank in the united states and in some cases multiple times and especially those that have particular focuses or interest in terrorism and homeland security. secondly we know for a fact that al qaeda regularly monitors congressional testimony and hearings especially those hearings by the homeland security committees in the senate and house, the armed services committee, judiciary committee and so on, obviously the select committee on terrorism meets in open session. they monitor the testimony and of course for them it is a matter from heaven. e. of the heads of departments sitting on a panel often subjected to withering

questioning, scrutiny by congressman or senators. they are asked to explain their mission. their assessment of how successful they have been in their mission and their metrics of success, how sufficient their budgets are, what their plans are and so on. this is all information that al qaeda gathers to facilitate its operations. so what we can see is that al qaeda arguably is achieving each of its strategic objectives and again the fundamental -- throughout history of all terrorist insurgent groups is to avoid losing, and that i think is what al qaeda believes it is doing. it may not be winning but it is also not losing. it still exists and eventually they believe time is on their side in that they will be triumphant. they believe that they are engaged in a divinely ordained struggle that they can't lose and also they are very convinced about the power of their own historical narrative.

again, doesn't necessarily have to be true or anchor to reality. just has to be believed by their followers and their narrative as i mentioned briefly before is that they believe that they successfully defeated then one of the world's two superpowers, the red army in afghanistan and they themselves precipitated the collapse of the soviet union and the demise of communism and they argue the secret was because of the week soviet economy at the time that they forced into bankruptcy and it is their belief that the united states, west is poised on the same economic precipice of collapse that the force and ardor of the jihadi's one-out push the united states and the west over the edge. so in conclusion let me wrap up. i think if 9/11 taught us anything it is that al qaeda and also its allies and associates are most dangerous when they have a sanctuary or a safe haven and this as we see al qaeda has in many places now. accordingly the highest priority for us must be to concentrate

our attention on al qaeda as a networked mobile phenomena. not as we have done too often in the war on terrorism as one enemy in one place at one time whether it was in afghanistan during operation enduring freedom, whether it was in iraq during operation iraqi freedom or more recently just in afghanistan and pakistan. this requires continued operations in both those countries, exactly the places where al qaeda began to collapse in 2001 but is now patently is if not regrouped at least survived, but also we need to be more effective in expansion to failed and failing states and stopping al qaeda before it gains a foothold in these places. this focus will also require recognizing that al qaeda cannot be defeated by military means alone. rather, success will require a dual strategy, systematically

destroyed weakening capabilities that is continuing to kill and capture al qaeda leaders but also doing what we have proven ourselves not terribly able to do in the past, breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment that sustains the movement and allows it to repeatedly regenerate. so how do we then managed the jihadi thread? firstly we have two of course continue to kill and capture al qaeda leaders. secondly we have to do much better at watering down the al qaeda brand and better countering the radicalization and recruitment by communicating more effectively to the core demographic from which al qaeda draws its strength. we need to be -- i'll a look at the one click example. the voice of america and the united states dedicates over 90% of its budget to traditional communications, newspaper radio and television. nothing wrong with that but that only reaches elites. and that reaches people my age in their 50s who are only in

the deployment world who takes its daily newspaper in its physical form yet only 6% of the budget is dedicated to the internet. there are more than 7000 terrorists on insurgent internet sites to repeatedly communicate to exactly the core demographic of terrorist movement. young people who don't read newspapers and don't want television news and don't listen to radio but get all their information from the internet yet we persist in our effort in not targeting this very important demographic. we also have to be more effective in assisting and abetting efforts to isolate al qaeda intellectually and theologically and here i think we have a history of missed opportunities. one key opportunity to give you a quick example is to harness the power of the victims of terrorism throughout the world and especially muslim victims of terrorism. i know of no government agencies anywhere that are doing any kind of organized and systematic racist. in fact my knowledge a young woman from washington d.c. in her mid-30s who tragically

lost her mother on september 11 to herself created a film nominated for an oscar in the name of that not only puts the victim's perspective of terrorism front and center using victims from jordan, indonesia and other countries, but also uses these victims to confront radical clerics on camera, to confront radicalized recruiters and thereby to show up, demonstrate their ideology and their clarion call to battle. yes we have to continue to put pressure on al qaeda finances but the front page of "the new york times" show the other day and fortunately we are supporting many of the people to support terrorist groups and i think tom friedman was exactly right in his op-ed that we have to break our dependency on overseas oil. finally we have to develop more expansive but tailored local initiatives in concert with hope nations -- host nations to destroy the al qaeda entities that have taken root in yemen,

