>> but it doesn't answer my question which it already exceeded the time but does anybody have the comment on whether or not we need to strengthen the law regarding the kind of things that were done or alleged to have been done by wikileaks to okwu disinformation or any other from the government and i would contrast, the acquirer from the corporation. >> i don't know if wikileaks did try to pay for the information but if there were any complicity between wikileaks and the person who actually pulled the information out of the government then wikileaks could be charged as an acre or a better work conspirator of the leaked. that person then wikileaks wouldn't enjoy whatever additional first amendment protections they have as a news organization rather the are charged as a conspirator or were the person that is of the leak. it would be easy to meet because there would be charged like the

wikileaks and those charged by the alumni demonstration as was problematic because it isn't -- they are not going to be charged as a press organization, rather as someone who is composite -- >> that is the current law, correct? >> i agree, all i would add as it is not be as problematic would certainly be as unprecedented. tsp not act hasn't been used to my knowledge to prosecute someone on a liability. co-conspirator etc. it's been supported i do think we would still wait on some of the issues you heard us discard this morning about applying the integrated statute to the small full fury. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. we now turn to the gentleman from virginia, the chairman of the subcommittee on crime, bobby scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman and for calling this hearing.

you know, one of the problems in pressing criminal law is in of the challenges if we pass a criminal law we are expected to be challenged on the constitutionality that would have to be consistent with the president and we of the pentagon papers the alerts us to the fact that anything we do in this area is going to be problematic. the law also has to be precise. it can't be subjective after the fact, well in this case i think it is bad enough to prosecute the conduct to be prescribed it has to be precise. i am inclined to think what happened in the wikileaks situation ought to be eagle, but i think we have a consensus on the panel if nothing else that we ought to take our time and get this thing done right. let me just ask, i am going to talk about a couple of issues and ask everybody to respond to them one of which my colleague from virginia just talked about and that this should it matter

what you helped to obtain the information or you got it slipped under the door you don't have anything to do with it in terms of your publication, and does it matter if you knew full well that it was classified and should make a difference that it should or should not have been classified? second, we have heard a lot about the intent to harm or whether that did harm. that is going to have a problem with practicality and criminal law because whether or not the leak harm, if you did something to sell the post the iraq war mike and we started the debate there would be a lot of people that would conclude you did more good than harm although obviously if you lose that the date, you have committed a crime. and whether or not even though it did harm you didn't intend for it to harm. should that be a defense? the fact you rejected some of it but not all of it, should that

help you or not? and part of this i don't know from practicality point of view, you are up there and have been arrested for publishing the material and do you get an opportunity to debate the iraq war met before a jury if you in the the date your not guilty and if you lose the the date your guilty? if you are lucky enough to be in one jurisdiction where they hate the iraqi war might your in good shape for to the material you get stuck in another jurisdiction you're in deep trouble, crime, different jurisdictions. from just a practicality point of view, can you talk about some of these conditions and just yield the panel the balance of my time. ..

press people, cajole, encourage, types of people in the government all the time. they are actively engaged in trying to find out that which the government does not want to disclose. they are involved. they are not taken out the national enquirer on a thousand dollars and paying for an information. we think that is a clearer line of the first amendment. i'm not sure that it is, but where do you draw the line then when journalists doing her or his job very well and is figuring out ways to cajole somebody to say that which they are trying not to? theoretically i think yes but i think practically no. i think the issue of whether the media or the third party or the protected entity knows something

is classified, the present law doesn't make the disclosure of classified information. it makes disclosure of what is called information relating to the national defense, and we are now seeing with classified, overclassification that the fact it is classified may give a presumption that there is a potential danger in its release but it is the beginning of the conversation. and i don't think that is going to be meaningful distinction today when you redraw this law some day. it may be one that again is congressman goodlatte was saying how we prevent overclassification by making sure there's a defense for example that if something is improperly classified? therefore knowledge that it is classified as not really going to be dispositive. the intent is very difficult, so you are right. there should never be a law that says whether not the outcome was what you intended. that that is, intended to submarine the policy of iraq, consequently i did what i did and i didn't submarine the

policy or enriches but it was better to do that not do. it has to be at the front and. it has to be in 10. that as you know the same in every criminal case, trying to define the defendants intend by whatever their direct circumstantial evidence are is going to be the challenge even in a classification kind of a case. so again somebody saying to the government gee, i reject. somebody who makes them public. somebody who does things overly as somebody who appears to wear a disguise and is dealing in drop boxes in the middle of the park. you can tell the difference between somebody's intended by their behavior and finally, he raised a really excellent last point. they are all excellent but this one as a trial lawyer, when you are defining somebody's intent and you are saying i felt like they need to expose the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that plays differently to a jury in alexandria virginia dynamite in the washington d.c., then it might in some other place in the

country and that is why among other reasons at least the presumption in some of these cases are brought in the district of virginia or at least the prosecutors believe they have a more sympathetic jury. >> if i could just that briefly congressman you also raced, putting the jury in the decision of deciding whether something is rightly classified or not and it is important to keep in mind that if congress were to add an improper classification defense into any revision of the law, you are still putting in an incredibly high burden on the few of the defendants are but taken quite a substantial risks if you really think at the end of the day, his freedom whether he is going to go to jail for 25, 30 years depends on his ability to commence the jury that something was wrong to classify. i think that is not a legal argument but that puts a pretty heavy some on the scale of why that would not open the door to massive leaks and individuals who thought things were wrongly classified. those are pretty severe

consequences to take such a long shot on. >> mr. chairman, mr. congressman i was just add to what my colleagues have said, but a number of them have suggested we should alter the law to have an intent to injure and this is one of your points. i think there is reason to believe that which dad and -- would open the floodgates for leakers. there are many saudi terry reasons for leaking, but there could be considerable disagreement about what actually is salutary. the current law, which has reason to believe could injure the united states seems to capture behavior that they would really like to keep from occurring, keep genuine secrets secret. >> what burden of proof would you have that somebody also believe that this was good for the country although some juries will conclude it is bad for the country and others -- i mean you have to prove, does the prosecution have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did

not believe that what he was doing was the right thing? >> i am not sure of the answer to that. i think it is important here again to distinguish --. >> are we talking about a good faith exception leaking? >> i think it is important to say between the leaker and the publisher. the leaker can be regulated. much more aggressively and there i think it is sufficient to say that knowing disclosure of classified information is properly classified. >> congressman one more thing on your last point. you know the present statute gleaned by the courts to the attentional requirements to show mr. schoenfeld's pointed out that you had a belief that it could injure, whether that is good enough. let me tell you why it is not good enough. what is could injure mean? what if you believed it was a 1% chance that it could injure and that 99% chance that it wouldn't? wherein that slope to the

somebody become a felon subject to 20 years in jail and that is difficult, especially difficult in a first amendment context. >> congressman i think the short answer is you don't write one statute, you write three and that you have one statute that is focused at espionage. you have one statute that is focused on leaking as mike call it professor points out. you can impose higher burdens -- make you can hold government placed a higher standard and you have a third statute that deals with private citizens with no intent to harm the national security of the united states. that is the incredibly tricky one to write, but no matter how it is written, i think having those categories separated out what have a substantial improvement in recognizing the burden should be different in those three cases. to be such a positive

development compared to the status quo that really almost anything would be beneficial. >> there is great benefit in having a very rigorous and narrow statute on publication of information. that puts pressure on the government to keep the secret in the first place. so they can't punish wikileaks because they don't have direct intent. they know that and they are serious about their secrecy. they will then take what is necessary to keep the information secret. if they can do that they will get lazy and sloppy on the results. >> thank you very much, bobby scott, for that interesting exchange. i turn now to the distinguished gentleman from iowa, steve king. >> thank you pitcher chairman. i did think witnesses.

an outstanding lineup of witnesses here and i would turn my first question to mr. lowell. it caught my attention in speaking about intent, and in this discussion we have had in this dialogue about intent i would be curious as to if you had separate intent, and they be three almost simultaneous identical acts by different entities with different intent, are they still guilty of the same crime? speak to put pressure on the bone congressman king, in my brief introductory remarks today i said the statute, i was speaking about section 793 specifically, could apply again first to the government employee who has the confidentiality agreement and then said something or did something that he or she should not offend any of the person who he is doing it to. could be a foreign-policy want. to be somebody else and then you can have the reporter who sa said overheard the published

article in there all responsible for releasing the exact same information and they may be releasing it in different ways. ironically the last here is going to expose its the most amount of people. the first person in the confidentiality agreement is disclosing it to the least number of people and yet it is easier to prosecute the first as professor stone and others said they should be, then the last. so let's take that intent against the last three. as to the government employee, he or she knows that based on the confidentiality agreement whatever he or she does that it is not supposed to occur in there are very few excuses to go outside of channels to do it. if you protect whistleblowers and putting that aside the intent requirement is easier to prove. to the person is not in the confidentiality agreement and is actively engaged in the exchange as were the defendants in the so-called aipac case, that was very problematic because on monday white house officials are state department officials brought the men did discuss

foreign-policy that they wanted them to no end in three days later somebody had a different level called upon the phone and talk about the same policy that was the subject of their indictment. their intent there for credit been proved by showing what was legal on monday should not be illegal on wednesday and then finally when you get to the point of the media, that is for all the comments of the intent requirement depending on their complicity in the original leaks will make a big difference. so you can take the fay can have three different standards of intent and still survive i think under constitutional scheme. >> mr. wainstein, your comments on that. >> congressman king i actually agree with the idea of having a tripartite approach. steve vladeck described i think narrowing the provision for each of these different categories is going to make a more targeted legislation. >> then let me take this to, the injury to the united states.

what does that mean and how can that be proven? >> that is also another sticking point in the whole wikileaks situation. i think you heard a little bit of that today. the question okay how damaging was that? may be back in the first charge that came out about dod, the dod documents about afghanistan, there were troop movements and alike. a lot of that stuff ended up getting taken out later on. is obviously sliding scale and when you are dealing with the first amendment 1 of the justifications especially if you are looking to prosecute a news organization, and organizations sort of in the shoes of a news outlet, you have to look at whether you are justifying the prosecution and the encouragement on their press activities in order to address arms of the nation. that is one of the big issues that the partners looking at right now going throughout the things that have been released to these wikileaks disclosures and seeing what the identifiable pieces of damaging information are in there.

>> i turned to mr. schoenfeld and you believe the espionage act should apply to a foreign defendant that is operating outside of the united united st? >> i think it could and should be applied and i think that what he has done with wikileaks has done is to certainly endanger, as a number of ranking members that member sets that come endanger our forces and the danger allied forces and civilians in afghanistan and iraq. the idea that the united states has no recourse in the face of this is unacceptable, and i think looking at the law, whoever discloses. >> while you have the microphone and for the record again, and appreciate if you could just summarize those five points that you made in the closing part of your opening statement. >> if i might take the liberty of looking at them. more attention to declassification.