somalia and elsewhere. and finally we have to recognize that only by destroying the organization's leadership, which i think we are doing an effective job of doing, but unfortunately that is only one dimension are one side of the coin. what we have to do with equal capacity, with similar resources and with similar priorities is also disrupt the continued resonance of al qaeda's message. only by doing both of those things will we be triumphant against this enemy. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much for his. we are now going to move to the next panel and the panels will come up and i encourage you during a coffee break if you have questions for bruce to try to grab him and talk to him for that excellent presentation and we will try to have all of this available to you later after the congress and -- conference in the form of a write up. we ask the panelists to please

come up. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning and a second welcome. my name is michael ryan and i am an associate of jamestown. i joined jamestown after both retiring from the federal government after longer and retiring from another think-tano work on projects unhindered and work with an organization that

is not a political bias or point of view but looks at deep analysis to try to portray some of the basic albums that confront us on security and otherwise. i think this panel today emphasizes that deep knowledge of all the panelists in their own way have that and i think the most important thing is to get right to them. the first of course is known probably to most if not all of you, general el haq from pakistan has a very distinguished and long career in the pakistani military, rising through many many time i could take up all his time talking about all of his accomplishments, his awards and many things, but basically working with president musharraf as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and being very much involved in the policies

that are most important to us today as with regards to pakistan and pakistan security. i have seen general el haq and talk to general el haq this morning and he says he is happy now that he is not handling policy and he can speak from the heart and speak frankly and he looks forward to your questions. so i'm going to give them that opportunity and challenge you when you do ask questions, to ask a question please do not do what i'm doing now in making a speech. and also, because general el haq was kind enough to fit a sin in an opportunity he had this morning in a schedule, he has an appointment he has to make right afterward so i'm going to break with tradition and i'm going to have to jentleson make his presentation and then we will break for questions at that point and the general is going to have to leave. so i will reintroduce them. thank you very much. general el haq.

>> this is indeed a privilege to have an opportunity to share my thoughts at this distinguished form. and i speak on two points. first, i will briefly talk about the situation in pakistan and the challenges that we face as well as how we proceed with the relationship between al qaeda and the taliban. as you are aware, pakistan has been confronted with overlapping crises extended over a long period of time, located at the crossroads of south, central,

asia and the persian gulf middle east. middle east. it has been severely impacted by the continuing strife in afghanistan and the presidents of foreign forces there. it is unrelenting and may i add magnifying hegemonic aspirations of india and the unresolved status of kashmir. as well as the strategic objectives of world powers, superpowers in our part of the world. the effective this adversarial impairment has created a complex security situation with both external and internal dimensions of existential proportions. the situation is further accentuated by pakistan's unstable political system, although we have transferred its

democracy and we have -- it has been welcome. and fortunately it hasn't been able to provide a stable political or expectations rose on governance or a demonstrated capacity to manage the serious challenges facing pakistan. as you are well aware, pakistan has been a victim as well as it has been in the front lines against the scourge of terrorism over the last nine years, pakistan has bombed the main front of al qaeda affiliated terrorism. besides terrorists in public places and places of worship, it has caused immense suffering and heavy loss of human life. our national leadership, security forces and intelligence

services have been repeatedly targeted to undermine our resolve and the targeting has not only been of them individually but their families as well. already, the number of casualties suffered has succeeded 10 times the number that were caused on on the day of 9/11. of these, over 10,000 or military casualties including 2700 fatalities. even the most unfairly maligned isi, which i had the honor after the events of 9/11, suffered almost 350 casualties per, twice as many as at mumbai and more than the cia would have suffered in its entire history.

therefore, terrorism may be an issue of vital concern for the world it is a life and death issue for us in pakistan. let me assure you that no matter how unacknowledged it may be, it may have been by the international community, our grievous sufferings have not undermined a resolve of the courageous and resilient people and armed forces of pakistan. extremism and terrorism is a complicated phenomenon of and warrants a holistic approach. pakistan has been implementing a multipronged strategy to eliminate terrorism and deny the use of military, political and developmental measures.

dialogue, development and deterrence. within this overarching framework, pakistan security forces have followed a strategy which may be more familiar, almost 160,000 troops have been employed to implement the military prong of the strategy. well clear prongs of the strategy have been successfully achieved in south waziristan and other parts of fata and they k. p. k. words have been apparent in the -- this leaves the potential for relapse of the process and the clear areas, a risk which pakistan and the world at large can ill afford.

pakistan's counterterrorism strategy with serious capacity issues. there is a need for adopting a unified state approach rather than -- in approach encompassing short and long-term objectives and strategy. a national counterterrorism authority has been formulated but has not yet been fully functional. political cleavages, adverse effects of the drone attacks which i feel are severely straining political consensus on our counterism strategy. capacity of police and other law enforcement agencies have been clearly highlighted. moreover, there has been a serious lack of capacity to train the terrorists financial and logistic support. and finally, there hasn't been adequate focus on the

ideological aspect of extremism and terrorism both internationally and in pakistan and in my view, a center of gravity of terrorism and extremism resides in its ideology rather than its leadership. although the leadership is being targeted to drone attacks, unfortunately work on developing an alternate narrative to defeat the ideology of hate has not been very prominent. now i shall briefly dilate on the relationship between al qaeda and the taliban. this is a fundamental question with strategic connotations for several reasons. firstly, because it was a perceived allegiance of the taliban to al qaeda before 9/11

and mullah amar's refusal that ostensibly led to the invasion of afghanistan. secondly, as the united states and nato readjusted its strategies in accordance with the prevailing realities curtails its objectives and focuses on seeking solutions, is essential to have a more incisive determination of the enemy of the text and nature of al qaeda, taliban is vital in this context. and thirdly, this is a critical question for us in the region particularly in pakistan. al qaeda is an -- phenomena within the international agenda which has had no hesitation in targeting the state of pakistan. there has been extensive media coverage and we just heard

dr. hoffman's talk on it and the analogies of the exact nature of the relationship between al qaeda and taliban. both studies in my view have provided comprehensive details of the affinities and differences in the worldview, ideology and traditional interpretation of the koran, social and ethnic composition, operational and approach to combat as well as the dynamics of leadership personalities. all thanks to the current debate on the u.s. strategy on pakistan and afghanistan and global terrorism extremism will find a trove of references to extend their particular specific

arguments. so i shall not delve into the details which you may address if you have any questions and will only submit some salience based on discussion. first, despite distinct differences of ethnic and cultural backgrounds and political ideological agenda, al qaeda did find a base in afghanistan and was not given up at the taliban in the wake of 9/11. however, there are now more and more voices highlighting redemptions between mullah amar and osama bin laden at that time and war could then averted and the lyrical solutions may have been possible.

secondly, a common existential threat and the comradeship of combat over the last nine years have enhanced trust, enter dependability and of course the fact al qaeda continues to recognize mullah omar as the commander of the faithful. it is a clear manifestation of that. whether this sort of integration or this sort of close relationship over the last nine years will lead to a new generation of taliban with a more international agenda is not clear so far due to diversity in the ranks of the taliban. on the other hand, despite these profound experiences, there has been no clear integration or

amalgamation of the two distinctly retaining their identities and there are reports of continuing rift and tensions. we keep hearing the al qaeda linkage. fees in itself are indicative that there is no consensus on the issue amongst the taliban. moreover, the taliban have jealously safeguarded their exclusivity of the right to governance and al qaeda on the other hand continues to have entirely a nonregional hierarchy despite operating in afghanistan and pakistan. you will not see an afghani or pakistani face amongst them. whether it is at the local level

or continues to remain an arab phenomena, does not accept local integration, that is something for you to discuss. the debate on whether a qaeda and the taliban can be separated in my view is invariably conducted in the context of military centric counterinsurgency strategies. it is quite unrealistic, and i may say naïveté to think that the two can be divided as long as there are hostilities on the way. only a credible, political track that offers realistic prospects of these and that ensures the participation of the core taliban leadership will put the taliban al qaeda nexus -- in the

face of decreasing rival alternative options, that may well become a necessity. i thank you. [applause] >> yes it is life. i am going to call for questions in a moment. i wanted to take the privilege of asking the first two questions together. and they are definitely related. the first is the general question that gets at repressor hoffman's presentation this morning and that is do you have a personal view over the years of a consistent strategy for pakistan that al qaeda has that is separate from its international agenda? and second they report that came out, i read it on six december,

that al qaeda representatives have been saying that they are planning for a summertime offensive in swat and they are doing training now and they want to tie down the army in pakistan. i think you have further reports. >> i think those are very excellent questions. please sir, dr. hoffman permit me to disagree on one aspect. i remember hearing this room i had spoken on the site couple of years back, two or three years back and we had been seeing this since 2001. and i will be frank here. i took over the -- on the day of the bombing in afghanistan started and i don't have any intelligence background. normally at the leadership level you don't require that. and i heard the term al qaeda and what it actually meant after

9/11, and yes, it was fair but i guess it was more in the realm of intelligence operatives discussing it. and right there in that we havee

pakistani armed forces have had tremendous success in pakistan particularly swat is a stunning example of successful military operation in a difficult environment in one's own country has done a good job of securing the area.

but, they are holding it very well but there are lapses because of resource constraints and because our civilian machinery hasn't been able to come up to the expectation and the base with which they should've taken over now by the military and stabilized so the possibility of a lapse is fair but i think it would be very exaggerated to think that al qaeda is going to resurrect, you know, the insurgency in swat. i don't think that is possible. >> if we could open up the floor for questions and again i would ask you to pose a question or kill anyone have a question at this time? yes, sir. >> i am sorry, the microphone is coming.