attention to giving legitimate whistleblowers viable avenues other than the media to which they can turn. reestablishing deterrence of leakers and the government so that those who leak have reason to fear they will be prosecuted. bringing down the weight of public opinion and canst leakers certainly and against those who publish vital secrets, not just ordinary kinds of secrets or the daily affairs of american journalism. and some extraordinary cases, prosecution of media outlets that publish secrets which endanger the public. i would say in a classic case as we mentioned here is the "chicago tribune" case. but there are other cases that are approach that line in more recent years. the pentagon papers case, the documents that daniels burt turned over to "the new york times" where historical in nature. there was not a single but in that collection that was less than three years old. some of the material that was published by the "new york

times" in the last years and fined 11 is an operational ongoing intelligence program like a monitoring program. i read the new york city subway and so do millions of others and there are people out there determined to bomb those. this is a program designed to stop those people that we compromise. the seriousness of that and the responsibility of journalism in some cases as been extraordinary in this period, much much different than the kinds of things the times published in 1971. >> kenya says -- speculate on the motive for releasing information that is classified? >> there were two substantial leaks and that period. the first was the nsa wireless warned program and at the time they had an argument that this was a violation of the fisa act and there is legitimate debate about that. they believed that i think they performed a public service. we come to this swift program. they been warned by ranking

officials, democrats, republicans and lee hamilton one of the cochairman of the 9/11 commission not to publish this material and they would have. i don't think they have offered a very convincing justification for doing so. one of the reporters, eric lichtblau said the story was above all else and this is a quote an interesting yarn, but follows. for such a person with such gravity i think one can't imagine any more trivial rationale. >> the that answers is selling newspapers. my clock ran out a while back but i appreciate your testimony and i yield back. >> i am pleased to recognize the distinguished gentlelady from houston, texas, a very active member of the committee, sheila jackson-lee. >> mr. chairman let me thank you very much and i don't want to be prisms as to suggest that this may be the last hearing of the subject, but because i know that

this committee works very long hours into the night going to the session but let me thank you very much. for your astuteness in recognizing the importance of this hearing. for those of us who are in a quandary if you will. i will. i sit on the homeland security committee and spending many hours and classified meetings, in the cryptic if you will, listening to the array of threats against this country and frankly around the world. but i may also, or it comes to mind that if you become too restrictive and you have a law that is an ineffective in the espionage law, you also impact what can be the modern day, if you will, whistleblower. and another has been a

distinction made with the pentagon papers, sort of an after-the-fact report as opposed to these documents that are current and in place. so, i would like you gentlemen to help me with a quandary that i am and to limit information, limit the potential effectiveness of government. but on the other hand, i don't know whether or not we had a hearing mr. chairman and i am sure we did. my memory fails me but i remember distinctly as sitting vice president, blowing the cover of an active-duty cia agent and it was interesting to hear the response in that instance of this person whose cover was blown and as sitting vice president who thought he was completely right for either didn't minute or had someone else unfortunately be the fall guy for it.

but i think in the g. shared committee is important to really understand the law. there is some dispute. the wikileaks owner, leader, in the case that they did right the london ambassador and sought to have certain information redacted and no one responded but there is a november 27 letter from the state department saying don't release anything. abbe it is good to see you again. help me with that, because there was an effort made. i understand that the difficulty of the espionage law is knowing that you are disclosing classified information. doesn't have any provision for someone who tried to work with the appropriate person, because i guess i see a difference of opinion. i try to work with you. you did not want to work with me. what is the culpability?

i'm going to yield to you first and i just want to talk about the law and how does that relate to that specific action? >> great to see you congresswoman again. let's distinguish where the law isn't how it applies versus what people say it can be approved -- i can prove. the elements you are addressing goes to the following issues. when somebody is accused of violating 793 or 798 under the present espionage act if they are government employee, we have discussed the fact that they don't have the same back-and-forth ability to show that they did not have a reason to believe that their conduct would injure the united states or benefit an adversary or a foreign country. so in the context that you are asking into one the committees addressing which for example might be the wikileaks case. >> outside of that sphere. >> the then the question is, the

back-and-forth between julian assange to date and the other newspapers and government officials, here is what i have, what would harm, what would you like redacted, goes to something. where it goes to is when the government prosecute somebody in that position, that person, the government has to prove beyond reasonable doubt a certain intent. the defendant in that situation will be able to raise that kind of conduct to show that the intent was not want that had the mind to reason to believe to injure but was quite the opposite, that he was doing his best, recognizing that he and others would say was with his first amendment duties to do what was right and also showing his intent was a good one. the problem is that this is subject to a prosecutor deciding, i'm still going to charge him and let a jury decide whether the intent was okay. and is one of the other member said the difference between

trying a case in jurisdiction one versus jurisdiction to want something that is just called in tandem i hope that is responsive. >> notice and then i would like professor stone to take a stab at that and mr. lowell -- abbe and i worked together in the past and mention the first amendment rights. d. want to give me some sense of where that plays a role? >> sure. again, i think the government's ability to regulate the activities of its own employees who have signed secrecy agreements is considerable and that is where the focus should be, on keeping that information secret if it really needs to be kept secret. once we move into the realm of public discourse, then we should be extremely careful and the first amendment demands that we be extremely careful. schoenfeld, the incident from world war ii was public

information that revealed the fact that we were aware of a japanese secret code and we have been using that that is the way of advancing our own war. had that information been made available to the japanese, sick could have been given the fact that it was published, that would have been in fact a situation where there was a clear and imminent danger as opposed to grave harm to the united states so we would have lost a pivotal benefit in fighting world war ii. and that seems to me the paradigm case where a situation, where knowing the disclosure of that sort of information can be subject to criminal prosecution. the key to that example is that it happens centric. nothing in the wikileaks comes close to that. is important to say that is a situation where you can go after published to our disseminators of information who are not such a relationship of government. when it does happen it merits -- but beyond that we should be focusing our attention on the

situation of keeping information secret in the first place announcing government where secrecy is backed -- escap or crispy mr. schoenfeld you have a different perspective but i think both of us i think have the same goal. i'm a member of the homeland security commitment i don't fool around with potential terrorist threats and/or the new climate we live in but my quandary is, if we freeze down on the wikileaks, we freeze down even on information that may help us in the war against terror, they think the professor makes a very definitive.. i am embarrassed that the materials are accessible. how do you respond to the idea? >> i agree with professor stone that they "chicago tribune" case is really of a different order of problem that they are there would have been the kind of immediate and irreparable harm

and really does not flow from anything that appears in the wikileaks documents. but that is not to say that there is not significant harm from that release. i agree with you, we are all better informed now than we were two weeks ago, before those documents appeared about what our government does. there is no question there's a public in a fit that flows from that kind of leak. but there is the damage done from particular documents themselves which we have only really began to understand. there are so many different kinds of ramifications from these documents but what also has happened is a single to the ability of the u.s. government to conduct its diplomacy in secret, which is a critical task for keeping the beast. if our foreign diplomats can't speak candidly to american government officials we are not going to be well-informed about what is going on abroad. >> well, my message then is first of all i wondered

diplomats to speak candidly and i want their government to come into the world with 21st century technology so technology so that a young ella terry personnel, 23 years old, doesn't have the ability to hack into it. they will handle his case now don't think we are discussing that right now but we do have the burden and responsibility you are absolutely right. the candidness is appropriate. i understand the pundits have indicated that we look good but we don't know what else is coming. we looks good because we were consistent in our cable to our basic policy. that puts a smile on my face but the point is that if lives are put in jeopardy and again i go back to the vice president that blew the cover of a cia agent, to me that is a direct threat on some individuals life. if liza been put in jeopardy we have a different, if if you will, framework to operate under but your message to me is that we now have to get more sophisticated in how we do. i see my team -- i -- time.

can i just get the last two or three witnesses to comment? if you adjust quickly -- the dilemma, there was in korea and i think mr. lowell made it clear that someone's intent is in play here. mr. vladeck? >> congressman the only thing i would and if you mentioned at the beginning of your questioning his people are going to focus on the person who is doing the leaking and focusing on the government employee. the other piece of this is the whistleblowing and whether the whistleblowing laws are adequate to provide opportunities to government employees who have come across wrongdoing to have remedies other than going to their local newspaper and with that in mind they think is worth noting that i believe last friday. >> the new appointed person. >> i do think that recognizing

that is part of the conversation and that strengthening the federal whistleblower laws especially as they apply to the intelligence community could actually legally banned this conversation as well by reducing the number of occasions where governor employees will feel the need or the lack of other remedies when they come across information. >> if you would. >> congresswoman i think that is very important caveat to what professor stone was saying that the government has a lot more power to regulate the employee benefits to regulate the media and i would add overclassification as gabriel stone -- schoenfeld said. decanted with the overclassification we can't really protect serious whistleblowing that i think the government is not on such solid ground on coming down hard on its own employees and regulating them and that more severe way that professor stone says is constitutional.

>> mr. stone, thank you for your service to this nation. >> i think the point you earlier make that the disclosures by wikileaks can actually enhance our national security, the disclosures do damage. they do damage to government violations, to war crimes, to torture, to the kind of policies that inflame and expand the opposition to us by people who never had any entity to us and we can all cite peter goss and gerald casey and others who basically pointed that out, that our presence in these countries if we are not careful provides fertile ground for more opposition and more risk to our national security. so in that sense, these leaks build up public opinion and congressional engagement to hold the government's feet to the fire as the government under the rule of law and under constitutional standards in its foreign and military policies.

>> chairman, if you could just finish and that i will finish. >> thank you very much congresswoman. providing protections for people who see something wrong with american season want to disclose it and not only do we need to make sure we have sufficient laws to protect whistleblowers and prevent retaliation but also procedures, user-friendly procedures in agencies so if i'm an agency and i do something corrupt a run and i want to raise it it up it is easy for me to do so. i don't have to worry about retaliation. that is important because obviously the laws and procedures are in place to make it easy and seamless to do that and there was no reason that person is to go to the press so in addition to looking at the loss in the over said the looks of the agencies especially the intelligence committee to ensure that a d.c. to the whistle without fear would be useful. >> thank you mr. chairman. this is to you mr. chairman.

this is a bipartisan hearing about simply want to see maybe if we go to the next session in a bipartisan way we can look at whistleblower or as you well know that no fear act that needs to, that has to do with protecting government employees against whistleblower comments and i hope we will do that. thank you mr. chairman and i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the ranking member of the first subcommittee of this committee, the gentleman from north carolina, howard coble. >> mr. chairman i want to commend the panelists for their durability today. mr. wainstein you mentioned enacting a provision to prohibit the classified information by government employees regardless to national security. what are the pros and cons of cop -- such a statute and do we run the risk of igniting more classification than currently

exists in an effort to prevent dissemination of the unsavory but not necessarily damaging material? >> that is a very good questions around that actually harkens back to something that abbe lowell mentioned about how back in 2000 that statute was passed actually and then president clinton vetoed it in a statute basically said if you are a government employee and you signed this nondisclosure and andy disclose classified information, then you are guilty. the pro-is that is very clean. you don't have to show damage. you don't have to get into this back-and-forth of wedded this was damaging to disclose secrets about the iraq war are good because the iraq war need to be examined more closely. it is just clear. universe possibility as a government employee to protect classified information. you willingly and knowingly disclosed, you are guilty. the con side of course is that as you pointed out there is so

much information that is classified that it would be chilling to many government employees when they are going to talk to people that gee all it takes is one step over the line and i get into one iota of classification and i'm guilty. you know and if i intensely disclose that i can't talk about anything, so one of the cons is that it will end up, people will be scared to talk to the press and people will be scared to talk to congress because they are worried they will trip over classified information it might have people who will be prosecuted for information which though classified as you pointed out may not really be all that sensitive and might be either a matter of mistaken classification or something which is embarrassing but not really. >> thank you for that, sir. mr. schoenfeld is it your belief that the first amendment confers on journalists an absolute right to publish classified information or government

secrets? >> no, it is not anything from what i've heard on the panel there is some agreement with me that under some circumstances journals can be prosecuted under the espionage doctrine. into harken back to the "chicago tribune" case, we have a case where i think the espionage statutes would apply. the story came out that lost the lives of tens of thousands of u.s. servicemen and prolonged the war, so the supreme court of course in the pentagon papers case, five of the nine justices i noted earlier did suggest that the case came to them not as a priority case but after-the-fact is an espionage act for prosecution or section 798 prosecution they would strongly consider holding a convention of the material at issue was material that the congress had indeed prescribed under those statutes. >> i got you. thank you sir.

professor stone we touched on this but let me run it by you again. does wikileaks enjoy the same protections as traditional journalism organizations and in the internet age how do we distinguish between traditional media and the new media and does the law contemplates such distinction? >> i think realistically it is impossible to do that. the supreme court itself in the first amendment has arias refused to define who is aggressive and in any event the speech clause as as been noted is an independent protection so although that may be frustrating i think there is a practical reality there is no way to distinguish wikileaks from "the new york times" or from a blogger. they are all part of the freedom of speech and the first amendment protection. now that doesn't mean that the conduct may not be treated differently depending upon what they actually do but i think in terms of the nature of the institution or individuals, as a

practical matter that is not going to be a sustainable line of inquiry. >> thank you gentlemen for being with us today and i yield back mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. coble. i now turn to bill dave hunt, the distinguished gentleman from massachusetts. >> thank you mr. chairman and this has been a very informative discussion. we are talking about legislation and that problems of drafting appropriate language and the issues of intent etc.. but i still go back to what i said. until congress and particularly members of this committee addressed the issue of the classification processes, we are operating in the dark. we don't understand the classification process. i wonder if anyone on the panel

braley does in terms of the steps, who classifies? i have heard some of you use the term improper classification. who makes that decision? i have heard the term authorized leaks. what in the hell is an authorized leaks? is that a leak that you know, someone in the administration can do, but we can't? what struck me again when i chair the oversight committee on foreign affairs was we would get material that was rejected, page after page after page after page,. all you new or all you saw was the number. and that of course the next day you would read in the

newspapers, but i guess that was a good leak as opposed to a badly. so, i hope, and i would direct this to my colleague from iowa, i hope with the new congress that congress conducts a series of hearings where it demands an explanation of the process itself. are we going to rely on bureaucrats, you know, at a lower level, to to do good reduction? who does all this? help me with the ministry. can anyone here? may be icu abbe nodding your head. give it a shot. >> i can't answer that question in a blanket fashion across all agencies in all parts of the department of defense and all places in the world but i can answer it based on the materials

i have seen on the cases i have litigated and you are raising a point. so, in the aipac lobbyist case, by the time we were done and getting ready for trial there was no fewer then, i don't know, for 5000 pieces of paper that were in a classification mode at one level or another. as an executive order which has criteria for why something is classified, very specific categories of the potential harm that the release of that document or information could cause. like every other thing you have been talking about today those aren't microscopic definitions in a mathematical way. they are subjected to begin with. one for example talks about interference with the nation's foreign policy or foreign relations, relations with a foreign country. >> what does that mean? >> then, the second question is who gets to decide, you ask. >> that is the key.