>> general el haq. >> can you give your name please? >> my name is -- is that good enough? al qaeda is not able to, or does not want to connect with the locals. there is then an external force. >> the extra regional force. not even a force. when i say an extra regional phenomenon, imagine they have been in our part of the world for the last maybe 20 years and yet, through their hierarchy, their own air of us from egypt and from south arabia and more tommy a gander should have been

some punjabis and flashdance and tajiks and those guys who have been there. the past chance should have been there. they are not there. >> thank you for clarifying this if i may ask you, if they are an external phenomenon and they are not putting roots down in different regions, then two things are possible that they will not eat as widespread and easy to single out and also it will be easier to extinguish them and why it has not been possible? >> yes, i will answer that question for you. is there another part of the question?

[inaudible] >> you now, first of all i am speaking out of conviction on this, that the center of gravity is their ideology and they find enormous attraction anywhere in the muslim world. unfortunately, the policies of the west have been the best recruiting force for them to find routes, to find support in any part of the muslim world. you must understand that. secondly, they have been intimately involved in the jihad starting from 1979 and many of them, are most of them, you know have been debtors from their

jihad said they quickly settled down and very quickly mix around. many of them have even married in part -- that part of the world. they have pashtun wives or pakistani wives and children and families are there so they have been able to integrate that way with the local populace. there is a certain arrogance and a certain reflection of the difference in what we would call a set. they are not prepared to accept anybody from afghanistan or pakistan to really go into that hierarchy. it continues to be dominated or exclusively hindered by arabs. this is what i wanted to explain. so, given this integration, given this experience that they

have gained in their part of the world over the last 20 years, it is not easy to segregate them and target them. >> we have time for i think one more question. yes, sir. wait for the microphone please, sir. and if you could identify yourself. >> just another professor of the subject. general el haq i wonder if you could enlighten us as to your outlook for lashkar gah and its various offshoots and reincarnations. i know it is a little bit off-topic for you but given that al qaeda in your estimation may not constitute the existential threat in pakistan give it its insularity, its cultural isolation in that small numbers, and as you've indicated the upper hand that the military seems to be gaining, what about

lashkar gah's. >> i will have to first of all of course, i don't like being ascribe certain words and i said that al qaeda is not -- i said they never hesitated. that is one thing. it is a threat. al qaeda may not have that sort of capability to pose an existential threat. when you say lashkar gah mycenae mean lashkar-e-taiba. because there are so many lashkar gah's and let me tell you the lashkar gah's which are more viciously hitting us is not the lashkar gah you are referring to. it is unfortunate that in places lashkar-e-taiba which has been more than one incident, the

mumbai incident so when it hits the headlines in jamestown, and it is coming from somewhere else. unfortunately, but let me tell you the lashkar-e-taiba, it has been in existence right from the afghan jihad days. i don't know, the names have been going up and down, and they have switched into the peshmerga you freedom struggle after that. they were banned by the government of pakistan in 2001. ..

..

i'm telling you this because the total lack of awareness of the situation and are part of the world. it has been involved in only one incident, while we were told we are supporting for not taking any action against them. this is a very valid question. a country like pakistan, which i told you have suffered 30,000 casualties in the last 10 years. we have been going through a 9/11 every year, more than that. we have to prioritize. we have 160,000 troops deployed in counterterrorism and 170,000. given the silo of pakistan of the 600,000, that means those of us from a military background

would know that it is a system of relief and rotation. now when there's a system of relief and rotation with 160,000 aircon 160,000 have come out as 160,000 preparing to move in and that takes care of the entire armed forces of pakistan. sometimes we're asked to do more of a look at the casualty list. allelic at our commitment commitment of forces and we also look at her successes, we certainly aren't amused. so with that sort of environment, with that sort of a commitment, we have to prioritize. and we don't mind. i'll be very blunt. you have to prioritize in the united states, despite the fact we have far more resources. you have al qaeda with gender, which was hitting a man, you would prioritize with al qaeda

in the presentation before me. why? because you're prioritizing. he prioritize. you will first tackle the one who is hitting you and not the one who's hitting iran. give us every two prioritize and pakistan also. we must prioritize first to tackle those who are getting us and then go for those who are not getting this, but are terrorists. that is how we view our terrorist organizations. they are a terrorist organization, but we have to prioritize first given the resources that they. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. [applause]