>> and many agencies what you'll find it is not just the secretary or the deputy or the assistant secretary or its equivalent. is the lowest level of the person working on the subject subject everyday. >> that is my concern. that is my concern. i think that issue is the predicate for addressing the concerns that usa panel have address. you have got to begin their. we really have to do a thorough review because i would testify in the next congress that as chair of that committee, i saw material that was classified that was absurd that it was classified and was just building up a backlog of classified information that everyone in this room today would concur ought to be in the public domain the concern that i have is not so much about wikileaks but

about what we are not having access to any democracy. and again, i hope that in the future it is addressed, whether it is in this committee or any committee. may be a select committee is actually needed and people coming in who actually do the classification, not the secretary, not the head of the agency but to hear it. i had occasion working with congressman longer where we had concern about information that was being disseminated from the fbi. it was very revealing in terms of how it was done. and i'm not saying it was the classification was done in good faith. but it clearly did not come, in my judgment, meet any kind of standard in terms of classification.

that has got to be reviews. >> you have got a couple of great assets at your disposal for the next session. there is a terrific review board called the public -- headed by the head of the national office. howdy changed on the front and? every single classification decision that a bureaucrat makes generates extreme cost to the taxpayer that goes on indefinitely until somebody like me ask you that document to get release. that is a terrible way to do business. should be automatic after a certain sunset on everyone every one of the secrets. there is a wonderful little office called the information security oversight office that audits the secrecy system. they are smart. that of the office is the guy who coined the term wiki mania that i've been using in my statement. call us and give us more

resources. i think they have 29 people on this massive over classified security system and they need some help. they can guide you through how does the stamp get made. the last thing i would ask fisher chairman, we have done about four different postings that support the consensus on the committee of massive overclassification. congressman poe, and on it and agreed with congressman thale hunt. this is a piece of declassified process one week apart in the first time they cut out the middle, blacked it out in the second time they cut out the top in the bottom. the slide them together and you've got the whole thing. the punchline is that was the same senior reviewer. we have these graphic -- and i

hope we do something about it. >> who authorizes these by the way? >> there's that famous quote from james baker the former secretary of state under president george h. w. bush who said they'd ship of state is an unusual state. it is the only one that leaks from the top. and i think daniel schorr once, and with david gergen brought into the white house jim baker said leaking at the high level, they need somebody to leak at the mid-level. >> you know what i find ironic of course is the umbrage that some will take about some leaks but i guess it is not their leaks. they were good leaks and bad i guess is the bottom line. >> mr. nader? >> congressman, part of this goes back to the integrity of the civil servant and protecting it and leading civil servants and people who work in the armed forces and the executive branch take their conscience to work

and if you look at the civil service oath of office it is not to the cabinet secretary. is not to the president. it is to the highest moral standards. a lot of this idiocy and overclassification comes from the lack of internal self-confidence that they will have reasonable protection by civil servants who would say this is foolish to do this. i will give you one example. 40 years ago one agency of the government wanted to get the u.s. navy the amount of water pollution coming out of naval bases. the navy denied the then agency dealing with water pollution. they did night the disclosure of the volume of sewage going into the ocean on the grounds that the chinese and the soviets could use that information in order to determine how many sailors were on the base. that is a level of foolishness

that could have been net in the bud if we supported our civil servants and basically recognize that this is overall a struggle between individual conscience of people up against the organizational machine if we call bureaucracy. and we all we should bring back the civil service oath of office. very short, very compelling. they'll have to take it. we should protect them in a future that can be implemented in their daily work. >> thank you very much. your additional time was granted at the leaves of steve king of iowa. we now turn to the distinguished gentleman from arizona, trent franks. >> thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate it. i appreciate all of you folks being here, challenging the subject this morning. i think it is obvious to me and

perhaps to all of us that no human being regardless of their education or training is really confident to apply and are the full extent of the actual damage that a week like -- leak like wikileaks could cause. h. -- potential and determine damage and i think it would be completely hopeless endeavor so i i'm convinced obviously that julian assange cannot possibly be able to project what the potential damage of what he did is all about. that is a significant point but in light of that obvious truth, i'm wondering if it is time perhaps for us to rewrite our statues to establish some sort of lower burden for the prosecutor when it comes to proving the likelihood that a leak could cause actual damage and the necessary level of intent under the statute itself. mr. schoenfeld you mentioned in your testimony that the ill effects of information leaks can

sometimes take years to manifest and you mentioned pearl harbor in the book the american black chamber as an example which i think is a brilliant example, where the book disclosed certain things that perhaps could have prevented pearl harbor and i'm going to try to get you to expand on that a little bit, and you know our government i understand actually considered prosecuting the author of the book but still like the prosecution and the public nature of the mike in light in japan even more than what the book did. so i'm hoping that you can describe what my kids banned by the outside observer to be the unforeseen consequences of the leaks through the book and if hypothetically the author of the american black chamber were to be tried criminally for disclosing intelligence information today what level do you think a prosecutor would be able to show in this case?

i guess purposeful or malicious intent to aid in the bombing of pearl harbor would not be one of them. that would probably be a little too strong but what about perhaps a recklessness? i know it is difficult to show melissa's intent but yet the devastation it that was caused of pearl harbor and my last memory of the numbers in that war was 50 million dead was kind of the big deal, the whole war. and so in light of this do you think we should reconsider the elements of our espionage statutes? i have given you a complicated question there. tell us about lack chamber. tell us how it all fits and how you think you would approach that today. >> thank you very much. that is a very interesting question. he was probably america's leading cryptographer in the 1920s. he was put out of his job after secretary of state stimson said gentlemen don't -- fell on hard

times in the depression and wrote a book called the american black chamber, basically voted to make a pile of money. the full history of american code breaking efforts including our successes in the washington naval congress in 1921 where we broke the japanese diplomatic codes and we were able to have negotiations. in the book came out it was treated much like eric wicklow regarding his own story and at times, and ingesting and highly entertaining is what an american newspaper said about it but in japan accosts it costs an absolute fear about the laxity with which their own government had treated them. is that the japanese government over the course of the 1930s to invest heavily in additional code security and they developed a purple machine which was really an breakable. one of the consequences was that it delayed -- it slow down the pace with which our code breaking effort could read

japanese cables and we were somewhat behind when pearl harbor came along. we missed crucial signals that pearl harbor was the intended destination of the japanese attack. now, if you are if he were to be prosecuted today, it would he not a hard case because the intent provisions of protection 798 which govern communications intelligence are very clear. it is one of those unusual provisions of american law where the act itself is a crime. and so, there might be a constitutional challenge but the statute itself does not have a requirement. as for relaxing the espionage act, overall i am cautious about changing is that anyway. i think congress should move very slowly. white meat and it has real cost. tightening it has -- has other

costs so i don't have an answer but i think hearings like this with attorneys and i'm not an attorney who has worked closely with the act, are very much in order. >> thank you. mr. chairman chairman my time is up that i really wanted to know i appreciate the response that i hope that kind of puts things in perspective here. sometimes there is no way to possibly anticipate what certainly can cause in this case it really caused japan to rewrite and reassess their codes and potentially could have prevented pearl harbor. in the 911 world we live than it is a relevant consideration and i thank you is your chairman. >> thank you very much, but professor stone wanted to get one comment and about your question. >> thank you mr. chairman. i think it is very important not

to get fixated on this question that does the speech cause some harm. one of the things the supreme court pick it up pretty quickly is that almost all speech causes harm. is not harmless and so they made a terrible mistake during world war i which is they took the position because criticism of the war would undermine the morale of the american people it might lead people to refuse to accept induction into the military and that could be punished because it might have harm. what they figured out pretty quickly after that is that you can't prohibit speech that criticizes an ongoing war because it might have harm. speech does have harm and in the pentagon papers case although the court said there was not likely and grave harm, certainly we were revealing all sorts of confidential information about the past, with respect to our allies, that we made alliances

that had been publicly disclosed before, that made more difficult for us to negotiate in the future. if the standard focuses on harm to draw the u.s. given up. >> thank you very much and we thank trent franks for raising this line of discussion. i turn now to my good friend, the chairman of the courts subcommittee, hank johnson of georgia. >> thank you mr. chairman for holding this very important hearing. thank you panelist for burying through it. before i ask a few questions, i would like to respectfully remind my colleagues that the wikileaks organization and mr. gillian assange are publishers. now if they can be shown that they in some way aided and

abetted in the perpetration or commission of a crime or if they were parties to a crime, then they could be subject to prosecution. buds, the justice department has yet to come forward with an indictment and, until and unless an indictment is issued, and until there is a trial, or an indictment, then mr. assange is entitled to a presumption of innocence by law, and his guilt would have to be proved -- they would have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before that

cloak of innocents, that presumption of innocence could be removed from him. so, first i would like to just settle us down and let us look at the situation through that lens. we do have constitutional rightt to speak freely and a right to publish the first amendment. and i would also like to point out the fact that the all of the documents that were made available to wikileaks are not all classified. some are classified, but there have been -- there have been

indications from secretary robert gates that the releases thus far have not significantly harmed overall u.s. interest. and a quote from secretary gates, it's as follows. the fact is government with the united states because it is in their interests, not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they think we they can keep secrets. and so while there is a public furor about the release of the documents and >> and so while there is a public furor about the release of the documents and the information contained therein disclosed to the public, we must

not get carried away in a ferver who what has occurred and these leaks and i assume they do undermine national security and the ability diplomats to do their jobs and american personnel who actually engage in compromising this classified information should be prosecuted. and it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. but unless those criminal allegations are proven, let's be careful. and let's insist on that presumption of innocence. now, the "new york times" is also publishing this information.

and we aren't shutting down their website or encouraging an international manhunt for its editors. and we cannot allow whatever outrage that we may have, whether or not it would be justified or not, to cloud our judgment about our fundamental right to a freedom of the press. now, we've -- we've got to acknowledge more than just the publishing of this material -- this is actually a failure of the u.s. to protect its material. after all, it's a private first class who is alleged to have had access to this treasure trove of

information and the ability to download it. primarily, it's our fault. that this information was released. and we need to -- and if there is a service or if there is a positive twist on what has occurred, it is that we've been made aware of a softness in our protection of our important information. and, therefore, we now, because of public disclosure, we're now in a position to correct and make safer and fail proof our information. for that i would like to thank mr. assange for that public

service. we certainly should do a better job of protection instead of embarking upon crusade to harass and even prosecute publishers of information. and i trust that our justice department will look very carefully at this case and the chilling effect that a prosecution that is unwarranted could have on our ability to -- to enjoy our first amendment freedoms in this country. the administration has directed federal agencies to prohibit their employees from accessing

wikileaks documents on their work computers. it has also been reported that a state department employee and lumbarists of columbia university school of international and public affairs has warned school officials that students interested in a diplomatic career should not access the documents, even from their home computers. if i may ask mr. blanton and mr. nader, what are your thoughts about this? and since the ship-free internet access has been a priority for us as we have dealt with other countries, particularly, china, and we encourage them to open up to have free internet or freedom of internet access, do you see

where our current stance could be -- could place us in an untenable position in assuming a moral high ground for making those kinds of arguments to those around the world who don't enjoy the same freedom as we do? mr. blanton and then mr. nader. >> mr. congressman, that wonderful example from columbia university, i think the best answer to that came from a professor there named gary sick, who was a career navy officer and searched under the several presidents. and he opened up a meeting at columbia and said if there's any student of international affairs who is not reading the wikileaks cables, then they should be thrown out of the profession because this is essential information. the air force is doing this. this is silly. the air force is restricting its

own open source information. this is just silly. it's self-defeating. i'm sure it will end. it doesn't get us anywhere. and there's -- the larger question you're going to and i think this is where the slippery slope that that he was talking about. he thought the act should apply to foreigners. well, i have to say, on our website, the national security arki, we published the meetings with mao tse-tung with the presidents. that's top secret information and certainly be subject to their espionage hackett so they get a right to prosecute me on that basis. i'm sorry. i don't think so. i think we should limit our own laws and move to a different type of standard what transparency we can bring about in governments worldwide. >> i think those recommendations first of all, futile, and you can't enforce it. and chilling and induces not the

best type of contentious civil servant or foreign service officer that these students should aspire to. the second point on china is very well put. hillary clinton is not presently recalling her remarks when she in effect, if anything, lauded the lauded the hacksters in china for breaking through chinese censorship o-internet. and as you implied, we can't lecture the world. hillary clinton would be a very good witness before this committee next year to explain not only what she perceives as the freedom of chinese hackers

compared to other hackers. how she has neglected has done what secretary gates has done which has downplayed the importance in terms of damage and risk and the release of these state department cables. the more gates and clinton downplay this, it seems the stronger case julian assange has for what he's done. >> let me ask if anybody sees any benefits that has accrued from this unauthorized disclosure of documents, of confidential documents? some of which are secret? >> i think -- congressman, i think there are unquestionably benefits but as professor stone mentioned a few minutes ago, there's also always harm >> and we've talked about the harm.

i just i want to talk about the benefits. >> no, i get the point. and i think -- it's hard to dispute that having access, having public access to information that wasn't in the public domain and should have been is always a positive thing. that, you know, to use the old aforism that sunshine is the best disinfectant. >> anyone else? >> one quick thing is, this is a benefit. this is a clear benefit from these events because it's allowing congress to sift through again 100-year-old statute to ensure that it's still working the way it is and for all the other values that we have. so in that sense that it has sponsored this kind of public discourse and we are the better for it, i think. >> we have some amongst us here in congress who feel that government is the problem.

government is -- as soon as it starts putting its hands in things, and then everything goes haywire. i don't know how we resolve that basic conflict, although, i guess those folks who would say that the government gets in the way are confining their objections to -- to a commercial context and not a security context. but it is still ironic that there would be those who would chip away at a -- really hack way at our right for free speech and a free press while at the same time wanting to get government out of the regulatory

business with respect to commercial activities. so with that, i will -- i will yield back. thank you, mr. chairman >> you're welcome, chairman jackson >> i think not many are around to listen to my comments. the chair is pleased to recognize judge charles gonzalez of texas. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and mr. lowell. thank you very much for characterizing the hearing of the united states congress and that's something that's beneficial that hasn't been the most popular statements in reference to what we've been doing so thank you. the first question is, whatever we do here, it does have implications for matters that are really the jurisdiction of other committees but very important and i think y'all recognize this. so i would want a yes or no from

each of the witnesses because we are talking about the conduit and we're talking about the recipient of the information. that's been provided to them. would you agree -- well, yes or no. is the amazon cloud server a recipient? is an internet service provider a rhode island? -- recipient? dean stone, yes or no. >> yes, but it's unconstitutional? >> yes but what? >> it's unconstitutional >> but they would be -- the conduit, the medium is a recipient? >> under a literal definition i would say yes but it would be unconstitutional to apply it that way >> mr. lowell? >> yes, they are recipient. the statute will apply once they redisclose, not -- it's not a crime to receive. it's a crime to retransmit which they're doing by allowing people onto their site.

and like professor, such an application would be gross overapplication and unconstitutional. >> yes. it would be a recipient and i guess it could fall within the statute but it's very unlikely anybody would ever want to prosecute it and it would have to await -- while there is a provision that if you retain and do not tell -- return the information to the government, there's certain circumstances you could be prosecuted. it's very unlikely that such an idea would be prosecuted even if it in turn distributed beyond the service >> i'm sorry. it is a recipient. i agree with mr. weinstein that it's very unlikely any prosecutor would have tackle it. there's so many other more blatant leaks that have not been prosecuted. that one seems really a stretch. >> yes. i would just echo mr. weinstein's point.

i think the key is the retention provision of the espionage act. i think the government would far more quickly prosecute for retention than for publication. that's i think where you would see the constitutional problems that the professors alluded to. >> come on, mr. blanton, disagree. >> yes, but should never be prosecuted. just never >> mr. nader? >> no, it's a conduit contractor >> see, i'm with you mr. nader. it has huge implications, unbelievable implications. 'cause then i really think you need to prosecute the person that provided the ink for the newspaper. the person that provided the paper for the newspaper. and you're saying it's unlikely. but crazy things happen. crazy things happen when people are scared and there's fear out there. this question will go to mr. lowell. and let's see who else -- y'all

have given us certain suggestions and i think they're excellent. and it all comes down the basic principles all along and that's intent. so let's say we tighten up how we classify information. and we find this formula and we find the arbiter. we've got the criteria. it's tightened down. it's legitimately classified. and then someone violates their oath. that's easy. i mean, that person is going to be prosecuted. he should be. and persecuted, likely. and that happens. but now we go to that person that receives the information. and you say -- mr. lowell i think introduced to intent to injure the united states. how do you define specific intent? you can't say well, i -- i saw

it and anyone who knows that this is -- could be injurious to the legitimate interest of the united states or do you start having something at that point in time that you should assume a reasonable person should assume she's things. is it just the traditional principles that we always apply? 'cause i understand. i think you're on to something and you still have to have the intent but i never had -- i don't recall someone acknowledging that they intended to do certain things when their whole defense is that they're not culpable and never had that intent. so we end up back on the intent question. >> well, either congress will end up in the intent or the courts will end up with the intent issue. and when both of them do, they'll look to various things that are as you pointed out, true in every criminal case to look to see what a person accused an intent by a person's statements, the context in which they acted and the circumstantial evidence that a

government employee sees their immediate boss is talking to the press about a topic that person may have a good faith belief that's okay to talk about even if it includes classified information. if a recipient is acting in context of his or her job as a lobbyist or as a member of the press or even a free speech context, and hears something and retransmits it because there's no indication there's no particular damage and it's part of the person's job and it goes to that person's intent. if the person sees that they are operating overtly and covertly they are not stealing information they didn't pay for it and they didn't bribe anybody for it, then there's evidence of their intent. the issues of bad faith and good faith apply in almost every criminal prosecution in a white collar context. this is no different. it will just be unique as to what will show the good or bad faith. >> i really don't think they have. i think it's exactly right. i think the only -- the only piece that i might tack on at the very end is whether there would be circumstances where we would also want to include recklessness.

you know, where we might also -- where we might allow for prosecution. if we can show that the defendant acted completely recklessly and without regard for any of the safeguards that are built into the statute but otherwise i totally agree with mr. lowell. >> mr. chairman, i thank you. i do one last observation and that is when we all went to law school we remember times of war, the law is silent. you remember that? the constitution is not a suicide pact. the problem in today's world is that wars are indefinite. wars are open-ended. wars are not even declared and that's what really is probably one of the greatest problems for us is what's, i guess, the new normal out here. thank you very much. and i yield back. >> i want to thank you very much, judge gonzalez, for your

concluding the questions in this hearing. this hearing has a certain poignantcy because it may be our final hearing in the 111th congress. but we may be coming back next week, so i can't be conclusive in sharing with you that this will be my last hearing as chair. >> mr. chairman, if you come back, i'll come back, too. if you'll yield i would like to say that while it is indefinite exactly how much longer we'll be able to call you mr. chairman in the official capacity, you'll always be mr. chairman to all of us. you've done a great job as chairman of the committee. very fair to the minority. so we look forward to reciprocating next year. >> thank you so much.

and i want to say to these seven gentlemen that have been with us since early this morning, this may be, in fact, for me personally one of the most hearings that the committee has undertaken. and i am already talking with mr. goodlatte about the possibility of a subsequent hearing on the same subject. in the 112th congress. and so we thank you as sincerely as all of us can and declare these hearings adjourned. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you all. [inaudible conversations]

>> i can only get people to consider the words that we have a serious case here where the obama administration is trying to create new law through changing interpretation of existing law >> as the justice department considers a legal case and congress weighs its options see

what journalists and lawmakers and founder julian assange have said on wikileaks online at the c-span website. it's washington your way.

>> talking about the latest u.s. review of afghanistan, president obama said yesterday more progress needs to be made on the political and security fronts in that country. following the president, we'll hear from secretary of state hillary clinton and defense secretary robert gates. from the white house briefing room, this is about an hour. >> good morning, everybody. when i announced our new strategy for afghanistan and pakistan last december, i directed my national security team to regularly assess our efforts and review our progress after one year. that's what we've done consistently over the course of the past 12 months. weekly updates from the field,

monthly meetings with my national security team and in my frequent consultations with our afghan, pakistani and kohl's partners and that's what we've done as part of our annual review, which is now complete. i want to thank secretary clinton and secretary gates for their leadership. since joint chief of staff admiral mullen is in afghanistan i'm pleased that we're joined by general cartwright. our efforts also reflect the dedication of ambassador richard holbrooke whose memory we remember and whose work will continue. the attributes of richard that have poured across the globe speak to both the enormous impact of his life and to the broad international commitment to our shared efforts in this critical region. i have spoken with president karzai of afghanistan as well as president zargori of pakistan.

i want to talk to the american people in areas where we stand and where we need to do better. i want to be clear, this continues to be a very difficult endeavor but i can report that thanks to the extraordinary service of our troops and civilians on the ground, we are on track to achieve our goals. it's important to remember why we remain in afghanistan. it was afghanistan where al-qaeda plotted the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 innocent people. it is the tribal regions along the afghan/pakistan border from which terrorists have launched more attacks against our homeland and our allies. and if even wider insurgency were to engulf afghanistan that would give al-qaeda even more space to plan these attacks. that's why from the start i've been very clear about our core goal. it's not to defeat every last

threat to the security of afghanistan because ultimately it is afghans who must secure their country. it's not nation-building because it is afghans who must build their nation. rather, we are focused on disrupting, dismantling and afghanistan in afghanistan and pakistan. in pursuit of our core goal we are seeing significant progress. today, al-qaeda senior leadership in the border region of afghanistan and pakistan is under more pressure than at any point since they fled afghanistan nine years ago. senior leaders have been killed. it's harder for them to recruit, it's harder for me to travel, it's harder for them to train and plot and launch attacks. in short, al-qaeda has hunkered down. it will take time to ultimately defeat al-qaeda and remains a

groupless and resilient group aimed at hurting our country. we will dismantle that terrorist organization. in afghanistan we remain focused on the three areas of our strategy. our military effort to break the taliban's momentum and train afghan forces so that they can take the lead, our civilian effort to promote effective governance and development, and regional cooperation, especially with pakistan. because our strategy has to succeed on both sides of the border. indeed, for the first time in years we put in place the strategy and the resources that our efforts in afghanistan demand. and because we've ended our combat mission in iraq and brought home nearly 100,000 of our troops from iraq, we're in a better position to give our forces in afghanistan the support and equipment they need to achieve their missions. and our drawdown in iraq also

means that today there are tens of thousands fewer americans deployed in harm's way than when i took office. with those additional forces in afghanistan, we are making considerable gains toward our military objectives. the additional military and civilian personnel that i ordered in afghanistan are now in place as well as additional forces from our coalition which has grown to 49 nations. along with our afghanistan partners we've gone on the offensive targeting the taliban and its leaders and pushing them out of their strongholds. as i said when i visited our troops in afghanistan earlier this month. progress comes slowly. and at a very high price in the lives of our men and women in uniform. in many places, the gains we've made are still fragile and reversible. but there is no question we are clearing more areas from taliban control and more afghans are reclaiming their communities.