>> our next speaker is muhammad tahir. muhammad tahir as a journalist with over 12 years of experience, symbolic of the kind of person that we like to have talk about in depth, indigenous view of the situation. he served turkish television and if i may say, turkmen is fluent in all the regional languages. and today he's going to talk about the taliban moved north, situation in northern afghan. thank you. >> thank you very much for the

kind introduction and we have heard lots of ideas in many definitions about al qaeda. if it is not the situation in afghanistan, it's also very hard understanding complex. everyone has therefore an idea of what the subject in the country will take my opinion as one of them. however, i will try to look at the situation in the light of what it seemed in my recent trip to northern afghanistan, namely konduz province. i am from the region and i have grown up witnessing race with the taliban. and professionally speaking, situated a fantastic organization, i was working for the turkish television in the

region and therefore i frequently travel to the regions in afghanistan and different parts in afghanistan. and besides, i have longed for the region and a generalist during the past 12 years i have been to each region, and therefore a claim from time to time but the entire region is my playground. but in recent trip, i choose to travel to konduz province in northern afghanistan because while an south, east and western parts we have the situation in afghanistan. recently it seems things also began to change in northern afghanistan. so by being there and of course konduz is at the center of the situation. so by being there, i have tried to understand how it is in the

north. i was there in september partially to correct the election process in afghanistan. but at this time, i could only make the konduz province in northern afghanistan and extremely difficult circumstances. because when i shared my idea to konduz my colleagues told me it was the 16th idea especially because of the situation in the region. since air traffic was already suspended between konduz and kabul, i had to make this trip by road to kabul and the konduz highway come which also connects by the way to kabul.

while my colleagues were in kabul also told me that it's very common that the taliban and stops cars. they may search, so if it would have been to my car, the following steps would take me away. in a few days -- after a few days of torture, they put me in front of the camera and president of the cia agent because of my assimilation with the organization pleading guilty of some thing, then at least, you know, put this recording on youtube, which as i understand recently the television is good using as a method to pressure against the western countries. so while my colleagues refuse to join me in this trip, i decided to go ahead with a guy who would take me in his own car.

due to a dramatically changed situation, he said to make me there, he would need to hide me and play some tricks to make it happen. and part of the plan was for we were past between kabul and again we decided to go in the second day, which is the period of high mobilization in an attempt by afghanistan. so other than not, he also said that he will take his family in the same car because he understood that when there is a female inside the car, the taliban will unlikely stop them. he put me in the back to hide. so we met to conduce in this

way. just a little compress them before i go into detail. i was there last year. on that time i travel to the region, not only can do this pakistan. i sat down with the people, each with uncovered and drink green tea also and she northern afghanistan. nobody stopped me, nobody said anything. but at this time, i was not enjoying the freedom in the region. and then while my colleagues and kabul were also riding, saying this is on the way i see everything but the security. i saw people with a similar appearance like the taliban, openly working with their ak-47s on konduz highway. i passed through checkpoints

along the way. then i saw freshly attacked oil tankers throughout way. so again, it's an area in many of you might remember were highly highlighted with the issue we have had in konduz province. this was -- this is involving some of kabul's taliban who accuse them and brought them into their own justice system and they found them guilty of loving each other. and so, they put them to death. so when a country like afghanistan can run attacks it's a few probably to organize by highly mobile.

because, you know, it takes a little planning, a little operation. but when you look at the case of the stoning in that region, it gives you an idea how comfortable the taliban came in because first this issue was reported to the taliban. then, they convened court and later passed verdict. some of the convicts had been scheduled to execution and executed to their plan at the public ceremony, which is attended by about 200 people. and this is an area which afghan gosen claims. so it shows how the taliban becomes confident in the region. besides the afghan forces there, we have 5000 who are representing in the north.

so when i said i went to the north to be able to understand, this is what i mean because if we consider the taliban a militant and also cash to majority group, if we take the ethnic affiliation might have helped them to expand themselves. and how they settle down in the north. this is the big question. there are questions in the north, but in a very little minor. they are not in a position to help the taliban because of the possible consequences they might face in the future. that means that the taliban do not have the passion to play in afghanistan. despite that in recent months are increasingly expanding their presence in the north time a billion konduz province. therefore i focused my micro

study to this province, where government authority last four districts -- seven districts in the taliban. in konduz city itself became a very dangerous place to live today. while pashun is not there, people of the north are not isolated us in the south. so what are the elements of the taliban? mine were completely than the ethnic idea. they were somewhat logical and purely practical, which were hoping taliban and expand. for example come the lack of security was on those elements. because it was the lack of security, which led to the stoning of what happened in

konduz. it was the lack of security which made traveling to konduz but dangerous. and it was lack of efficient security when they conduce into taliban hands because on the taliban began chewing their muscle in the district, there were not enough security forces. so when the taliban gathered five people in any region, the next thing they do is they send them to put the police station on file and that is the signal which also shows who is the lord of the town. in the next thing that happens is they shut down the score there. as i mentioned earlier that prisons of militants has always been the case in konduz