to ensure afghans can take responsibility we continue to focus on training. targets for the growth of afghanistan security forces are being met. and because of the contributions of additional trainers from our coalition partners, i'm confident we will continue to meet our goals. i would add that much of this progress, the speed with which our troops deployed this year, the increase in recruiting and training of afghan forces and the additional troops and trainers from other nations -- much of this is the result of us having sent a clear signal that we will begin the transition of responsibility to afghans and start reducing american forces next july. this sense of urgency also helped galvanized the coalition of the goals we had at the nato summit in lisbon that we are moving towards a new phase in afghanistan, a transition to full afghan lead for security

that will begin early next year and will conclude in 2014. and we will forge a new strategic partnership with afghanistan next year, so that we make it clear that the united states is committed to the long-term security and development of the afghan people.

finally, we will continue to focus on our relationship with pakistan. increasingly, the pakistani government recognizes that terrorist networks in its border regions are a threat to all our countries, especially pakistan. we've welcomed major pakistani offensives in the tribal regions. we will continue to help strengthen pakistanis' capacity to root out terrorists. nevertheless, progress has not come fast enough. so we will continue to insist to pakistani leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with. at the same time, we need to support the economic and political development that is critical to pakistan's future. as part of our strategic dialogue with pakistan, we will work to deepen trust and cooperation. we'll speed up our investment in civilian institutions and projects that improve the lives of pakistanis. we'll intensify our efforts to encourage closer cooperation between pakistan and afghanistan. and, next year, i look forward

to an exchange of visits, including my visit to pakistan, because the united states is committed to an enduring partnership that helps deliver improved security, development, and justice for the pakistani people. again, none of these challenges that i've outlined will be easy. there are more difficult days ahead. but as a nation, we can draw strength from the service of our fellow americans. on my recent visit to afghanistan, i visited a medical unit and pinned purple hearts on some of our wounded warriors. i met with a platoon that had just lost six of their teammates. despite the tough fight, despite all their sacrifice, they continue to stand up for our security and for our values that we hold so dear. we're going to have to continue to stand up. we'll continue to give our brave troops and civilians the strategy and resources they need to succeed. we will never waver from our

goal of disrupting, dismantling, and ultimately defeating al qaeda. we will forge enduring partnerships with people who are committed to progress and to peace. and we will continue to do everything in our power to ensure the security and the safety of the american people. so, with that, vice president biden and myself will depart, and i'm going to turn it over to secretaries clinton, gates, as well as vice chairman cartwright, and they will be able to answer your questions and give you a more detailed briefing. thank you very much. >> good morning. i appreciate very much the president's words about ambassador holbrooke. it was a week ago this morning that he and i and members of our team coordinating about this

review and the conclusions to be drawn. as many have observed, he was certainly a giant of diplomacy, but he understood how difficult the commission that he had been given was, and he threw himself into it with every fiber of his larger than life being. he was deeply committed to its success, and he and his team, two members of which are with me today, the acting special representative frank ruggiero, who has on the ground expressly one of our civilian teams in kandahar for your, and dan feldman, who has been another deputy in the operation focusing on our strategy going forward. both ambassador holbrooke and i approached this review keenly

aware of where things stood 22 months ago. this administration, i think it's fair to remind us all, inherited an extraordinarily difficult situation. there was no co-chair strategy to unify america's efforts in the region. there was no clearly defined mission, and our people, both our military and our civilian forces, lacked the resources they needed to get any progress accomplished. today we have a very different story to tell. president obama announced a strategy a year ago that defined a clear mission and committed the resources needed to accomplish it. today's review shows that while we face serious challenges, as the president has just outlined,

key parts of our strategy are indeed working well. in pakistan, we have moved beyond a purely transactional relationship dominated by military cooperation. we now have brought engagement on both the civilian and military sides. through the strategic dialogue and we established last year, pakistan and united states have begun a long-term commitment to work together not just on security and on energy, agriculture, education, health and other areas that directly affect the daily lives of the pakistani people. there have been, they will continue to be obstacles and setbacks, but our conclusion is that our partnership is slowly but steadily improving. we have greater cooperation and understanding, and that is yielding tangible results on the ground. in afghanistan, power surge is not simply military.

we have expanded our presence from 320 civilians less than two years ago to 1100 today. publishing our mission requires close cooperation between our civilians, our troops and our international and afghan partners. we have worked together to arrest the momentum of the taliban. civilians have been particularly instrumental in the progress we've seen in helibond and kandahar, and they will be critical in helping us consolidate the gains we've made in the last year as we move toward a transition to afghan responsibility. our strategy also recognizes that rebuilding afghanistan is a global commitment. the isaf coalition continues to grow. today it stands at 49 countries. nato and our partners, including the many oic, the organization of islamic countries, that have recently joined the international contact group, know that helping the afghan

people and standing up against violent extremism is essential for the region and the world. disallowed of our international effort was on full display at the nato summit in lisbon last month where the coalition committed to a long-term partnership with afghanistan while laying out a plan for the afghan government to take responsibility for its own security. the transition will begin in 2011 and conclude in 2014. now, of course we are clear eyed about the way ahead. the review emphasized the need for a political process in afghanistan, including reconciliation and expanded regional and international diplomacy. it needs to complement the continued military presence in to leverage the consensus that we reached in lisbon. in pakistan, it will be important to keep making progress and limiting sanctuaries for extremist, and we must continue to close the gap between kabul and islamabad.

now, we know we won't accomplish the goals that the president has said fourth today, tomorrow or next month, but we are committed and believe we are progressing in our coal -- in our core goal of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al qaeda in the region, and becoming strong partners with both countries for the long-term. we will not come in fact, we dare not, repeat history. we will continue to support the people of afghanistan and pakistan as they work to build their future. one that is secure, prosperous and free, and does not pose a threat to the people of the united states. >> i'd also like to add my condolences to the holbrook family. richard was a tireless advocate for peace, edicated public servant, and an old friend. we at the department of defense will miss him. i just returned a week ago from another trip to afghanistan

where i saw first hand out efforts across the country, and met with troops and commanders on the ground. i saw personally how international and afghan forces have halted taliban momentum throughout the country and our reversing it in their traditional strongholds of kandahar and helmand. the sense of progress among those closest to the fight is palpable. in my last visit last week with troops at a forward operating base near kandahar, i met with our brave young men and women and their afghan army partners, who have taken new territory, cleared it, secured it and held it, and you are now in the process of linking their newly established zone of security with those in helmand province. as we expected and warned, u.s. coalition and afghan forces are suffering more casualties as we push into these areas long controlled by the taliban. fighting in the east, where i sought out our troops are

focused on disrupting taliban insurgents and prevent them from gaining access to population senators, has also picked up. but as result of a tough fight underway, the taliban control far less territory today than he did a year ago. the bottom line is that the military progress made in just the past three to four months since the last of the additional 30,000 u.s. troops arrived has exceeded my expectations. central to these efforts has been the growth of the afghan security forces in both size and capability. and they aren't ahead of schedule. more than 65,000 new recruits or join the fight issue, and virtually all of them are now rifle qualified, as opposed to only a third of them in november of 2009. afghan troops are already responsible for security in kabul, and are increasingly taking the lead in kandahar, where they make i up more than %

of the fighting forces. they are performing well in partnership with coalition troops and will continue to improve with the right training, equipment and support. the growth of local security initiatives is helping communities protect themselves against the taliban, while denying insurgents sanctuary in freedom of movement. at the same time, pakistan has committed over 140,000 troops to operations in extremist safe havens along the border in coordination with afghan and coalition forces on the afghan side. though we believe the pakistanis can and must do more to shut down the flow of insurgents across the border, it is important remember that these kinds of military operations in the tribal areas would have been considered unthinkable two years ago. and the pakistani military has simultaneously been contending with the historic flooding that has devastated much of the country. while our progress in afghanistan, as both the president and secretary clinton have said, is fragile and reversible, i believe that we

will be able to achieve the key goals laid out by the president last year and further embraced by other nato heads of state in lisbon. that is, for afghan forces to begin taking a security lead in the coming year, and for the afghan government to assume security responsibility countrywide by the end of 2014. this process has already begun in places like kabul, and will accelerate in the spring and summer of 2011. the transition will spread nationwide overtime. it will be gradual, and it will be based on conditions on the ground. i'd like to close with a special word of thanks and holiday greetings to our troops and their families, and especially to those who are serving in afghanistan. it is their sacrifice that has made this progress possible. i regret that we will be asking more of them in the months and years to come. >> thank you, robert. a two-part question for

secretary gates, secretary clinton, general cartwright, and if i may follow-up with you on a separate matter. >> that covers covers it. [laughter] >> the key phrase is games that are fragile and reversible. and i'm wondering, i think the american public would like to know is it fair to assume or conclude that the bulk of the 100,000 troops there will be there for a long haul, and that the withdrawal that begins in july will be quite gradual, lower than modest. and so, win and for how long will those -- with the bulk of the troops be there? >> well, first of all, the key to our success and to the completion of the transition of security responsibility in 2014 is the continued expansion of the afghan national security forces. and i think the expectation on

the part of both ourselves and our partners in the coalition is that as the afghans increase their capability, then we can move to more challenging parts of the country and at the same time all of us begin drawing down our forces, again, based on conditions on the ground. but just as the afghans are already in control of security in the kabul area, and as i mentioned, are taking the lead in the kandahar area, visit early to pass out for everybody. as the afghans -- the whole idea in the military strategy is to halt the momentum of the taliban, reverse it, degrade their capabilities and deny them control of major population centers. at the same time, you build the capacity of the afghan national security forces to take on a

degraded taliban. in terms of when the troops come out, the president has made clear it'll be conditions-based. in terms of what that line looks like beyond july 2011, i think the answer is we don't know at this point. but the hope is that as we progress, that those drawdowns will be able to accelerate. >> but conditions-based right now indicate a commitment of well into 2013, well into -- what does it tell you based on the conditions you see right now? >> well, one of the metrics that we are looking at is the importance of continually testing whether we are achieving our goals by whether we are able to transition to afghanistan -- to afghan and authority within a period of 18 to 24 months of arriving in a particular area. and for example, the campaign in

march a has-been, has taken longer and been more difficult than we anticipated, but the reality is we have made significant progress at this point. and if you look at marja in terms of next summer, so six months from now, we think we're going to be in a pretty good place in marja and will be -- and our troops already have been out in marja itself and are moving to their areas beyond marja. so this is going to be a process that goes on and we will be evaluating it on a continuing basis. >> can you win this if militants continue to have free passage into pakistan, find safe haven there? can you crack down in a stronger way with the pakistani government to crack down on their safe havens? >> well, first of all, they don't have a free pass at this point. there are a lot, as we say in our building, kinetic actions taking place along that border. in terms of people coming

across. one of the areas of progress has not only been the 140,000 pakistani troops working some of the safe havens in swat and south waziristan and elsewhere, but it is the fact that there is increasing cooperation on both sides of the border in coordinating their military operations. so the pakistanis coming in behind the insurgents from the pakistani side and, coordinating with us and the afghans, we are on the other side. and so they are the meat sandwich. we expect to see more of that, and the cooperation is increasing between afghans and pakistanis. everybody knows that failure to deal with a safe havens does present a real challenge, but i would argue that we are in the process of dealing with the safe havens. that pakistan's underside of the border and afghanistan and pakistan and as working together. >> robert, on the omnibus, this is legislation that contains about $8 billion in that congressional projects. these are the type of earmarks

that the president said he would oppose. and i'm curious why did he simply tell congress that he would not sign a bill that can import your projects, and how can the white house urged passage of this with things in it that the president stood against? >> gym, i want to go to secretary gates on this because i know they've had conversations about this, and come back to this in particular. >> i don't much like the mrt there. i consider the second engine the poster child of earmarks. but what i have to look at is the alternative to the omnibus. a year-long continuing resolution would be a gigantic problem for the department of defense. first of all, it's a $19 billion cut in the budget, already a third of the way through, or a fourth of the way through the fiscal year. we have very little flexibility to move money around the

pentagon budget without getting congressional approval for we programs, which is always a complicated and time-consuming process. we have no flexibility in starting any new programs such as funding for cybercommand. so a year-long continuing resolution, as far as i'm concerned, for the department of defense is the worst of all possible worlds. the omnibus is not great, but it beats a year-long continuing resolution. >> i would just add to this, the president would strongly prefer a piece of legislation that doesn't contain any of those earmarks. but as you were secretary gates tell you, he's told you all exactly what he's told the president over the course of the last seven meetings about the importance of the flexible of his department and and also to secretary clinton's department. yes, sir.