province, based on stories i had on this trip, the situation hasn't changed very much in the north. because they are still the driving force behind the taliban are. in addition for a period of taliban, now today crossing borders with tajikistan and afghanistan. so among those militants are continuing to be tajiks today, people from southern russia on the middle eastern, pakistanis, some turkish i heard, some westerners out there still and some african nations. the problem with this type of militants are that they are not in ordinary taliban or ordinary insurgents because first of all they have nowhere to go as they

were driven out from other parts of the country or from waziristan and pakistan. you know, at the moment they are seeking any place to hide. so lack or cap of security in northern afghanistan will move them. so at the moment, they are northern afghanistan. so again, one other problem with these guys are as i mentioned that they don't have -- they don't have any other place to go. not the same time, they are not even welcomed by their families, so they fight till death. so while germans are ineffective in the region, afghan forces are weak. feel police officers present in the region are nowhere to make the determination when it comes to fighting. so that's how they are expanding taliban and expanding their muscle in the region. the other issue that i came across, which is hoping in a

different way to the taliban as the corruption among government officials in afghanistan. i don't know whether it's as popular in other parts of afghanistan, but whenever he talked about the rush in northern afghanistan, people might imagine one joke which involves president karzai. they say it's told like this that when few foreign delegates went to president karzai and cities got to stop this corruption. and he said, okay, i will do that, but how much are you ready to pay for me to do that? i accept this, but again when it goes to the grassroots level, its impact is disastrous. in case of other issues in konduz, it's called a monkey. this is ononkey. this is one district not

different from anyone and afghanistan. so in afghanistan u.s. have this used between plants, between neighbors. this dispute has always been there. so whenever you have the kind of shift of power, these are reemerged because they never took them back. so after the taliban was a security guard, again, we had the situation of the north. but there'll some police guys there representing government. but in that case, even they played canada negative role there because they were putting fire on these disputes. a flashing parties would keep going to their favor. so you know, it is something that people would like to -- people would like to start.

and who that someone at the moment is the taliban. so the corruption of either aspect of the top of the taliban, but the economists are unaffected, which is helping the taliban because i've been in the north and konduz have been there several times, but i don't see anything as changing there. people do not feel a comically change to the government. they are not seen anything change. so this got to have some sense of attachment. when you look at the economists situation of afghanistan as one of the poorest nations on earth come you can understand the importance of the economy, which is not happening at the moment. but while i'm just going to conclude with two remarks here. so in a situation in the article

is that i mentioned is in situations that it's not fun to read in an environment where you don't know what the next day is going to bring you. so people have no luxury to think about democracy, human rights or free elections in all these. therefore, it is not a surprise that if some people do not support the taliban, they also do not oppose the taliban. because of the simple fact the given today television provides at least what is most needed, better than government in an area where controls, which is security -- sense of security, since the justice. and having said this, i cannot think the taliban is a better option, of course. but the taliban has to be defeated, which they must be defeated if you want to a stable in afghanistan. but then, what is needed is

government which is supported by the international community at the ship performed better than taliban. thank you very much. [applause] >> were going to go directly into my next presentation and have questions at the end of those too. i think our next speaker is also well known to us here. imtiaz gul is in islamabad for research studies, which is your information tells you is focused on the second book, which is al qaeda connection in tribal areas. i hope are going to hear a lot about today and worth waziristan and the new tinderbox. >> good morning.

thank you, michael. first my gratitude to the jamestown foundation for having me over here. it's almost difficult to keep the audience engaged, particularly when three speakers of urdu spoken and to bring them out of the slump that they have been listened to for more than an hour. before i launch myself into my presentation, i would like to leave a thought with you. a few months ago i was sitting in islamabad is to swiss ambassadors, former ambassadors. and they had arranged one of the opinions here at the state department in early may 1888 and 1 of the ambassadors at that time -- when was the reporting officer. together with the ambassador and he had just come back from afghanistan to pakistan with some refugee camps in the area

to look at the curricula that the afghan children were being taught. so the ambassador octaves intraocular here. you know, i too look at the curricula is very alarming. is american occupants said you know, we are teaching them something with the help of which they will be freshened. so what we are discussing today is the aftermath of what we have embarked upon in the early 1980s, the cia, the isi to gather a sort of a joint project that we watch today on how to get rid of this modern hate. so let me -- this is what i was just talking about. the america versus al qaeda. this is what we are down to.

and if you look at those, our tribal areas, fatwa, which is being a very microscopic scrutiny, just because of north waziristan up there on ndebele. and this is something that general petraeus considers also very, very critical to any success in afghanistan. we -- we released a tinderbox today because of the calling of the crusaders of the past, which are being treated as kerry said today. so this is the major question confronting us all today. if you look at how this militants complex has developed a north waziristan, in particular over the last nine

years, i'd have to have a qaeda. we don't know whether osama bin laden is alive at all or not, but probably swahili is very much around. we do here is audio messages coming out of this region. now, it is not -- i would say not waziristan alone. it's the back tia region and paktika, which borders south and north waziristan. north waziristan alone is about 5000 square commoners, where is the greater petticoat region is more than 70,000 square kilometers and most of it is inaccessible to the coalition forces as to the afghan forces. but we really have to keep that in mind when we are questioning ourselves as to why the afghan army is not succeeding and why they are not moving against them. if you look at al qaeda, then this is the inspiration, the

prime inspiration that comes from this organization. i'm not inspiration before the try quadrille insurgencies, which musharraf is the taliban has with the haqqani network. now, if you look at what is happening there, you would have jihads. there are many organizations that emerged meanwhile. the mujahedin, which used to fight in kashmir. it was very closely ranked. and then you have washed our islam, which is the same strain, but located in the agency. if you look at north waziristan, then you have this constellation of like-minded groups under the haqqani network that is the big led by waziristan, but the real

man behind it -- being led by mohammed, was in a de facto peace deal with the pakistani government. then you have a 10 week taliban high k-kilo mehsud is considered to be the current theater. we don't know whether he's in still life. some people believe that he is dead as a result of an attack -- drone attack of january of this year. now come the i name you is also reportedly located there because the former leader was killed in a drone strike a year ago and was apparently the new leader that is leading with magnificence. then, you have flash card be shied away. i'm not going to retreat to the

state of denial at the rate he tried to because there are certain realities -- stark realities that we have to live with. i think there's a splintering splintering of lush cargo. i think these are some of the leaders you all be familiar with them. in the center, you see ilias kashmiri. he is the alias behind what i now consider to be leading operations for north waziristan. mullah omar, everybody knows. economists had i just mentioned. he's the deputy who used to be the trainer. he is reportedly also dead as a result of the drum strikes. we are a almost 100 tron strikes this year so far.

this is again basically what i just explained. the last point -- the second point, the i.e. meal i just mention and the losses there is the arabs, chechens and also criminal games. what has happened over the years as the collusion between militancy is a crime has also emerged. and this is i think what has kept us destabilized. as well, if you look at the khyber agency or if you look at the other tribal areas, crime or criminal gangs have devised themselves as taliban, as militants and are indulging in criminal activities like abductions for ransom. in the shower, for instance, we have 172 cases of abductions. the police is pursuing.

and we presumed that most of these objections, most of the groups are being protected by lush carries on as the hygiene montauban, which you can see on your. now, this is -- i just spoke about pushcart bjp which is splintered into smaller groups. one of course is being led by -- and in baluchistan and in baluchistan and the police have invested to major gangs that belonged to the last cart. probably some of you might have heard about the execution of a former isi operator who the asian tigers basically claimed responsibility for that.

this is an organization that was born out of the red mosque corp. in july 2007. that operation, which probably killed about 120 plus people in the mosque in the heart of islamabad gave birth to the force. it was a force that also emerged -- if all its basically revenge on the pakistani army as well as other security apparatus for having killed their people inside the mosque aired it was the 10th of july i guess. now this is just a description of how lashkar-e-taiba has devolved. four or five groups around it. and i think it becomes easier for them because you defuse the command and control structures so they get -- they have a joint common agenda, but they can operate from different pocket.

now, i just mentioned this collusion of militants -- militancy and crying. there is one group operating in north waziristan. we have heard there using the army fatigues and they are involved in extortion since smuggling and also an abductions for ransom. this is about a wise chancellor of one of the universities, a relative of the chief minister of the province has been intent to beauty for the past almost at least three months. the university closed down to basically demand his release or recovery, but obviously apparently the government is also helpless. there've been many high-profile abductions and may eventually have to be relieved after payment of huge ransoms. this is one regular source of funding for the militant groups besides smuggling and besides

trade -- a legal trade i would say. so some of the pictures leaked the response of the militants to the war on terror that we've seen come the militants have continuously attacked symbols of functional state. they've attacked police, the army. they've attacked shrines. you see on the right to shine that was attacked with several dozen people killed. on the left is the horror, which is the symbol of the unity of the horror. it is basically the sunni saint. they were buried here and thousands of people basically calm. i'm an objective probably was to discourage people from coming there. it's typical al qaeda tactic because they don't like shines. they don't like mausoleums. then we had also on october 5th, 1 big attack