>> i have a question for secretary clinton what were secretary gates. secretary clinton, in an abc news news "washington post" poll, '60s -- 60% of the american people say that the war in afghanistan is not worth fighting anymore. that's a high. considering that the u.s. withdrawal date is not until 2014, how can the obama administration continue to wage this war with so little public support? and then i'll have, i guess after she answers it, i'll ask secretary gates. >> first, j., i think it's important to remember, as the president reminded us once again, why we are fighting this war. we all understand the stresses that is what causes first and foremost on the men and women of the military and our civilian forces who are there and their families. and we certain -- we certainly understand the budgetary demands that are called for. but it is our assessment, backed up by 49 other nations that are

also committing their troops, their civilians, their taxpayer dollars, that this is critical to our national security. obviously, if we had concluded otherwise, we would have made different decisions. but having inherited what we did, and having spent an intensive period of time in 2009 redoing every possible approach and, frankly, listening to quite contrasting points of view about the way forward, the president and we agreed that this was a commitment that we had to not only continue, but we had to adopt a new strategy, we have to resource it more, and we had to pursue it. and the diagnostic review that we are just undertaken, that we've described to you, has concluded that we are making gains on that strategy.

i am well aware of the popular concerned and i understand it. but i don't think leaders, and certainly this president, will not make decisions that are matters of life and death and the future security of our nation based on polling. that would not be something that you will see him or any of us deciding. we are trying to do the very best we can with the leadership that we've all been entrusted with to avoid making mistakes that were made in previous years, when we did not develop the kind of relationship and understanding and coordination with either afghanistan or pakistan that would enable us to have a better way of interacting with them and perhaps preventing some of what came to pass, and

where, frankly, we walked away at some critical moment in the last 25, 30 years that created conditions that we had a hand in, unfortunately, contributing to. so i think it's understandable and i'm very respectful of the feelings of the american people. but the question i would ask is, how do you feel about a continuing american commitment that is aimed at protecting you and your family now and into the future? because that's the question that we've asked, and this is how we would answer it. >> secretary gates, i was wondering if you could comment on reports from our reporters in afghanistan, first of all, that conditions in the west and the north of afghanistan are actually worse now than they were a year ago, as the uss focus on the south, and also the fact that even in kandahar, which is cited in this report as

a place what has been some success, two-thirds of the municipal jobs there are unfilled because the local population is afraid to join the government. they are afraid of repercussions, and that's an area that you're citing as a success. i wonder if you could comment on that. >> first of all, let me just add to secretary clinton's response to you that i think if you look at pulling in almost all of our 49 coalition partners countries, public opinion is in doubt. opinion would be majority -- in terms of majority, against their participation. i would just say that it's obviously the responsibility of leaders to pay attention to public opinion, but at the end of the day their responsibilities to look out for the public interest and to look to the long term.

what i would say is that one of the -- first of all, the security gains, what i was talking about in my remarks, really had to do with the security gains in terms of clinton taliban out of areas that they've controlled four years. and what we're seeing is, as the security environment includes in places like nawa and places like marja and so on, more people are willing to sign up. but there's a lag time, in general petraeus has brief to this, in terms of the lag between greater violence, greater military success, and in the quality of governance and having people come in behind. this is something that we are focused on. ambassadoambassador eikenberry is focused on. we're all focused on it, secretary clinton, obviously, in terms of doing what we can to increase the number of afghans who can come into -- can come in behind our security forces to

provide the circumstances of governance. there is no doubt that the taliban has a very targeted assassination program against people who are working with the coalition and people who are associated with the afghan government, even at local levels. but as we deny them safe havens within afghanistan, their ability to carry out these kind of terrorist acts will be diminished. and that's why we talk in terms of 18 to 24 months. >> are you worried about the perception that you're sugarcoating does with the review and the doctor progress? and also, if you could also talk about s.t.a.r.t. a little bit and we think the state of play is on that would be great. >> i think we've been very conscientious all along in terms of trying to be realistic about the prospects, and i think that those of you who have listened to general petraeus's briefings,

those of you who have talked to us, i hope see that we've tried to be realistic in terms of identifying the challenges as well as the successes. the challenges clearly are governance issues, civilian capacity, the pakistani safe havens. but what the main purpose of this review was for us to identify those areas where we think we have concerns, where we are not progressing as fast as we would like to be so that we can focus on those in the months to come. the whole purpose of this review was not to we litigate the entire strategy, but rather to say how's it going and where is it going as well or better that we like, but where is it not? and then, so we can focus our attention and resources on addressing the shortcomings. >> i think if you start from the content -- a context that we

inherited two years ago, you can understand why we think on the one hand we're making progress, and on the other hand we have a long way to go. and i don't see that those two thoughts are in any way canceling each other out or leading to some of -- leading to some kind of rosy outlook. i think we are very clear eyed and realistic. when we came in to this administration, we had very little in the way of an understanding with pakistan that the extremists who threaten us were allied with extremists who threaten to them, and that in effect they were creating a syndicate of terrorism. and, in fact, when we came into office, the pakistanis had agreed to an ill-conceived peace agreement with the pakistani taliban that was consistently and persistently expanding their

territorial reach your and we pointed out firmly that this was not a strategy that would work for them, and, in fact, we had a very strong objections to it because it would provide greater and greater territory for al qaeda and their allies to operate in. saw what happened? the pakistanis to an entirely different approach. they moved what, 140,000 troops off the indian border. they waged an ongoing conflict against their enemies who happen also to be the allies of our enemies. they began to recognize what we see as a mortal threat to pakistan's long-term sovereignty and authority. that was not something that was predicted two years ago that they would do. they've done it.

they've also maintained a civilian government against great odds, and something that has provided more legitimacy to our interactions with them. and we have started what has turned out to be a quite effective, robust strategic dialogue with them, engaging the whole of the government with ours. we also have helped to broker better relations between pakistan and afghanistan, and played a major role in bringing about the signing of something called the transit trade agreement, which they have been trying to agree to since 1963. so we have a long list of things that we believe are creating a better context in which we are waging this struggle against al qaeda and their extremist allies. but, you know, those kinds of things rarely get that sort of continuing attention that we pay to them because we see them as

building blocks, not just as one off events. and there's much more. so in addition to bob's point, i don't think you will find any rosy scenario people in the leadership of this administration, starting with the president. this event a very, very hard-nosed review. on s.t.a.r.t., we were encouraged by the vote yesterday to proceed to s.t.a.r.t. we have good reason to believe that there is growing -- is a growing willingness on the republican side to look at the merits of this treaty, to understand what it means to not only american security by the continuing effort to create the relationship with russia that has brought us a lot of benefits in the last two years, including agreements for transiting russia

to resupply our troops. so i think that s.t.a.r.t. is not only on its own, by its own merits, worthy of the senate to ratification, it is in the line of arms control agreements going back many years that have one overwhelming bipartisan support. and it is part of the efforts that we see moving forward well to bring russia and europe and the united states closer together to cooperate on what the threats of the future are, not to be looking back at the threats of the past. >> let me get general cartwright in your on that one as well. >> first, i want to go back to the question about sugarcoating. and what's fundamentally different at this point that we didn't have when we started, we had one basic metric against which to judge value in progress, and that was this construct of 18 to 24 months base off the marines arriving in

july of 2009 into helmand province. that takes you to july 2011. would that concept work? with his idea of going be able to be applied? what lisbon gives us is another set of metrics that we cannot judge our progress as we go forward. so from july 2011, the transition to afghan control of security has to occur between 10 and 2014. and after 2014, the proof that we are in an enduring partnership with the afghanis. those metrics, added to what we had in 2011, give a signpost by which we can judge our progress. and i think that's an important context. the second, on s.t.a.r.t., for me, all of the joint chiefs of our very much behind this treaty, because of the transparency, because of the reality that both the united states and russia are going to have to recapitalize their nuclear arsenals, both the delivery vehicles and the weapons. to have transparency, to understand the rules by which to

put structure to that activity, we need s.t.a.r.t. and we need it badly. i think the last piece that oftentimes get overlooked that when you start -- when you're thinking about s.t.a.r.t. is that this is a relationship between our countries. and in a context that secretary clinton just put forward, much more than just the nuclear is relying on this treaty. there is no prohibitions to our ability to move forward in missile defense, which gives us a much better deterrent when combined with the offensive side as we move to the future. a single mutual assured destruction approach to deterrence is just not relevant as we move into the 21st century. we need this treaty in order to move in that direction. >> two questions, one for madam secretary and one for secretary gates. is a fair, secretary clinton, to look at this review and say, and come to the conclusion that it's, you field you've made a lot more progress with the afghanistan roles that on the pakistan side? and second, you were just

referring to the civilian leadership. who's in charge of pakistan, and -- in that larger sense? i mean, who is it that's running pakistan? is at the civilian government? is at the military? isn't an intelligence agency? >> first, i would argue that we have made progress with pakistan, and i think the president and each of us have alluded to some of the signpost of that progress. we still have a lot to do. and the floods were a major challenge to the -- not on the people of pakistan but also to our strategy because we have adopted an approach to change how we were doing aid to be much more responsive to what the pakistanis themselves needed and wanted as opposed to what we thought they should need or want. and so i think that we have made progress. we've made progress in certainly our military cooperation but also our civilian cooperation. and i think as with any leadership -- question about

leadership or who's in charge, we deal with the entire government. we, as the president said, he talks to president zardari. i deal with the civilian leadership. we also talked to the military leadership. admiral mullen has developed a very positive cooperative relationship with general kayani. leon panetta deals regularly with the director general of the isi, general pasha. we are in gaza can indication. and there are certain decisions that are made by different leaders within their government. but it would be a mistake, and it's a mistake that the united states has made continuously over the last 63 years, to move away from the democratically elected civilian leadership of pakistan. our goal is to help support that leadership, help them understand how to deliver and show that

democracy produces results for people. and we intend to do that. and that's -- is our answer is we deal with leaders of pakistan, and we do in a very whole of government approach. and the strategic dialogue has given us the mechanism to be able to do that. >> secretary gates, are you surprised at how hard your -- has your relationship with senate republicans, have you just notice this change is just simply -- because you were forgiven administration, are you surprised at how hard it's been for you to get a budget, how hard it's been for you to get s.t.a.r.t.? and i know you've been involved in a lot of these lobbying efforts. can you just describe how your relationship with senate republicans has changed him going from one administration to another? >> they may have a different deal but i don't think it's changed at all. i mean, these things have always been hard. they were hard in the last administration. >> do you think you'd be getting your defense budget if this were

a republican administration? >> i think that they would be wrapped around the axle on a lot of the same issues they are tied up with now. i don't think it's a partisan issue. actually, the defense budget and the defense authorization bill, for a long time, has not really been a partisan issue. it's had as many democrats -- many democrats supporting both, along with republicans. so i've had the advantage and i think it certainly both the armed services committee and the appropriations committees that i deal with kind of across the political spectrum are, first of all, very supportive of the military, very supportive of the department of defense. and i feel like i've had a great relationship with them. i would like to add one comment on the strategic dialogue, just to reinforce secretary clinton support. when we have a strategic dialogue meeting that includes secretary clinton myself, and it includes ambassador holbrooke and chairman mullen, our counterparts in that, in these

very small, very private meetings, are not just general kiyani. it's the defense there is, the finance there's a, the foreign minister. so it is, in fact, in reality a whole of government approach with these guys. >> just quickly on s.t.a.r.t., i just want to follow. do you feel like that got politicized? do you feel like it's getting politicized? >> i think there was some genuine concerns on the hill, particularly on the republican side, but not exclusively on the republican side, about the modernization of our nuclear enterprise and a reluctance to it forward ona.r would beadlable to be able to carry out the modernization programs that general cartwright talk about. i think there were some misunderstandings, frankly, on missile defense. i hope that the testament of the joint chiefs, and especially

general cartwright, who is expert in this area, and perhaps me to a lesser extent, have provided reassurance to people that this treaty in no way limits anything we have in mind or want to do on missile defense. so i think that there were some legitimate concerns. but, frankly, i think they've been addressed. >> we remember the christmas day attempted attack, and i wonder if any of you can comment on how serious the threat picture is heading into this christmas season? >> who wants that one? [laughter] >> it goes to you, robert. [laughter] >> yeah, i will -- >> merry christmas. [laughter] >> luck, obviously -- look, obviously, and this is true that the catechism meetings that the president has an and the presence daily briefing, obviously we're not going to get into commenting on specific

intelligence. we know that al qaeda and its extremist affiliates want to come and seek to do, harm and damage in europe and in the united states. we have good relationships with those governments and information sharing. and we're taking all the steps that are necessary to ensure that we are doing all we can. as we did earlier this year with aqap's attempt in using the computer printers. obviously, we will continue to remain vigilant on this topic. >> any reaction from any of you to join us on being granted bail in england?

>> i'm not going to let him but let me take that one. [laughter] >> understand that you feel that you've not paid too optimistic a picture assessment, there are reports on the ground from various sources, and apparently reports of intelligence agency reports recently, which paint a darker picture, a picture of corruption, incompetence, weakness or absence of government in afghanistan, and your own comment in a report that a major challenge will be demonstrating that the afghan government has the capacity to consolidate the gains which isaf forces make. so what reason is there to believe that in the long run you can prevail in afghanistan? why does not the absence of troops whenever, whether it 2014 or 2020, mean that things go back to pretty much they weighed they were -- pretty much the way they were?

>> i think the key here is identifying our objectives carefully. what do we need to accomplish to achieve our goals? our goal isn't -- as the president said, our goal isn't to build a 21st century afghanistan. our goal is not a country that is free of corruption, which would be unique in the entire region. our goal is, our goal is what is necessary, in my view, our goal is what do we need to do, along with our partners and afghans, to turn back the taliban's military and violent capabilities to the degree that the afghan government forces can deal with them, and to provide some minimal capability at the local, district and provincial level for security, for dispute

resolution, for perhaps a clinic within an hour's walk. what we are trying to work our way toward is, what are -- just what do we have to do to be able to turn over security responsibility to the afghans with us in the background and perhaps in a train and equip mission like we've increase a taken on an iraq. and i think one of the things that the administration has done and, frankly, one of the benefits of the protracted review a year ago and we do that we've just been through, is keeping us focus on not getting too ambitious, in that setting goals that we can't achieve, and try to have a minimalist approach that focuses on al qaeda and on the taliban and unpacking capabilities, both military and civilian. the civilian peace is a

challenge, there's a question about it. but we got 1100 u.s. civilians. we have thousands of partners civilians in afghanistan working to help provide that capital. and i would say it's important to have it not just any central government in kabul, but to have it at some minimal level also at the local, district, provincial level. and one of the virtues of the local police initiatives that we are seeing, the local security initiatives, is that they are empowered by the local tribal elders, or the shuras, and so they are taking leadership of the. and as far as i'm concerned, if i can provide security for that village or that area, we've accomplished our objective. >> you're confident that it can? >> yes, i am. >> it's possible to read the overview assessment that we all receive and draw a conclusion that the clearest statements of success on the president's primary goal of defeating al

qaeda came in counterterrorism operations. i'm thinking of the paragraph, the second paragraph of the assessment says, most important, al qaeda senior leadership in pakistan is weaker and and a more sustained pressure than at any point since it led afghanistan in 2001. that same paragraph ends with the fact that u.s. troops are arresting taliban momentum but quickly adds that those gains are fragile and possibly reversible. my question is him and i know secretary gates said this was a time to relitigate the debate of last year, but if the goals are being achieved, those main goals with counterterrorism operations, with -- the tone about the troop surge, don't fall the heavy footprint of the counterinsurgency strategy, will that dictate the direction after july of 2011, the pace of withdrawal come strategy i had? >> well, first -- i'll start coming to segregate and general cartwright and coming.

this is by necessity an overview. certainly from our perspective, the what you call counterterrorism successes are part of the overall effort and cannot be separated out. that was one of the very vigorous discussions we had in the review of '09. and i think general cartwright and secretary gates can add to this, but it's hard to separate out what is necessary on the ground in order to support counterterrorism efforts and you say that you can do one without the other. so i would caution that conclusion because i think it's much more complex than just, you know, the shorthand overview. >> i think also that you have to look at that integrated strategy to it is a balance, and that

balance is something that the command on the grant is constantly adjusting. and we have seen increases in our focuses on counterterrorism, at times when maneuver forces, our forces that came from century, canyon, whether they be taliban or al qaeda, to be able to get at them, to stop them, to thwart them, to reduce their ability to plan. and it's not just in afghanistan. it has to be in pakistan and afghanistan. we have the advantage in afghanistan of having boots on the ground so that we can actually defeat, rather than just disrupt. we have to get that kind of capability as we look towards pakistan. that has to be done in partnership with pakistan got it doesn't mean you have to have american boots on the ground, but you need both. so on the counterterrorism site. the coin side of equation brings the structure to it. brings the enduring peace to the mississippi's that we talked about what was fragile. will we be able to endure. will the coin capability actually provide the sufficiency

to endure as we go forward? that's the question that we are trying to answer. >> i'd like to ask about the issue of pakistan and pakistani safe havens. the pakistani government has made some moves in places like waziristan and swat, but usually after their own government has been directly threatened. you still have al qaeda and taliban senior leadership protected in quetta and karachi and in other parts of pakistan. what specifically do you plan to do to push the pakistani government? and if they don't go ahead with cracking down on this, what can the u.s. do, given that you say these games that we will have will remain fragile and reversible in less we saw the issue of the safe havens? >> well, first of all i would say that the pakistanis have indicated their willingness to move into other areas in addition to south waziristan and swat. but as i mentioned in my opening

remarks and i secretary clinton refer to, it's hard to overstate the impact of the flooding in pakistan and the role of -- and the degree to which the military, military assets were drawn off the border to be able to deal with the flooding. they also have to have an enduring presence in the places that they have cleared. and so to make sure that the enemies they cleared out don't come back as well. so i think that likely many other things that we've dealt with with pakistan, things will move in the right direction. it'll probably take longer than we would like, but they have made clear their intentions. i would say though that this underscores the importance of the broader strategic dialogue between ourselves and the pakistanis. i think that they are coming to have a better understanding of the threat that is posed to them

by the syndicate of terrorists that's not just the pakistani taliban that's a problem for them. and i think that the degree of cooperation and i lateral cooperation on both sides of the border is a manifestation. this is something we've wanted to do for a long time. we are now doing it. we've wanted to pakistanis to be on the border for a long time. 18 months ago i would have thought the idea of 140,000 troops on the border was an impossibility. so i believe that the relationship that we have with them and the more confident that they are, that we have a long-term relationship in mind with pakistan, then i think the more willing they are going to be to take actions that serve both our interests. >> jill, and then i'll let these guys go back to work. >> secretary clinton, maybe this would be best for you.

the president mentioned reconciliation. to what extent is that still a priority? degrading to leadership -- what effect has that our prospects for reconciliation? and then also, remembering ambassador holbrooke, who said there is no slow but on milosevic, there's nobody really out there in the conventional sense to talk to. so where does this stand at this point? >> well, joe, as ambassador holbrooke also said many times, there's no military solution, which, of course, we recognize which is why we have an integrated civilian military approach. and among the areas in which we are engaged in is working with the afghan government on reconciliation and reintegration. this is, from our perspective, necessarily an afghan-led process. it also is one in which the regional partners have interests and to some extent the stakes. so we have dramatically

increased our regional diplomacy. we are working closely with a number of parties to explore what is and what isn't possible on the reconciliation front. but at the end of the day, it has to be afghan led. and we are supporting president karzai's efforts, and i expect that we will be evaluating that because we certainly believe that the increased military pressure is a necessary component of getting to a point where there can be a genuine discussion about reconciliation. >> thanks, guys. >> thank you very much. >> thank you all. >> today a panel discussion on ways to reduce the u.s. federal deficit.

>> i can only sort of get people to consider that we have a serious case here where the obama administration is trying to create new law through changing the interpretation of existing law spirit as the justice department considers a legal case and congress weighs its options, see what journalist, lawmakers and founder julian assange has said about wikileaks online at the c-span via library. search, watch and share. it's washington, your way.

>> now, former british by mr. tony blair talks about developing issues andçw international aid for africa. mr. blair created the africa governance initiative which aims at reducing poverty through improving governance in sierra leone, rwanda and liberia. it's about an hour. >> good morning. it's my pleasure to welcome you to this very special event on behalf of the tony blair africa governance initiative. it's my pleasure to introduce you to nancy, president, founding president of the center for global development. as many of you know net is well known for her research and writing on a wide variety of developing issues and in particular for her to assistance that the policies and practices of the rich countries the

emerging powers, the international institutions can make huge difference for good, or for ill, and the lives of poor people in the developing world. it's that vision that motivates our center, and i know it's the belief that we share with today's guest speaker. please welcome nancy. [applause] >> thank you very much, lawrence, forcing such good things about me ,-comcome and mourn partly about our mission center. i am of course very pleased, honor to have this opportunity to welcome and introduce the right honorable tony blair. i am pleased, but not surprised, to see such a large, distinguished, and well-informed audience. i know who you are from the list. that has turned out to hear him today, despite today's weather. many of you will not know that

the snow is now a cumulative. [laughter] >> i also want to extend a special welcome and thank you to ed scott, the chairman of the cgd board who started this process i extending an invitation that brought tony blair to us today. i am very pleased that the center for global developer and has had the opportunity to organize today's event, in partnership with the african governance initiatives, which tony blair founded and leads, and which you'll hear more about shortly. during his tenure as the prime minister of great britain, tony push the issue of developments and the well being of africa in particular. as we know, western leaders had done before or indeed before. in his new book, a journey, my political life, he explains his commitment quoting from a speech he gave soon after the terrorist

attacks of september 11, 21 -- 2001. ..

>> they were the winner of cgd's first annual commitment to development award in 2003. another lasting legacy of tony blair's tenure is the stern review of the economics of climate change by economists nicholas stern. commissioned by the british government it is the largest, most widely discussed report of its kind. it shows that benefits of strong early action on climate change massively can outweigh the costs. in office tony blair championed the findings and since leaving the office he has launched an international initiative aimed at breaking the climate deadlock. of course, climate is not only a

development issue. but we all know that the impacts of climate change hits poor people first and worst. indeed, we can already see these impacts in events perhaps like the pakistan swat. tony blair is development advocacy and i thank him for these efforts. throughout his time in office, tony blair devoted special time to africa. with his leadership, the summit in 2005 marked a high point in g8 attention to africa's concern and an ambitious agreement to write off the debt of poor countries mostly african to the world bank. he also used the bully pulpit of his office to create and new tour the creation for africa an effort that raised the groundwork for the african

governance initiative. our our coorganizers for today's events. the africa growth initiative is pioneering a new way of working with african countries. equipping committed african leaders with people and the kind of help that matters to deliver public services to tackle deep rooted poverty and to attract the sustainable investment to build strong economies for the future. it's an impressive record. mr. prime minister, tony blair, thank you for joining us today. we are all looking forward very much to your remarks. [applause] >> thank you very much indeed, nancy. it's a real pressure to be with

you here. can i say a special word of appreciation to nancy for all magnificent work she has done over the years to the wonderful ed scott whose brainchild for the centers global development and to the center itself actually which has now become kind of a world leader in the development space. and thank you for those very kind remarks about my time in office and development. actually, i remember when we first set up the department for international development. we did set it up as an independent department. and my goodness, it was. [laughter] >> which is maybe why some of the other leaders find it a little hard but actually -- [laughter] >> from time to time it was,

let's say, challenging. and it allowed it to be innovative and groundbreaking in other ways it might not have been and i'll tell you a little bit more about that when i get into my remarks. what i'm going to do is to speak about 20 minutes and i think then we'll do some question/answer. and to try to discuss for my government initiative does but set it in the context where i think the development of the world is today. and this is absolutely the right moment. for debate about development. and no organization better than the center for global development to be doing it. there are many reasons why this is indeed the right time. there is a debate about virtually every other aspect of government policy today in the developed world. we're all debating both my way and your way.

we are analyzing the first principles, traditional systems of welfare and education. health care and, of course, the economy. and we're debating them with many of the same themes recurring. a hand up not a hand out. public sector spending matched by reform. new ways of working, new frameworks of accountability. and new ideas about how to make government more effective, more strategic, and more geared to getting things done. so in all this great analysis and reanalysis of policy beyond this policy was excluded and, of course, it wasn't and shouldn't be. it is just in much in need as every aspect of the policy of perpetual international spring cleaning. fortunately, just at the appropriate moment, there's a new batch of development leaders willing to break new ground.

the world bank, rod shaw at the usaid. cathy at the e.u. commission and even andrew mitchell in the new government. building, of course, on the very strong work of its predecessors. [laughter] >> but in all cases, they are prepared to think and to work with the private sector and to escape old mind sets. then the reports great actors like the clinton global initiative, the gates foundation, george sore joe policy institute, and the gatsby foundation and a whole host of eager private sector who want to do good business in a proper way bringing enduring benefits to their host nations. the important thing, though, is the visa matched by a new

generation of african leaders, in government, in society, in business. and my charity, the african governance initiative works at the moment in three countries, soon expanding to more, but in all three, i notice a younger generation determined to take the country's future into their own hands. impatient with those who blame the present on the past, and eager to learn and apply the lessons of other governments from around the world. and they in particular want a partnership, not a donor-recipient relationship with those of whom they work. africa's future is a strategic interest for all of us. the presidential policy directive on global development and the new state department

quadrennial development and review are indeed groundbreaking on this point and rightly. if you look at security or resources, food, water you name it, and any of these subjects give us an interest in how africa develops. now, my charity, agi focuses on one thing. building effective systems of capacity to govern. and a few preliminary points perhaps to clear away any misinterpretations that are necessary. i'm not arguing the capacity is more important than democracy. it isn't. indeed, as i shall argue the two are linked. i'm not arguing either that aid doesn't matter. it does when i was british prime minister i traveled to africa as nancy made debt cancellation and aid the centerpiece of g8 summit. aid does work. it has brought real and profound

benefits to poor people and increasingly so in recent years. the debt aid thesis makes some valid points but it shouldn't define how we view development. however, i am arguing that without building effective capacity, without governments capable of delivering practical things and on a path from release on dependency of aid, then aid can only be a palliative, vital to many but not transformative of the nation. it is precisely this thinking that has led to concepts like cash on delivery which i support. however, it is crucial for another reason. as the 20th century clashes of fundamentalist political ideology recede, and as the post-war experiments in large government structures start to

yield certain undeniable lessons, i think many might disagree with me there isn't so much dispute today as to what works and what doesn't, in one way the vision thing is, i think, it was once called one of your american presidents is very often the easy part where you need to get to is reasonably obvious. what is really hard is getting there. and getting things done. it is the nuts and bolts of policy. it is strategy. it is performance management. it is delivery. it's the right expertise and the right place. it's ministers who can focus. it's organizing and communicating. this is, in fact, true for governments in developed nations. how much more is it true for governments in sub-sahara and

africa. you know, when i travel around africa and i see there's plenty of great reports setting out 2020 or 2030 visions and read them and you'll find 150 priorities in there, and you will find bold imperatives to do this or do that, divorced from the political realities, however, what you'll, i'm afraid, often find in the daily mechanisms of government is simply not the capability, the people or the systems to make things happen. and this is where there is a big challenge for us interested in development policy. not just what we do to build capacity but how we do it. more innovative, more enterprising and i think more politically connected. and here briefly, it will be brief, are seven areas i think

we should work on. first, i believe we have to help build a strong center of government in and around the president or prime minister. to those who worry that this gives too much power into the hands of the leader and we cannot be sure of the consequences of such a concentration of power, i say if we're unsure of the leader, we shouldn't support them. but there is no case that i know of where a government has changed a country for the better without strong and effective leadership at the center. with such a center built, you can then fan out the same lessons to ministries. but a president or prime minister without efficient capability on policy and strategy, delivery and communication will in my experience not achieve much. what's more, the ministries need that strong direction of the center to be empowered to make changes themselves.

often the problems in these countries cross departmental boundaries. the agriculture ministry depends on the roads ministry or the schools ministry depends on the energy ministry. only the center can drive such cooperation effectively. second, we have to help countries prioritize. this is correct for its own sake. so for example nigeria is right to focus on the power sector. get that working, everything else has possibility. fail on that, and little is going to move. but it's also correct for another reason. the minute i see a government plan for ministry with 30 priorities in it, i know nothing will happen. the political energy is too diffuse.

and these priorities, of course, should be their priorities and not ours. which brings me to my third point. why china has had such an impact. and look aside whether we agree for it or not, that's for another debate, let us understand why they have the influence. it's not only money, it's that they ask the country what the country needs and supply it. usually it's infrastructure, roads, power even functioning government buildings and they do it. now, we can do it, too. but we have to work on the things the country judges to be vital which is not always and necessarily the same things that gets the biggest cheer back in our home legislature. and none of that means we don't push on areas we sensibly think that are priorities, like health

and education. in liberia where we're working. but our priorities have to connect with theirs. and that's what we mean by country ownership. fourth, i think we have to be the champions of quality private sector investment. the work that the world bank and the ifc is doing here is really important. when we got over 1,000 people to come to sierra leon's first ever london investment conference, we knew we were going to get somewhere and indeed we did. hundreds of millions of dollars of investments out of it. when in 2010 rwanda rose up the rankings more than any other nation in the world actually as a place to do business. respectable companies bring more than investment. they bring properly done international capital and they give confidence to others and they could also help spin off

smaller businesses. it's minimum requirements on the judicial system and the rule of law are in place. and here again i think we need to special focus. for many african countries, even the basics on law and order would make a difference. and there is a expertise internationally on what creates a functioning civil police force and at least a framework for commercial justice. indeed, in another part of my work with the palestinian authority we work precisely on these issues with them and what is remarkable is how much expertise there is out there that can be brought to bear. for understandable reasons some african countries struggling to emerge from conflict have put a major emphasis on building their army and their security forces. but actually for many ordinary

citizens, and, of course, for would-be expatriates that come and work there, traveling the streets of the capital free from fear is a prerequisite of a confident future. it's actually a proper, noncorrupt civic police that they need. and here are the six points. the capacity in all areas that we have to build requires a deep level of practical expertise. the good news is that this expertise exists. the challenge is, i think, we can do so much more to use it in the development field. but what we found in agi's work is that there is this huge untapped resource out there in the wealthy nations for precisely the expertise that african countries often require. there are analysts and experts from major private sector

companies who would eagerly accept two years working in africa with a level of political responsibility and practical responsibility they would never attain back home. they are well trained, smart, above all well motivated. and there is a legion of the retired, the people who might be in their 60s have enormous experience of practical problem-solving at the top ranks of business or government and they would love a chance to be involved. just recently when we were helping one of our countries negotiate a commercial contract about resources, we came across a top london lawyer, a partner in one of the best city firms and he agreed to come and help. the difference, just one really qualified person made in negotiating that contract was extraordinary. and i bet there are large numbers of people out there who would be very happy to help, and we should access them.

which brings me to the seventh point. building capacity only works if those engaged are not fly in/fly out consultants, people willing to work alongside the locals and transfer the know-how. and actually of all the things we've done, this has been the most heartening aspect. in each case, as agi has continued or work, there's been developed a really good team of people at the center who are nationals of the country. some will come back from abroad that others have grown up living and working there. and i think this is capacity building that has to work. training those when the outside workers move on then retain the skills to carry on with the same level of expertise. and this training by the way in my view works best when it is

done on the job so to speak, sit alongside, working alongside each other. the aim, of course, is to build long-term sustainable capacity. but here's the thing. i think this is awfully best achieved in my experience by working on specific priorities in the real life conditions of government. by the way, the skills ordered need not stay with the technical expertise. there are also retired political leaders and ministers. and we can help interact with the political leadership of the country. and it's not just about a weird cover of politicians but by virtue of a common experience you can have a different insight into how change can be brought about in the often harsh terrain of real politics.

so all of this is deeply practical. you'll notice what i'm saying, i'm really going through things very, very granular. but i think it does that up different but an absolutely new approach on how we bring about effective government in countries that have not had effective government in the past. and i know many will say well, all of this is fine. but it won't make up for situations whether there's a democratic or transparency deficit or whether there's corruption, or where there are tribal or ethnic tensions that can predominate. and this is absolutely true. however, i do think effective governance has a firm lead across to what we normally call good governance.

the problem for many struggling nations is that their people, after years of poor governance, no progress or worse, regression -- they actually lose faith in the political process. so then electing a government, even with a democratic system, could be like a transaction because that's how the system works. an interplay of tribal, ethnic or just vested interest. this is what can change in africa today and is changing. when people see improvements taking place as a result of government decision, their sense that politics is about changing lives and not just changing rules takes root.

and it is at that point that they see corruption. not an inevitable consequence of an inevitablebly system but as a break on their aspirations that is neither inevitable nor indeed acceptable. so that's where i think there's a link between effective governance and democratic, accountable and transparent government. and if we can show people that government works and delivers real change, in the end that breaks across all those dividing lines of the political calculus that divides the nations. so i think this is an incredibly exciting time to be in the development field. and there are great people like many here today who have long

experienced an extraordinary commitment to this area. and then you are joined by new leaders and together there is that new sense of purpose. there are new players in the ngo and private and public sector and all of this is creating a new sense of possibility and, therefore, hope. none of this means the challenges aren't enormous. or that there won't be many setbacks. but the hope is real. the changes are tangible. and above all, the desire on the part of africa for its destiny to be in african hands is palpable and invigorating. in my judgment, this could be africa's century. it should be. and to play even a very small part in making that happen is a great privilege. thank you. [applause]

>> i think they want -- >> sorry. >> thank you >> thank you very much, mr. blair. i just want to say -- first i need to mention that if you would like to ask a question -- there are already a bunch of questions. there is already a bunch of questions so you've already announced your index card to the aisle and announce your party and your affiliation. and i just want to say thank you for that speech and for being here. i just have two quick thoughts about how wonderful it is.

i don't think we should take for granted that we have the -- a former head of state of one of the world's most powerful nations talking about development and africa. in itself it's very exciting. and second, i don't think that there are very many people who could bring the kind of eloquence and elegance to a speech that is really trying to bring along the world to the reality that effective government is about practical nuts and bolts getting things done. so i thank you for those things. now, i do have one question i want to ask, which you don't need to answer 'cause i don't want to take you away from the practical nuts and bolts. but it's somewhat related and it's that in the summer when

president obama celebrated 50 years of independence on many countries in africa, he did not invite any of the african heads of state to come and so there was some discussion about that in the press. why didn't he do that? he had people -- well, he had said leadership is about the kinds of things that you're talking about, not about it's about institutions and not about strong men. so the question really is -- it goes back to points you've already referred to. how does -- how does the outside world best deal not only with the positive work that you're doing where it's possible to do that with leadership that has taken responsibility? but what's the best way to deal with those states perhaps, for example, the area w