outside killing several dozen people. to have been harmed so far basically which are emanating out of north waziristan and south waziristan region by the people who are hiding out there and at least 50 suicide bombings we've seen this year so far. now, i say that the moscow corporation in july 2007 was a game changer because it gave birth to the rossi force. then the palace and emerson 2007 and then boom by 2007 attack. these are the game changer subdivided to the complexities of the security environment in pakistan and afghanistan and i think posing a big challenge to other stakeholders. now, they think bruce was talking about the draft national

militants. these are some of the groups which i think share a common narrative, basically comes from outside. and then we have local auxiliaries. i called invention into terrorism. the ambassador called it a force multiplier. i called and the al qaeda accelerates because they are operating on the same ideology. now it's pakistan of what to do, go after the people in north waziristan or all of those who are held up or just wait and allow cancer to spread. there is a big dilemma right now i'm frankly the pakistani authorities because they fear the bloody blowback from the people who have tentacles all across the country. so keeping in view one question

as to whether or not some of the people in north waziristan are strategic assets or they are cacti and very deadly creeper, which is an closer graduate and extending its tentacles are opposing an existence threat to pakistan and to the rest of the world. so i think this is a big dilemma right now that pakistan currently faces. the short-term fears versus the long-term strategic social political interest of pakistan i would say she'll have to find middle ground to take on these people, neutralize them and inspire their domain impact in society. thank you very much. [applause] >> i believe we're running a bit

late, but we can take questions for a period of about five minutes. so i'd ask you to keep the questions short and you can direct them either to the panel in general or to an individual and start right now. in the back, if you could identify yourselves and wait for the -- wait for the microphone. >> this is a question. i am from pakistan, working here as an attorney. my question is that it is a true that lashkar-e-taiba is a religious group that belongs to the faith of pakistan, where is lashkar-e-taiba, which is

basically the group that is working in pashley, but also has international page and a. and how is this adequate lashkar-e-taiba could lashkar-e-taiba is basically under steve's right now. and they are protect unit. >> is that it? teaneck for the question. i think they operated the same tactical and political levels because they share the same ideology, as long as it is any action, any against the united states of america and its allies. they operate, they cooperate and they try to inflict as much

casualty, as much knowledge as possible to all those who basically are the collaborators that the united states of america. >> gentleman here. >> i work for the voice of america, but i don't resent voice of america here. i'm originally from qatar in pakistan. my question is we have 100,000 pakistani troops in the intelligence agencies and police in qatar. the guitar is a city of no more than 1 million people. we have this quite sure -- they are obviously controlling the whole taliban movement in

pakistan. and they are giving -- i mean, they are the center of taliban afghanistan, in charge of the whole war from condos to herat. in the presence of 100,000 troop plus the intelligence agency -- i mean, they are searching people from house to house, how is it possible that the shura still operate? and after 10 years, not a single member has been caught? >> thank you very much. if this question came from an american or european, i wouldn't be surprised. but i am surprised when it comes from you. i was actually in qatar three days before coming here. i spent three days. i looked around. there are plenty of pakistani american and former officials.

the american office of the defense representative has also been functional they are. officially it was announced a few weeks ago here in washington, but it has been functional for quite some time, so it is announced sbi, cia representation in qatar i must say. and the way the issue has been protect that i think is a little mind-boggling. even pakistanis when common pakistanis visit qatar from islamabad and lahore, so common cash tunes going to the desires, they were coming across because they wear the same dress. they were the same turbines. 99% of the people are bearded. the way this is being projected is not correct. yes, afghanistan -- baluchistan

at 12 shares about 1300 kilometers of border with afghanistan. there have been cross-border relationships, friendships, businesses, business contacts. that's why people keep coming and going. if you say the taliban leaders are coming to pakistan, coming to qatar, it is quite possible and probably they are coming and going most probably. but if one were to say there is a regular commanded control structure in the presence of the american and a six isi and farmers in the network of intelligence operators, then i think i really have basically questioned the intentions of those questions that there is a command-and-control structure. if khalid sheikh mohammed could have been arrested from behind the general headquarters pakistan army, if others they

are could have been arrested pretty close to a police colony, why can't mullah omar and other people be arrested if they are living in qatar? so for me it is a very simple question. yeah? sure. >> i have to thank you. at the last word. thank you very much. think the panelists and thank you well. >> we're going to take a 15 minute break. [applause] before we break, i would like to encourage you, there is a fishbowl outside. we have two tickets or for tickets to the army navy game this weekend. these are club level street ticket. will have your business card in the fishbowl out front and will have a raffle later today to give way to set the ticket to the army navy game. these come if you're interested in these tickets and you really want them, so each person that will wind will get two tickets.

so just put it outside him a break and turnabout teen minute. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible