in the thanking michael bromwich. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> and now, a discussion on the future of offshore joline and recommendations from the white house panel investigating the bpp plugger rising oil spill. from today's "washington journal," this is about 45 thiss minutes. >> host: this week, this report was issued. the cultural disaster in the future of offshore oil drilling. this is by the national commission on the debugger oil spill donna capiello is with the associated press.

what is the conclusion of the report? guest: it is two-fold. first, they said that the disaster was preventable, affordable and could happen again without significant reforms. -- avoidable and could happen again without significant reforms. then they listed 15 designations for the obama administration and congress to pursue. host: who is to blame, according to this report? guest: all three major companies working on the raid were named. bp, the operator of the well, trans ocean, the owner of their rigs that was leased by bp, and halliburton, another contractor in charge of a critical task on oil wells, seven jobs. these are the barriers -- cement jobs. these are the barriers to keep oil from going where it should not. companies forree

management failure, but the report went further and said, the climate, the whole thing going on out there. it is not unique to this one particular oil well, this one particular disaster. the oil industry is a bit overconfident. we have done this before and we can do it again and they got deeper and deeper. and we have a regulatory agency that was underfunded and not very well trained. it was spread around. it was not one guy. host: we have about 35 minutes with our guests to talk about the world's bill and the final report to the president. of the 15 -- the oil spill and the final report to the president. of the 15 recommendations, the of them were more regulation? if guest: the majority. i lot of them would require an act of congress to do. there was a reorganization of the interior department discussed. let's have an interior safety

department within the department that is headed by a guy that is not politically appointed, kind of like the fbi. there was a call to actually raise the liability cap on oil companies when there is a spill. and right now, there is a 75 million-dollar cap on what they ought to pay for damages. bp has waived that. they said they will get $20 billion out for people who have claims, but that also would require an act of congress, more funding for the bureau of the ocean management. more funding is called for and better training. they found the people policing this industry did not have an effective idea of what is going on out there, in terms of technology. host: the two cochairs, here is what they have to say.

>> it is a fundamental fact that the oil belongs to the people of the united states of america. the federal government should provide for safety and protection, but is also the landlord. a very real sense, we own this property and have the obligation to respond when it is abused. the fundamentals -- the fundamentals of this investigation is that the deep water horizon disaster did not have to happen. it was both foreseeable and preventable. that fact alone makes the loss of the 11 lives, the serious rig, ando others on the rake

the enormous damage that the explosion caused even more tragic. it to congress, we say, -- >> to congress, we say, it is time to exercise a serious oversight to the department of interior and the bureau of oceans management that has succeeded mms. oversight has not been exercised in the past to that agency. we recommend that resources be allocated by the congress to ensure that this agency is capable, is a batch for the people they are expecting and regulating every day -- is a match for the people they're regulating every day. they have been underfunded and under matched. the efforts by secretary excellus are and michael brown, both of which we -- secretary salazar and michael brown, both

of which we respect, they are going to have to have a system that allows more recruitment of able people, who unlike so many who revealed to us in the course of investigations, they did not understand the key technologies like centralizes and negative pressure tests. guest: those two comments showcase what they said here, which is, this is not just a problem of the world industry. of three rogan companies. that was something that was tossed out quite a lot -- 3 companies, that was something that was tossed out quite a lot. i think blame was spread here. host: is report has been sent to the president. guest: yes. host: what happens next? guest: what happens next is that others will be looking closely to see what he says, in terms of

what they will do a administratively. and then of course, it will be the hill. what is congress going to do? is congress going to keep this call for action? is this massive environmental disaster, the largest offshore oil spill in history -- in u.s. history, it will it be enough to keep the politics of this agency that has been underfunded and not well trained under all administrations that are democratic and republican, the same thing over and over again? host: dina capiello covers issues for the associated press. on top of that she has a master's degree in environmental science and a biology degree from georgetown. how long have you been covering the environment? guest: my whole career. albany new york and then to houston, tx for oil and toxic

refineries on in new jersey. host: we are talking about the oil commission report. caller: good morning. my question is, is there any possibility we can't drill in this country and get off our foreign -- can drill in this country and get off our foreign oil by it? can we slowly to make more prices reasonable for us because it is slowly going up not because of the national market, but the world market. guest: yes, the answer is yes. but the facts are that where the oil is in this country is an increase -- is in increasingly harder places to get it. over the last 20 years we have gone deeper and deeper offshore. there is some definite promise in jail, especially in north dakota -- in shale, especially

in north dakota and the west. and canada, we are thinking about importing. but our appetite for oil in this country still exceeds what we have domestically to supply it. but the report made clear that we are going to need domestic resources for many years to come until we get our cars on cleaner sources of fuel, etc. and i think what they are saying is, hey, let's go out and get the oil we have in our country, but let's make sure that we do go into these places -- i think senator gramm said earlier this week that it is kind of like going to the moon in terms of technology. that we do it safely and responsibly and that our government is on top of what is happening out there. host: dallas, brian, republican line. caller: i would like to know why we cannot go to iran war and do some drilling.

why there is no talk about half -- go to anwar and do some drilling. why there is no talk about drilling in places like china or the soviet union. what can we do about cutting down the cost of gas for people in this country? this is going to get really out of hand. guest: that is a concern that you bring up and it is a concern that i know many people on the hill, republicans and democrats from these gold states, have, which is, the more you regulate these industry, the more you increase costs for the industry, the costs are passed on to the consumer. you and me, we drive cars and depend on fuel to get around. anwar, as you probably know, is a very touchy subject. i think the disaster is only going to make it touchier subjects. -- make it a touch yoier.

is arctic thinking drilling. the obama administration already said that, that they were going to go back and look at it scientifically again. anwar always opens a political canavan and i think we will see it again -- a political can of worms and i think we will see it again this year. the problem with leakage, assuming that will make it more difficult to get drilling in anwar. host: remind us that this started in april of 2010 and what month did they finally get it count? july guest:. -- get it capped? guest: of july. host: and what was the cost? guest: well, 11 workers were killed and more than 2 million

gallons of the well was built. some of it was collected and other of it was burned. but there are still very small, michael, -- microscopic particles. i do not and will really know the repressions of this environmentally for a very long time until we see what it does to the food chain. there have been studies that show oil on the bottom of the sea floor because of the use of chemical dispersant, which prevented from getting too short, but help it to get to the sea floor. i think there is a question when we get to the civil case that will be filed by the justice department, we will probably see things to come in terms of the future bill for oil companies. host: george, you are on the air with donna capiello.

-- buy now capiello. . di -- dina capiello. caller: all of the oil that is mixed in with the new water, of the gulf stream and in florida and cuba, you will half water -- tension. have water retentio when you flood an area with a bunch of oil, you are changing the water tension. i'd be interested to see the short-term and medium-term effects of that much water that is now part of the gulf stream in florida and cuba there. also, apparently, halliburton or

bp brought the company that makes the retardant stuff that they are spring-on -- bought the company that makes the retardant stuff that they are spraying on just before it happened. and just before 9/11, you see a lot of bp stock being sold. for some, it is a win/win situation. guest: on the chemical dispersant, the chemical dispersant that was used after the bp oil spill was actually preapproved under the oil pollution act. it was on a list those that

could be used. i am personally aware of whether bp bought the company -- personally unaware of whether bp bought the company that produces the dispersant. that is something i have not heard of, but it was approved many months and years before this disaster. in terms of the gulf stream and other things that you mentioned, just a few points that do not go directly to where you were talking about. but there has been no evidence, as you probably are aware, that this got around the corner of florida and up the eastern seaboard, although, that was feared because of the currents in the gulf. since this disaster, the obama administration has taken action on one thing, which is drilling in the eastern gulf. about two weeks before this disaster, president obama and secretary salazar announced they were considering expansion of drilling into the eastern gulf and off of the is -- and off of the eastern seaboard and have

since pulled back on that in the wake of this disaster. that, obviously, would reduce the risk of any oil getting on to the west coast of florida and on to the eastern seaboard. host: jeanine, you are on the air. caller: two things. how responsible do you think the environmentalists and the federal government are for pushing these rigs to the 5,000 foot level where they are not manageable rather than just going offshore 500 feet? and did you hear recently that there is a natural lg in the gulf that is -- a natural algae in the gulf that is eating up some of this oil and what is your opinion of that? host: before we get an answer, what are your thoughts about offshore oil drilling in california? i think she hung up, so we will not know.

guest: i will take the low hanging fruit first. there is only one thing that it is pushing -- that is pushing companies into deeper and deeper water and riskier places to drill, and that is, our appetite tfor oil. our suppliers of oil have totally tapped out the easy places, the shallow waters that you mentioned. if you have ever flown over the coast of louisiana in a helicopter, as i have many times, it looks like a pin cushion down there in terms of how many wells are drilled and how many platforms there are. one thing on that, the only reason they're going there is because we want it and we need it. and they are responding to that demand. on the second question, algae in the gulf, yes, i think people were surprised, perhaps the leia plug-delayed public more than

researchers, on how -- perhaps the lay public more than researchers, how resilient the gulf is. there is a lot of pressure over millennia that makes oil. the gulf has proven to be resilient it is a very valuable assistance in the world in terms of shellfish and fisheries. but it is hammered by not only the oil and gas industries. there is also a problem -- there are also problems with hypoxia from fertilizer flowing down the mississippi valley into the gulf. this report recommends that a big chunk, 80% of the finest that will be collected under the clean water act, the water pollution law, be used for golf restoration. that has been endorsed by the president. the big question has been

whether congress will actually do it. it will require a little bit of tweaking of the clean water act to be done. host: mark, you are on the air with dinah capiello. mark, you know the rule. you have to turn down the volume. we will come back to you. in georgia, steve on the republican line. caller: would you rate the 10 biggest oil disasters bills and what are the chances of getting the internal combustion -- a disaster spills and what are the chances of it in the internal combustion engine back? guest: on the top of my head, i wish i could rank the biggest oil spills that have happened in the last 20 years. i know a few, obviously, there was an oil well exxon valdez -- the exxon valdez in the 1990's

and the gulf of mexico. but in terms of switching the internal combustion engine to other sources, everybody is on the same page that it will not happen overnight. obviously, the obama administration has endorsed strong fuel economy standards that will reduce the amount of fuel that we need to power those engines. but again, there are issues going to ethanol-based fuel, issues in terms of battery- powered and electric cars, and where you plug these things in. that was a whole nother can of worms, if we go to electric cars and we're putting those in to stop it in your garage, that is causing a whole coal-fired power plant emissions problem. a slew of experts say that we will need oil for a very long time to come. host: what have we learned in the time since the exxon valdez

for the long term -- what is the long-term effect on the shores of alaska or the bay in alaska? guest: what we have learned from the exxon valdez is that early on, we cannot predict all of the effects. we can do our best, but we are still seeing the effects of their that we did not expect to see. not too long before the bp disaster -- i'm not sure of the time line, but the government sent x on another bill because of damages that were discovered years down the road. we do not know what the long- term repercussions are. and i think that for the people that live in the gulf coast, there is concern that this will be off the headlines and that people will forget because there is no oil on beaches and we are not seen these amazing shots of oiled.ns being loya

it is going to be a real challenge, with all of the other challenges that have been discussed, you know, health care, and all of the things that are on the plates of our lawmakers to keep this on the forefront and say that it is necessary. host: this was released on tuesday of this week. what has been the industry's response so far? guest: industry has responded cautiously. they believe that the offshore energy agency should be better. it should have better regulation, better trained folks, be better funded. they also supported and regulation for a safety institute. -- supported legislation for a safety institute. there is some devlin the details. the report recommends that it be modeled after the three mile

incident in 1979. the oil industry said, we are not like nuclear. these are complicated operations. but they have generally supported and they want to get back to work. there is a fine line here that has the administration and as congress, whatever they decide to do, pursues regulation, pursues these changes and what the corresponding effect will be in terms of getting out and drilling again in the gulf. host: in minneapolis, democrats, good morning. caller: peter, you are one of my favorite host on this program. host: must be because my family is as originally from minnesota. caller: that must be. it must be great to have a high quality journalist reporting on these things. guest: thank you. caller: so many of these things are left to ideological talking

points and we do not know what the facts are behind these things. my question is, peter put up this morning a graphic there -- i think it was a graphic -- on the rollbacks of funding to various federal agencies going back to 2008 funding levels. how do you think the hopes for better regulation and better oversight of the drilling of the gulf is going to survive this onslaught of republican budget cutting? guest: that is a very good question. it is something that i mentioned in this story -- in my story the day that this came out. as you probably know, after this bill last year, there was -- there was a lot of legislative effort to fix this disaster and institute some of these reforms and they passed a democratic-led house, but basically died in the

senate. when this disaster was fresh, akmal it was the biggest. as you mention -- when this disaster was fresh, it was a big list. as you mentioned, with more republicans in the house, it is a tougher road. it is either senator gramm or commissioner wryly that mentioned that the agency could get more money from -- commissioner reilly mentioned that the agency could get more money by tweaking the language when they lease these areas offshore to actually include money to be diverted to regulation. another step was more fees on industry. there are some things administratively that they can do in terms of helping funding. but with republicans keen on reducing the government's eyes -- government size, it is going

to be a tough sell. i was told that in the meeting with commissioners after the report was released from republicans have supported some of the proposals and are more cautious on others until they get more details of the 380-page report. it will be interesting to follow this session to see what happens. senator gramm was asked a question at the event and he had a very interesting statement. he said he believes the impact of this disaster will override some of the things that have happened in the past in terms of the funding for this agency, the push back from the industry against more regulation. so, more to come. host: and forgone in minneapolis, the article that you referenced was -- and for the man in minneapolis, the article that you reference was from the politico. the article and the chart were in there.

next call, a toledo, mark, independent line. caller: i would like to know what the responsibility of the government is toward the people when there is a disaster like that. why weren't the agricultural people and the transportation people allowed to -- they should have been allowed to travel and not the people in their cars. host: we appreciate your call. thomas, rolling meadows, ill. on her republican line. dina capiello covers environmental issues for the associated press. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have not had a chance to see the report, but i wonder if it might also include the possibility of a need to update and provide new refineries or the construction and

rehabilitation of the infrastructure of those pipelines. guest: it did not address that. because you up -- because you ask that question, sure you understand those are the downstream aspects of the industry. oil and exploration are "upstream." this report is solely to look into the causes of the disaster and propose ways to prevent it from happening again in terms of offshore drilling. pipelines, as you know, in this country are not regulated by the same agency, nor are the refineries in terms of pollution. that is regulated by the epa, osha, dealing with workplace safety issues. but it is interesting because when this first happened a lot of people were making connections between this incident, this producer company,

bp, and some of the problems they have had with their pipelines and refineries. if i was in texas when the disaster happened at that refinery. that linkage is reflected in this report only in the sense that this is a problem with the whole industry's safety culture. and not just this one particular company, this one particular wealth. but unfortunately -- this one particular well. but unfortunately, no that was not part of that discussion. guest: a good question. that is a point that both commissioner talked about, which is, before we start granting visas to these companies there should be some review of their safety and environmental policies, and perhaps that view should be broader than just their record on offshore drilling.

coming into this, bp had recommitted to safety after some pretty high-profile incidents. the question is, perhaps congress should think about rewriting the offshore law that governs leasing to include a more comprehensive review of how this company has performed in other areas, not just the gulf of mexico. they are all over the world. before they actually grant them a lease. it is very hard to revoke elise, but that is to the question. host: lehigh acres, fla., a.j., go ahead with your question. caller: i shot -- i saw a show that jesse ventura, the governor, did not invest in bp. and they were told not to use the dispersant because it was poisonous to the environment and they kept doing it anyways.

i was wondering if possibly all of these birds dying in the air and the fish dying in the ocean bed -- might have something to do with the bp spill. guest: the dispersant issue, what i think you are referring to is, as i said earlier, the dispersant was preapproved under the oil pollution act, the federal law that was passed after exxon valdez. the bpa -- the epa initially said, yes, you can use it. then they said, wait, maybe there are safer alternatives and they issued an order saying, halt the use of the dispersant. basically what happened is that there were not that many dispersant out there in large enough quantities to solve this problem. so they said, ok, do not use it again. it is sort of that yin and yang you are talking about. so far, all the research i have seen on the use of the

dispersant has shown that it really does not exist anymore in the ecowas system, the water, the fish, the plankton -- in the ecosystem, but water, the fish, the plankton. the risk in using it -- and they said it was toxic -- was less than the risk of letting the oil released into the water and left and dispersed. . undispersed. i want to say that the commission address this and their use of it was justified. there is talk of doing better reviews of these things and how they act because one thing i want to add to this, the one thing that made this unique about the dispersant was howard was applied. typically it is straight -- how

it was applied. typically destroyed on the surface of the water. this was applied at the wellhead. this was a mild down. there's a lot of discussion about what happens when you use a chemical at this pressure, cold temperatures and how that will affect the ecowas system -- the ecosystem. as for the birds and fish, one of the biggest challenges to this, and it is a challenge the matter what your talking about. whether you are talking about air pollution events, water pollution events, things like that, it is sometimes hard to trace it back to that particular incident. obviously, be piece build a lot of oil. we can actually -- bp spilled a lot of oil. we can actually trace that oil, its footprint. there is run off of oil into the

gulf from the coast. obviously, when you see a picture on television of a pelican, you can probably say it is probably the will of bp and probably not a good thing for the pelican, but they are going to have to do some science. and they are doing that right now as part of the natural resources damages claim to get bp a bill for the damages that it has caused. it is teasing all of that out. host: will you eat the gulf seafood right now? guest: sure. host: not a problem with it? guest:sure, i do not know how you compare that with seafood all over the world. but whether it is far raised these days or wild caught these days, there's probably something in your seafood that is probably coming from a power plant that is very far away.

maybe it's because i cover environmental issues. [laughter] all of the tests have been abundantly clear and that is how wide base my answer to that -- how i base my answer to that question. obviously the more people are concerned, but i encourage them to go to the fda's web site and look at the results that are out there and compare it to some of the other warnings out there for fish in terms of mercury contamination and the other risks of eating fish. host: finally, how big is bp's footprint on there as far as the clean up those? guest: as far as the cleanup goes, it is still under way. the federal government is in charge of the cleanup and they are building bp for the bill. they are getting checks cut from bp. is going to be ongoing. you talk to some perish president's down there -- an obvious that we have a lot of

reporters in the gulf, and we still see a lot of oil. it can be a hard thing to get rid of. i remember after hurricane katrina and all that was left down there. tanks were floating like little injured tubes -- little innertubes. host: dina capiello is the

>> next week marks the 50th anniversary of president dwight eisenhower's farewell address in which he spoke to americans about the military-industrial complex. she did the cato institute hosted a forum about that speech. in this forum, the president's granddaughter, susan eisenhower. after her remarks come a panel of former government officials bauxite relations between the civilian sector and the military and how that has changed since president eisenhower's time. this is an hour and 40 minutes. >> welcome to the cato good mor. institute.lcome the name is christopher preble, director of foreign policy studies here. it's my distinct pleasure to open today's proceedings. disti i want to begin by thanking myp. colleague, charles mccabe in pulling this together and alsonl toward marketing department to help promote it and to our conference department for what they do behind the scenes to make it run so successfully. so.

i should also thank the construction crews who i'm told are about to stop their rat a tat tat for a little while. of course, thank all of you who are watching online at c-span, who are watching on cato.org. for those of you in the auditorium, i want to ask that you please turn off your phones. silent isn't good enough, because it does interfere with our sound system. to please turn off your phones and silence any other noise-making tnoise-make ing devices you might have out of courtesy to attendees here. as a courtesy to our attendees, make room here in the auditorium. we have had an overwhelm ing response to this event. we're expecting a completely full crowd and also a number of people will be watching on television set outside of this room and i'm sure they'd like to join us all here in person. so if you have a space next to you, slide every toward the wall

or invite someone to sit down next to you. on january 17th, 1961, president dwight david eisenhower delivered one of the most famous speeches of his storied career. the full text of the speech is available in the handout that you all should have received. those of you who are watching online or on c-span can access the speech via the internet. we have a link to the speech. in this address, eisenhower warned the american people of the burdens imposed by a large and seemingly permanent military establishment. something that the nation had managed to avoid for most of its history. in one of the most frequently quoted lines from that famous speech, he charged his countrymen to be on guard against a military industrial complex acquiring unwarranted influence in the halls of power. eisenhower called on an alert and knowledgeable citizenry to balance the need for effective defense against the nation's

peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. for decades, scholars have suggested ways to restrain the military industrial complex and to limit its effect on civil military relations, the economy and our political system. by any objective measure, efforts to control the expnansin of the military industrial complex have failed. in inflation adjusted terms, americans will spend more than twice as much on national security in 2011 than they did in eisenhower's last year in office and without a nuclear armed adversary to justify those costs. so today we explore why these spending patterns have persisted for 50 years and what, if anything, can be done to effect meaningful change. ourspeak er today, it's my

distinct pl distinct pleasure to welcome her to the cato institute, mrs. eisenhower. her complete bio as with all the other speakers are in the packet that we passed out. i call attention in particular to her long and distinguished career as a commentator on national security policy and also energy policy. she is perceptive and outspoken observer, occasional critic of u.s. policy. it's a pleasure to welcome her back to cato. susan? >> chris, thank you very much for that nice introduction. what a pleasure it is to be back at the cato institute. we have a wonderful panel here to discuss one of the important aspects of dwight d. eisenhower's farewell address. i have worked in the national security field a long time, myself, so i'm going to be an interested consumer in the

panel's deliberations here today, but i think my function really in getting this event started is to say something about the man who gave the speech in the times in which he lived. again, scholars have examined this speech in great detail over the years. certain things about the speech have now become known that weren't before. it's one of those amazing stories about how to be careful with what's in your garage. it turns out that the son of the speechwriter, malcom moose, was moving the lawn mower to a different part of the garage and discovered five boxes left from his father's life. his wife said it's time to clean it up and get it out and discovered in these five boxes were malcom moose's notes about the crafting of the farewell address. this collection was given to the eisenhower library. many of those documents were just recently released. we know eisenhower had been

planning to give this speech for a long time. it was not the afterthought many historians had suspected. it was a very deliberate speech that eisenhower was planning to give. he played a writ call role in the crafting of this. as a matter of fact, malcolm moose later told my father the president was the architect, we were simply the carpenters. and you know, for anybody who knows the way eisenhower wrote, you can hear his phraseology throughout this speech. in any case, it is a reflection of an eight-year career. to me, i think the fascinating thing is the farewell address is really a bookend to the first major speech he gave of his presidency which was called "a chance for peace." this was given in 1953 just after the death of joseph stollen. in any case these two speeches most important of which we are marking on the 17th of january

really underscore the transformational times in which dwight eisenhower served as president. i think one of the reasons we're here today to discuss its relevance is there is a contemporary resonance to this speech because we are, today, also living in transformational times. these transformational times are actually in some ways no that different except that i think it would be fair to say that the united states is not in as strong a position as it was in 1953. after all, in 1953 though money was constrained and the united states was the world's largest cred creditor nation and we were really the country that emerged from world war ii as preeminent globally, today we have many rapid changes in technology as they did back in the 1950s. the united states, today, is changing its position on the world stage. either voluntarily or involuntarily, but we feel that those changes are under way.

again, today we have economic constraints the way we did in the 1950s as i just mentioned, but at a slightly disadvantaged situation. and we have changing views of threat assessments. that's exactly up lly one of ts of these bookend speeches of the eisenhower era. we have a set of changing world values, how eisenhower observes this. as he gives his speech. and frankly, there's also a very radical changing way in which we communicate. back in the 1950s, television was the new technology. every president from eisenhower onward had to master the usage of this new medium. today, of course, we speak a lot about the internet and of course the blogosphere which has really changed so many things. so to take ourselves back to 1953 for a minute, that was an extraordinary year. it was a game changer many in m

ways because of the death of joseph stollen. then in august of 1953, the bomb was tested by the soviet union which broke the u.s. monopoly on this fearsome weapon. it's rather interesting that eisenhower despite these important changes was really willing, able and politically courageous enough to link this defense spending with domestic spending. i would challenge any political leader today to try to draw equivalences eisenhower did in his chance for speech. he said, quote, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children, the cost of one heavy bomber is this. a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. it is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000

population. we pay for a single fighter with a half a million bushels of wheat. we pay for a single destroyer with new homes that would have housed more than 8,000 people. this is not a way of life at all in any true sense. under the threat -- under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from across. well, if this isn't relevant from a contemporary point of view, i don't know what is, as we have seen extraordinary figures of what the defense security complex, we can call it that today, is spending. since 2001, these expenditures have risen by 119%, and of course, discussion about how we're going to reign in costs are on our agenda today. let me just close by saying something about transformational times and then an observation

about transformational leadership. i believe dwight eisenhower was a transformational leader. this guy had guts. you see reference to it in his farewell address. the original film is "all business all the time." it's spoken in a very somber, very serious way. he did have political courage. we could go into that if the seminar today were on dwight eisenhower, which it is not, but i would point to any number of decisions including the handling of the suez crisis just before the election of his second term. this was something that was so potentially controversial that he figured that he might even not be elected for taking a decision like that but was prepared. we need to only mention, of course, the imposition of federal troops in little rock in

1957. these were tough decisions by somebody who i believe in his own frame of reference would say that he was putting america first. one of the critical parts of the farewell address is his references to bipartisanship. it is rather amazing with the democratic congress that this republican president manage to get 80% of his legislative agenda through congress and manage despite the rampup during the cold war of military spending, managed to balance the budget three times in eight years which was the cold war record. in any case, we, today, will mark this speech that raises a number of very important and intriguing issues like the military industrial complex. also i would say the scientific technological elite which is another idea that eisenhower advances. but there are certain parts of this speech that i like because of this changing environment in which he was addressing the public. he was worried about a changing

american values. americans by 1961 were newly prosperous. there was a new television culture that was emerging. americans were increasingly bitten by the desire for good life. and eisenhower worried about these values. he linked, in this speech, as he did many times during his presidency, defense spending or defense posture with our economic health and what he called a third pillar which was he referred to as spiritual. in fact, i think i would interpret that as our moral authority. in any case in his speech, and i just mentioned one wonderful example, he was worried about how america would project itself as it emerged as the global leader. imagine how useful it would have been after 9/11 if we'd had a

president say, quote, any failure traceable to arrogance or lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both home and abroad. that tells us how we should think about who we are in these changing times. as a member of the eisenhower family, it's deeply gratifying that perhaps among his biggest legacies are these two speeches that i mentioned. the fact that an idea and a set of ideas that he advanced 50 years ago could still serve as a platform for debate today is, indeed, a wonderful thing. i'd like to just say, i knew my grandfather very well. i knew this even as a kid. he was playing for the long game. how many times in his speeches does he mention his grandchildren? and of course, i'm one of them.

but we're all one of them. we are the grandchildren of that generation. eisenhower was playing the long game so much that i discovered to my great distress that he put a time capsule in his house in getties bur gettysburg. it's buried in one of the walls and to my distress it's not to be opened until 2056 which means that i'm long gone. doesn't seem fair, does it? this is so eisenhower. to be talking to generations still to come. only in this timeframe it's not 50 years, it will be 100. thank you. >> thank you. now, let many introduce my first panel today. one short programming note which you probably noticed. professor andrew was forced to withdraw from the program late yesterday because of the bad

weather in boston. he sends his regrets. andy has one of the feature essays in this month's "atlantic monthly." i recommend it highly. the good news, bad news is depending on your perspective, andy prepared his remarks and i get to read them. i will not do this service. i'm going to try my best to deliver a few passages from andy's remarks then i will introduce our other speakers today. title of his essay is "who's army?" the interaction of civilians and soldiers takes place in two distinct and different domains. on the one hand is the relationship between senior military officer s and senior civilian officials. on the other hand is the relationship between the armed forces of the united states and american society as a whole. call this civil military

relations for the rest of us, fakie i taking place. a well known principle is set to exercise a governing influence, civil wrol implemented by the congress and executive. the principle of civilian control by no means guarantees effective policy. it however serves against the danger posed by military dictatorship. students of civil military relations see the control as foundational. in the realm, another well known principle once exercised a governing influence. this was the conviction that national defense qualifies as a collective responsibility, citizenship and military service being inextricably linked to one another. andy continues, truth to tell, in the actual implementation of these principles, americans have always played fast and loose, whether in the elite domain, the reality of civil military

relations has seldom conformed to the theory. he goes on later, the vast apparatus of the national security state affirmed and institutionalized the exalted role senior military officers had come to play. in the 1950s and 1960s when presidents ventured into the white house rose garden to make a national security announcements, they took care to have the joint chiefs of staff with ribbons lined up behind them. the message was clear, look, i have consulted the chiefs, they concur, therefore, my decision deserves to be treated with respect. the officer corps' ultimate responsibility and loyalty to the constitution remained in tact was beyond question. yet the implausibility made all manner of schenn thhenanigans

impermissible. -- his innocence remains in tact and he's free to do as he pleases. this describes the way the principle of civilian control actually works in washington. politics is a blood sport. the making of national security policy is nothing if not political with blood and treasure, power and access, ego and ambition on the line. so senior officers learned how to lobby, aly with strange bedfellows, manipulate the nemea and play off the congress against the white house. that's how you get things done in washington. later andy writes, the ideal civilian control stands in relation to actually existing civil military relations as the ideal of the common good stands in relation to acal existing it .

..unhappy circumstance does not lie with one side or the other but with both. to insist senior officers and senior civilians should find a way to work in harmony recalls rodney king's appeal during the 1992 los angeles riots, can't we all just get along? any such expectation of human behavior in politics lies in the face of the record of history as with the poor, the competition for power will be ever with us. now, when generals overreach, they should have their hand slapped. when ignorant or arrogant civilians ignore military advisers and thereby commit costly blunders, they should be called to account. inside the beltway, civil military conflict is not a problem to be solved. it is a situation to be managed. elite civil military relations require constant policing. whenever evidence of inappropriate conduct leading to defective policy becomes evident, folks like me rush to

write op-peds decrying the latest civil military crisis, in quotes. this is necessary and honorable work, once critics raise the ruckus, the internal self-correction kicks in. it's the same thing when people get up in arms about potholes or lousy service at the bureau of motor vehicles. to quiet complaints and preserve status and prerogatives the people in charge respond. corrective action might tepid tend to be partial or cosmetic. andy concludes, that's the boast best we can hope for. this periodic awareness of dysfunction in civil military relations distracts attention from the significant problem of dysfunction in the realm of civil military relations for the rest of us. he closes on a note that many of you will be familiar with from his past writings.

pertaining to civilian responsibilities as part of the whole. rather than harmonizing military policy with political values, the all-volunteer force seemingly accomplished something much trickier. it reconciled american culture, adversed to the idea of corrective civil -- political elites in washington that exercising global leadership required the availability of large forces ready for instant action. the creation of a new class of warrior professionals made everyone happy. those residing outside the beltway could live their lives unbothered by the prospect of being summoned before the local draft board. somewhere around 2004 or 2005 americans began awakening to the real implications of having deep sixed the citizen soldier. if americans don't like the way

the army is used, they need to reclaim it. this can only happen by resuscitating the tradition of the citizen soldier. i have no expectation this will happen any time soon, he writes. indeed, i judge the likelihood of essentially nil, the entire national security establishment remains wedded to the all-volunteer force and anything that could increase popular influence on policy. worst, our civil culture continues to have a low tolerance for anything that's collective obligation. the only people willing to consider a military obligation tend to be too old to serve. yet on one point i am quite certain. as long as the tradition of the citizen soldier remains, reversing the militarization will remain a pipe dream. the halls will resound with calls for peace but war is likely to remain a permanent condition. in washington people will wring hands over the unseem bli state

of conditions between elites as brass hats and politicians maneuver against the other for advantage. that's their problem. the problem for the rest of us is a far greater one. grasping the implications for our democracy, moral as well as political, of sending the few to engage in endless war while the many stand by, passive, mute and whether they like it or not, deeply complicit. those, again, are the words of andrew, who due to the storm in boston was not able to join us. i hope i did a service in rendering his remarks. the good news for the rest of us is that our other three speakers managed to get here through the rain, sleet and gloom of night. i'm going to introduce them very briefly. again, their bios are in the package. they're going to speak in the order they're listed here on the sheet. our first speaker today is major general charles dunlap, retired major general in the u.s. air force, distinguished legal scholar. i've gotten to know charlie a little bit over the last few

months. we are both members of the warlord loop and enjoy exchanging ideas there. he is a legal scholar. he also is a distinguished strategic thinker and has written about this topic we discussed today. that is the state of civil military relations. the first thing i ever read by charlie many years ago was an article entitled "observations on the military coup of 2012." our second speaker is larry core. he began with a stint in the u.s. navy on active duty then retire retired after a number of years in the reserve. i've known larry over the years and on a personal note he and i had a chance to travel a bit. he's one of most impressive story tellers i've ever encountered and he'll regale us today in stories.

our third speaker, lawrence wilkerson, a retired colonel in the army after a distinguished 31-year career, several of those spent as an assistant to general colin powell as noted in his bio as well as an assistant to ambassador richard hos on the policy planning staff. colonel wilkerson now teaches and has commented extensively on national security policy and again the state of civil military relations. with that, join me in welcoming general dunlap. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, chris. >> could you speak from the podium, please? >> okay. >> thank you. >> that does go up if you need to adjust that. >> chris, thank you very much for those kind words. i'd like to thank the cato institute for sponsoring this very, very important symposium.

and, ma'am, it is an honor to have heard your remarks. can i differ with you on one point? you said the remnant of the speech has -- the entire speech still has contemporary value. i think it's one of these things we ought to make every kid, if we can make any kid do anything, read as they're growing up because it has so much relevance to society today. i know we're going to have another panel later this morning that's really going to focus on the industrial complex portion of the speech, and we're focusing kind of on the military side. but just as a scene setter, let's remind ourselves of the differences between 1961 and 2011. specifically with respect to the department of defense budget. as you know, or as you may know, in 1961 it consumed almost twice as much as the gross domestic product as it does today. i think it's 9.6% versus 4.7%.

my colleague will certainly correct me on this. in addition it consumed 49% of the discretionary budget, and today it consumes a smaller portion. but probably even more important was the relative size of the armed forces. the active duty armed forces in 1961 was about 2.4 million as opposed to 1.4 million. so we have a million less americans serving from a much larger population base. but as professor basovich, believe me, it's tough to follow him, he's one of the great intellects in the area of civil military relations. as he pointed out, i think the most significant thing is the rise of the all-volunteer force. allow me to differ with my colleague, professor basovich, a little bit here, is that i don't think that the psychology of the typical person in the active

duty, full-time active duty military today is really the elite professional. many people in the armed forces, and this is a problem from time to time, do conceive of themselves as citizen soldiers, even those who aren't in the guard. they conceive of themselves as the classic yoman farmer who goes to serve in the military and will eventually leave the military to go on and do something else with their life. and for that reason they have a very strong sense of their rights and privileges as americans. and this shapes the american military in ways that, perhaps, other armed forces aren't shaped. and i also think that probably one of the most significant influences on civil military relations, particularly as we look forward, is the kind of wars we've been fighting for the last decade. as you know, we've been fighting essentially a counterinsurgency type of conflict. and what our policy has been,

what our strategy has been, it's one where supposedly we win hearts and minds by doing principally nonmilitary task. we have grown a whole generation of officers and enlisted personnel in our military who have been told by the department of defense that stability operations, in other words, learning how to run civilian institutions, governments, schools, enterprises, is on a par with combat operations. so in other words, their mindset is very different. they're not focused on what president eisenhower would have thought is fighting the external threat. this has lots of implications. when you send a young man or young woman to a remote location and you tell them virtually to be the mayor or send a lieutenant colonel to a remote location and tell them to

virtually be the governor of that area, they take on that mission with the energy that you would want people in the armed forces to take on. but it leaves them with a different idea of what their role is. now, we ask them to come back to the united states and completely abandon that kind of mindset. and i think that that's going to be very difficult. and just as one canary in the mine, i would invite you to read the article written by a marine lieutenant colonel, published in official u.s. government publication, "joint force quarterly" this fall, wherein he opines that military officers have the responsibility to disobey lawful orders if it conflicts with their moral view of the world or as a way of offsetting unwise policies. as chris pointed out, almost 20 years ago i did write an article called "the origins of american

military coup 2012. "as i go back and read it now, i'm thinking i'm not a very smart person but i'm disturbed by what i read. here's the central issue that we have. what is the appropriate role of the armed forces in policymak g policymaking, understanding that you really can't do anything in the defense area that doesn't, you know, involve policy. and to what extent should the expertise and how should that expertise be expressed? lets me address one of the things that andy raised. the role of retired generals. as a retired general i have some interest in what this should be. it is kind of ironic, here we have president eisenhower who was a retired general who became rather involved in politics and policymaking.

but since that time, since 1961, a number of things have been put in place that really do limit the role of retired generals. especially in relationship with the industrial complex. recently we saw secretary gates implement some rules that will make it very difficult for retired military officers to be mentors to active duty. i think this is quite unfortunate. there was a perception that retired generals are making all this money and it is, i think i'm well compensated as a retired general. i will tell you, on the day i retired i made less than a brand new lawyer who never practiced a day at a top washington law firm. i, believe me, i'm very happy with the compensation and i'm very grateful because i came into the military with $200. i left with $201.

i'm very happy with it. i'm very well compensated. it does give you a perspective. it's a tragedy to me, i think as we talk about what we're facing, we're spending $2 billion a week in afghanistan. we're not buying airplanes and ships and things like that. in fact, another one of the changes is we're really down to about six major defense contractors. i worry that we're not going to have the competition that we once had that made our weaponry the best in the world. we are who we are, not because of our military, per se, but because of the capitalistic system which provides the kind of creativity and innovation which allowed our troops in the field to have the best equipment and the most modern equipment. i think that that is in jeopardy today. but returning now to the role of retired generals, much has been put in place and there's been

much criticism of retired generals getting involved in politics and endorsing. i personally think that's a little unseemly for a retired general to endorse a candidate. it's one thing to run for office. it's another thing to wind up behind the candidate. but on the other hand, i'm not as worried about it as some people are. i think that the american public pretty much knows the difference between an active duty officer and retired officer, because if they didn't, i think we'd be talking about president clark and some other people. and i don't think it has all that much impact on the average person. even though the polls over and over show the respect that military officers have. at the same time, i would rather have for benefit of a democracy, i would rather have retired generals speaking out in public than meeting behind closed

doors, among themselves, and talking quietly to different people in organizations. you know, general jack king, and you know, he did -- he was one of the principle moving forces behind the counterinsurgency strategy, but he did that all behind the scenes. if you read bob woodward's book, general casey, of the army, was not happy about that. we have to reconcile, how can we exploit the expertise and do it in the right way so that the understandable tensions are accommodated? finally, i would like to make one other observation that concerns me. the nature of today's threats is such that the military is becoming more and more involved in domestic security.

i would suggest to you that there aren't very many models where you take the armed forces and use them for internal security, and that's been a good thing for democracy. some of these threats, in particular the sybra threat, we're seeing the attempt to leverage the capabilities to help protect their to midwedome systems. i think we need to be very, very cautious about this and ensure there is oversight, that there are firewalls between the domestic law enforcement role and the national security role to make sure that we don't have any kind of a -- and the reason i say this is because the armed forces are the most trusted institution in american history. i'm not sure i'm 100% comfortable with that honestly. is it a good thing the armed

forces are more trusted than the supreme court? is it a good thing the armed forces is more trusted than the ko congress? is that a good thing? be that as it may, that popularity underpins the success of the all-volunteer force. in other words, people are willing to send their sons and daughters to join an organization which is perceived as so trusted and so respected. if the armed forces becomes involved in domestic security in a way in which it is perceived that they're invading the privacy and rights of the average american, that could upend the admiration that the a armed forces needs from the general public in order to sustain itself to have the best and brightest continue to volunteer and serve. i do want to get to your questions. i'm going to cut my remarks right there.

and i very much look forward to it. and thank you again. [ applause ] >> thank you, chris, very much for inviting me and having this. it's a great privilege to be on the panel with people like andy basovich and even with only with his words and with general dunlap and colonel wilkerson. i've always admired their work. larry speaking out about how the bush administration got us into that mess in iraq. i remember general dunlap writing an op-ped in "the new york times" about hey, we ought to stop and think whether we want to go whole hog with counterinsurgency. we have other things we need to worry about. in looking at eisenhower's speech, a couple of things are important to keep in mind. you have to remember that president eisenhower in a sense last control of his defense

budget after sputnik. what happened was, those of you who were alive at the time, i happened to be, was a sense of panic. you had this committee come in and talk about all this horrible stuff and what the soviets were doing. eisenhower was criticized for being soft on defense if you can imagine that and basically the budget began to go up and it continued under kennedy. i think that was obviously a concern. in his original draft of the speech, he said military congressional complex. the reason he didn't do that, he was supposed to give the speech in front of congress which did not happen. he gave it before the american public. so in effect that word would have been in there had he known, you know, what the venue is. and i think obviously that's important. he also mentioned, this is relevant to what general dunlap

said, he was also concerned about military officers going to work for defense companies. so in other words, a lot of the issues that are still there are, you know, are relevant. you know, if you go back and read the gaither committee, it was followed by groups like team "b," for example, and this year with the defense review came out, they brought a bunch of people in and talked about, you know, we have to spend more on defense and, of course, if you've been following the papers lately, the chinese are coming now. okay, you know, they just got -- you know, it always amazes me. the chinese are building planes. so are we. chinese are building missiles. so are we. we're going to tell them they can't. every time i see one of these things about what the other side is doing, about how this could be to some intended consequence. reminds me of a story i heard recently when i went to the middle east. it seems this ederly couple who

have been marriedy eied many ye. to say the least, the passion had gone out of the romance. they decided to go to the holy land. while they were there, the man passed away. somebody came to the woman and said, look, you can have your husband buried here for $50. she said, how much will it cost to bring it back home? guy said, $5,000. she thought for a couple seconds, said, i want to take him back home. guy said, doesn't make any sense, why are you doing this? she said, you know, i heard y r years ago a fellow was buried here and after three days i rose again and i don't want to take a chance. all right, well obviously, you know, anything could happen, but i think it -- i think this is what president eisenhower was warning us about. i want to take a little bit of issue with what general dunlap said, because in preparation for my speech today i read this series of articles in the "boston globe" by brian bender. he talked about the fact that 80% to 90% of the retired generals, the last three and

four stars are working at defense companies or doing consulting for defense companies, but worse than that, then they get put on boards by the pentagon to evaluate what we should be doing. i do think it is something we need to be concerned about. now, eisenhower also was concerned that other people following him, obviously, would not have the military stature that he had to argue with the generals. and eisenhower used a wonderful term when the military would go behind his back and play games. he called it legalized insubordinati insubordination. i remember testifying before the senate. i supported clinton's attempt to drop the ban on gays in the military. i accused the generals at that time and the admirals of legalized insubordination. senator mccain got all upset.

i said, that was ieisenhower's term, not my term. people didn't realize that. but it's worse than that. i think andy basovich made a, you know, a point. we don't have that many people who go into the service, so it's not just a question of whether you're a general or admiral or done all these things or you're in congress or you're working in a civilian job in the pentagon or in the other agencagencies. if you don't have any military experience you're afraid to challenge them. richard cowen had a wonderful op-ped article in the "washington post" recently and talked about the fact this is just like a -- people are afraid to challenge it. it's very challenging. look when general petraeus testifies. look at their medals. look at eisenhower, bradley, one or two things. it's very interesting. nobody knows what those medals

are. chris mentioned i was on active duty. we used to day say live in '65, alive in '75. you get them all. and get up there and people say, oh my goodness, they were probably at the battle of the bulge these people or something like that. very few of -- i mean, for example, general petraeus doesn't get his combat action badge until he goes into iraq as a two star general. okay? admiral mullen served on a destroyer off the coast of, you know, vietnam. okay? this -- these were not the band of brothers, you know, for example, or anything like that, but people then, you know, they don't want to challenge them. now, chris mentioned about my stories. i'm going to tell you a couple i think are relevant to what we're talking about. as many of you know, i had the privilege of working in the reagan administration as assistant secretary of defense and trying to deal with a lot of issues that are still with us. you know, military pay and benefits and things like that. so i was talking one day at a meeting. i said, you know, the military

retirement system is killing us, going to have to do something about it. and i thinks you know, too many good people are leaving after 20 years and getting half pay. can't we kind of cut that down then give them an insensitive to stay until 30? anyway, we're at this meeting and this admiral said to me, he said, if you do that the volunteer military will end, nobody will join. i said, admiral, give me a break. i said, when i came into the service, you know, 22, you don't think you're going to be 30, let alone 40 or 50. he said, oh, you were in the service? yeah. what did you do. >> i was a naval flight officer. he said, why didn't you say something? i said, it has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. he says, well, i would have paid attention to some of the bs you've been putting out. okay, i think, see, that's what happens. again, richard cowen made a wonderful point. if you've been in the service, you realize military people are great people.

not all of them are. they make mistakes. and again, let me give you another example of, you know, how it's important to be able to challenge them. not only was i in the navy, i taught at the navy college. i made a lot of changes in the navy budget. admiral came down to see me and. you made all these changes in the budget. i said, my job is your budget has to support the president's strategy and it's not. and he said, you know, that's the problem. i said what do you mean? the president has the wrong strategy. well, no, that is i think important and i think that's what happens. people don't want to stand up against this priesthood now and it is a problem. there's something else and again general dunlap mentioned it. more and more military people are becoming involved in military campaigns because the candidates are looking for them to put the good housekeeping

seal of approval on them. and i think we have to be very careful about that. it started when president clinton had a lot of problems, you know, before he ran about his military service and lack thereof and all this, people were concerned and so admiral crowell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff endorsed them and i know admiral crowell. and stayed at his house and remember him from my days at the navy war college but then he got the job of ambassador to the court of st. james. i said that's wrong. and then about a week later i ended up in a dinner sitting next to him, okay, but that i think we have to be careful of and when bush and cheney were there, you know, at the republican convention, it looked like, you know, a meeting of the west point alumni association, with all the people up there endorses him and even president obama, they were looking, in fact, i worked on the pain and people would say do you know any generals we can get to endorse

us because they were worried? it's politically cute among the democrats who are worried about being soft on defense. when you go back and look at it it was the democrats who got us into vietnam. eisenhower wouldn't have gone that. at least from what we know. they increase defense, you know, defense spending. clinton actually spent more on defense than former -- the first president bush had projected on -- in other words, they're very, very concerned about that. the other thing that i think is important is how the military have learned to manipulate the media. in bob woodward's book they talk about the fact they were discussing about whether we ought to add 30,000 more troops to go to afghanistan and according to bob, well, general petraeus was leaking the stuff to "the washington post." now, in my view, that's the worst -- that's sort of a double

worst -- first of all, you shouldn't be doing that but, number two, to do it anonymously, okay, to me, that's even -- even worse and then, of course, he gets called out on it and said well i won't do it again. the question is why would he do it in the first place? okay, and again, general petraeus, still very upset about me. i almost fell off my chair in 2004 right before the election. about a month before i opened up the paper and i read this op-ed by general petraeus that says, a, how well the training is going in iraq and, b, how well the war is going and first of all i thought that is not true. if you read that we would have won the war in 2005 but why is a general writing right before an election? okay, was it his idea? was it the administration's idea and leads me to something else, i think if i ever go back in the government i want to say no admirals on the sunday morning

talk shows. that's not your job because you're in a no-win position. you go back and read what jenniers and pace said about iraq, it looked like it was going much better than it was. now, let me conclude with this. i think we can handle a dilemma created as people talked about about the all-volunteer force and some of andy's points by going back to something that i got personally involved in and that was keeping draft registration for the president. bill, you may have been at the meeting. you know, we had to make that decision because president reagan had campaigned against it because carter had brought it back after the soviets invaded in afghanistan. and my job was to bring this to the president's attention because we had to make a decision if we didn't, it would expire automatically. and in doing that, the point we

made, i made, i still believe and the military made it, as well, the all-volunteer force is a peacetime military. and one of the arguments i made to the president was even if you don't -- you know, think that you ought to call up people that's necessary from at least from a military -- if you get into a prolonged conflict you have a moral responsibility because we're telling people if you volunteer and you spend one year in a combat zone you're going to get at least two years at hoe, one to rest and recuperate and another to get ready to come back. i don't know what persuaded him but he did keep it. where i think the uniform has fallen down here, they should have insisted when we went into iraq, okay, you can be for or against, i happen to be against it but the president wanted it, the congress supported it. they said, okay, you want to go into iraq, activate the selective service system because

that would have done two things, one, not only would it have relieved the pressure on the men and women. what we've done is criminal sending them on back-to-back-to-back deployments and it would have got americans to ask a lot more questions. it's them over there. they can go and unless you volunteer it doesn't really impact you. that's what we need to do. we need to ask more questions about why we do this and finish from a quote from richard cohen's op-ed where he said, you know, the thing about war is too important to, you know, to leave to the generals, it's also too horrible to leave it to them alone. we should be involved. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> okay. i want to thank the cato institute also for having me here today and identify myself

with remarks of dr. bacevich who i hope i'll see tonight if he makes it out of boston. i want to come at this -- also i want to say it's good to see susan eisenhower again. i think i saw you at the screening of "why we fight." i use the cross of iron speech and farewell address as part of the backbone of my seminars on national security decision-making. they are so clear about what the tension is between what michael hogan has called in his book a cross of iron, the national security state which is clearly what we've become and the welfare state which is not a pe score tiff in the sense that we hand out to money for not working. it's the description of a democratic federal republic that takes care of its people with telecommunications and health care and education and good transportation and good energy sources, good jobs and so forth. that's what hogan means by

welfare state. that's what eisenhower meant by the american way of life. so this tension between the national security state and the welfare state is with us big time and out of that comes in my experience a unique aspect of this civil military business that i'd like to talk about because i think i bring somewhat unique credentials to this having spent 31 years in the combat arms and also four years in its diplomatic or foreign policy equivalent on the other side, the state department and i spent them there at the state department at foggy bottom under a man like george schulz before him wanted not only to do foreign policy but wanted to resuscitate the foreign service and those others who work in the trenches in the state department, even including foreign service nationals, those are the people who serve us in our country team, embassies and

consulates around the world who come from those countries. so let's look at it from that perspective because it sheds some light and put over here for a moment the other aspect of our foreign policy which is awesome and that's our economic might. and eisenhower certainly understood that too. that's in pretty much disarray right now. none of us know how that's going to come out. not the greatest nobel prize-winning economist in the world knows how we'll right the ship of state with regard to our economic and financial situation. but let's put that aside for a minute and let's talk about the two other instruments of national power that are daily involved in the pursuit of our foreign policy. that's diplomacy and the military. the unbalance there is so stark that i think if eisenhower were alive today, he'd make a speech about it. it is so stark that as he pointed out in his article in "the atlantic" and was stunned

to see that the budget is up to an awesome 48 billion according to andy's article. when i was left it was 28 billion and we had to fight tooth and neal and it was only because of palace bona fides we were able to obtain an additional battalion. that's three-quarters of a trillion for the defense department and about 40 billion for the state department today. it was joked he lost more money in a year than powell got. he was right. check the records. almost any year the defense department can't find through its audit process somewhere between $20 billion and $40 billion. an incredible imbalance when you understand that money is power. people are also power, resources, 19 bring grades in my army alone, one brigade in the foreign service. our greatest achievement at the state department was to go before our budget committees and appropriators and madeleine can

do it. i need $3 billion or $4 billion and i need to hire people. we hired 117 new service officers. they were all consumed in kabul and baghdad. so we're back to zero. you have no educational float. you have people working around the clock all the time. what are some of the other indications of the imbalance there? the military has in-theater assets. i know. i served in them. they have the world divided up into fiefdoms. if you read dana priest's fine article in "the washington post" about the proconsuls, that's exactly what they are. they are proconsuls. when the four-star navy admiral from st. pak which is my vivid experience, when he goes to japan he is seen by the prime minister because he's trailing in his wake, tactical fighter squad drawns and fighter

divisions. when another one goes he's carrying a briefcase and he's lucky if he is lucky to see the head of the american division. that is an imbalance that puts the military out in front of foreign policy, one of the house committee on foreign relations recently had a title committed is our foreign policy military terrorized? you get it is. >> ease of use is also part of the problem that creates this dichotomy or this imbalance of power. why is it easy to use? it is easy for some of the points pointed out before. it's professional. it's a legionaires. it can go almost anywhere the president wants it to go. the latest attempt to curtail their power was an abdication of the congress to declare war. the congress essentially said, okay, we give up. you can use it but you got to report periodically and every

president has although he's protested and, of course, richard nixon vetoed and passed it over his veto. little did he know it was an abdication by the congress, it has certainly proven that way but every president has conformed to its requirements usual by by stealth in the dark of the night delivering the ports to the congress. no president wants to be seen in any way inhibited in the initiation of hostilities. that ought to tell somebody something. it goes on. the state department does not have a domestic constituency. let's just check what the defense department adds. it has the defense industrial base. it has bases and facilities. it has the reserve component, national guard and reserve and the families of the legions, it has conservatives. it has the american people. it has the congress and it has private security contractors and i could go on and on. what does the state department have? it has no domestic constituency.

the state department's constituency is the international public for the american people. but that does not resonate with anybody enough that it could constitute a political or what i would call a domestic constituency that would fight for the state department. we have a tendency since the 1947 national security act and can you look at the presidents from truman on and see how this begins to build and build and build and gets to the point of nixon where nixon is calling the people at the state department commie pinko dogs. another institutional creation of the 1947 national security act, the security council so you have ambassadors from other countries. you have ministers of foreign affairs from other countries regardless of who they are, china, japan, whatever, they come to the country. they know who to go see. they don't see their counterpart

but the desk officer or director director of the nsc in the white house because that's where foreign policy is run. that's a little different with each president but the tendency and trend to consolidate it there is certainly prevalent and as george marshall said when he was advising truman with regard to that 26, july, 1947 signing of the 1947 national security act i fear, mr. president, we've militarized the process. the decision-making process is what he referred to. if you get it in the white house and it isn't transparent enough that not just the american people were cut out but the rest of the bureaucracy is cut out, and the pre-eminent institute within that instrument, within that bureaucracy is the dod, guess what? guess whose influence will be prepo prepondant? >> i saw this happen.

he knew i was the only member of his policy planning taff that had military experience. good pick, i went over and met general casey at the time j-5 on the time and we set him up. we met three times and then donald rumsfeld ordered them stopped. he didn't want the state department interfering with the defense department's business or having anything to do with what the defense department was formulating. we even had a conversation, the military officer and myself and we decided we'd meet in crystal city off the patch, so to speak then he got selected for brigade command and got fearful whether or not he was caught by the secretary or one of his mignons what he was doing, he would still go to command. i said we understand and we topped the talks so no coordination and defense at the strategic level. the policy planning staff being the only strategic element at the state department. this imbalance is an imbalance

of two of the most critical instruments. the one diplomacy should be the leading strumentd. it should be the instrument that's out there all the time. it should be the instrument that is most coveted by your leadership. it should be one that is most exquisite. it should be the instrument that does most of america's heavy lifting along with its economic power. it doesn't. the defense department does. that is the greatest and starkest imbalance of power within the civil military relationship that i know of. [ applause ] thank you all very much. all right. so we have time for questions and answers. well, definitely question, hopefully answers. we have a very large crowd as you can see. i'd like to entertain as many as possible. we have the jeopardy rule. you must frame your question in

the form of a question. no speeches, please, so if you are your question is to a particular panelist please indicate that also. also indicate your name and affiliation. right here. >> my name is jordan. two brief questions on topics not been raised. one is the virtually every survey shows that the political registration of members of the armed forces is more and more republican than it once was close to an even split between democrats, republicans and independents. so this is my first question i want to raise about how this affects things and also when the draft registration was passed under carter only men were required to register. so i wonder if we face the possibility of going back to the draft, is there any rational

reason why young women should not also register, as well? >> good questions, both. >> go ahead, charlie. >> i'd like to take a stab at both. number one, i think there is a statute that is supposed to preclude surveying the military for their political affiliation. i don't have that on the tip of my tongue but i think that's a good thing. we should not be trying to discern the political affiliations of the armed forces. but you raise another interesting question. my colleague and just for the record i only work for duke university. i'm not a defense contract -- well, god, they probably are a defense contractor somewhere so i probably work for one, but my colleague from unc, dick cone often talks about how officers shouldn't vote and interestingly enough general ordierno and petraeus announced they did not vote. sounds like an apolitical

statement, doesn't it? who does -- if people in the armed forces follow that, does that have a partisan effect based on your comment? is that a partisan act by publicly announcing, encouraging people not to vote? and to what extent is it a good thing in a democracy for the armed forces to alienate -- be alienated from the fundamental act of a democracy which is to vote? and i'd ask you to put that in the context of i guess there's a lot of hate about generals in this room, but, you know, they're not all bad people. i would suggest. but i also think, you know, in a democracy how much do you want them to feel that they are not part of it, that they -- should we fear the silence of the generals? should we have them only in the quiet back rooms?

i don't think so. i would rather have them out in the sunshine. i'd rather have them on the talk shows. people are pretty confident to confront generals so i'm not so concerned about the ability of the democracy to deal with it and your second point -- >> draft information for women. >> number one, draft is not going to happen. and will not happy in the country. the military would be profoundly against it simply because it is such a technical force now and having people who don't want to do the things that you need them to do but i'm absolutely astonished for all of the discussion of don't ask, don't tell and all the pontification of how we need to have equality and access and fairness, no one virtually is talking about the inequality that women suffer

today in the armed forces. why on earth should every job not be open to them? now let me tell you i'm not a feminist. i'm not talking about gender norming standards and everything else just -- hey, make the test whatever you want it to be but if you can pass that test you ought to be able to do that so this idea that somehow our military today can't handle h e having women in combat, i would say that they haven't seen what combat is today because we have had women in combat. they've been wounded and killed. one of my young j.a.g.s was severely wounded after she came and briefed me in iraq. by an ied, so that is something i don't think -- if we ever did have a draft certainly, but i think that we need to address the inequality that women suffer today in the armed forces. it sends all the wrong messages to young people.

>> let me comment -- it was a court challenge to that when we put draft registration about women not and the courts basically said that, congress had the power to exclude them. i don't think it would hold up anymore because basically women can -- i mean even though there are certain legal things they can basically do everything. there is a report coming out that congress did set up a group about dropping the final restrictions on women, you know, in combat. i agree with general dunlap, decide what women should do and what the jobs are and just let people compete for them. those surveys -- if you look where the people come from in the volunteer source, it's not surprising, but interestingly enough in the 2008 election, again i don't know how they do these, there was a change because people were so fed up because of what bush had done to the military a lot of them were changing, but i think admiral

mullen gave a speech this week telling you where the people come from and, yeah, they would do lead in lean in that direct. i think we ought to encourage them to vote and there are provisions in terms of absentee ballots and things like that. >> chris, two ink thing, jason dempsey just back from afghanistan, west point faculty, the state of our army, amazon.com, he gives you the stats for his surveys and his analysis and it's pretty balanced. people forget that the officer corps is one thing, enlisted and nco is something else and they make up the bulk of the army. so it's pretty balanced. on the second point, casey, general casey, chief of staff of the army, is opening serious suggests about women serving in all positions. >> in the back, david aisenberg.

>> david aisenberg, and three points. first, the most important line in president eisenhower's speech was always the part about the necessity of an informed and alert citizenry to restrain the influence of the -- how you define it and the citizenry is capable of being knowledgeable due to the myriad of information freely available to everybody out there who is interested in looking. they don't seem particularly alert. they seem to have largely bought into the idea that the military is the most trusted institution and therefore they know what they're doing and we should just trust them to continue doing what they're doing and it's basically good which i think is radically wrong. how do the panelists think that could be changed if at all and secondly, what do you think president eisenhower would think of the rise of the private military and security treaty

contracting we've seen in recent years. >> two very different questions. who wants to take it? either one. >> well, i think, david, on the private contractors, you would have been appalled. remember, that basically started when we went to the volunteer military because we started contracting out kp as they used to call it back then and of course we went over the line. if you look at the first gulf war one out of ten people in theater was a contractor and iraq and afghanistan is about 50/50. i would argue one of the reasons it is is because they didn't activate the selective service people to call people up and have more active military people so that's why they relied on it. >> private contractors very simply stated allow the president of the united states to get around constitutional mandated in strength limitations on the armed forces, they allow them to go to war.

>> yeah, on the first one, i think that the military is the most trusted institution because quite honestly and i'm not talking about people like myself, when you see thus young kids they really are our best and brightest and it saddens me in a way that so much of our talent has to be bled off into the military because if you think about president eisenhower's speech about every dollar spent is a theft, so forth and we can talk about intellectual capital, as well. getting back to your central issue i for one very much believe that a civilian who has never served can educate him or herself to the point where they can confront, if you will, the military on more or less an equal plain and we're talking about on the strategic level and defense policy level. you're not going to get down to the point where you know as much as a corporal about how to drive

a tank but you don't need to. that's not the big policy issue. you can and you educate yourself. part is self-education but seeing more and more universities and i would like to see it even greater have national security study, not just for people going into the foreign service and i'd be happy to comment about the foreign service if anybody asks a que question, but who will be citizens and business leaders and so forth. and not to plug duke but duke and the law school, that's why we have a center there and you see when they first started years ago, you wouldn't see that at all. now there's i think 160 universities that have some sort of national security studies. it's a hot topic and it is possible and necessary for a democracy to educate itself. >> down here.

>> i'm christine with p. sax in montgomery. i want to thank you, mr. wilkerson, for your interesting analysis. i read that there are more people in army bands than there are diplomats. and but my question for you is you talk about the lack of a constituency for the state department and the lack of a constituency for diplomacy. how can we change that? how would you see -- i thought your analysis was very profound and i don't know how we go about making that change. >> a good question, one we deal with in seminar because i ask my students how would you change it and i've had interesting responses to that. including i'm going to help change that and they go and -- i'd say probably a third of my

students will take the foreign service exam. they will probably -- about 50% of that will go on to the oral exams and maybe 50% of that will get into the foreign service. others are going into other instrumentalities of the government not the least of which is the peace corps which doesn't get much want anymore but i get the most interesting e-mails from my students who have gone into the peace corps, el salvador, mexico, incredible eye-openers for them and come back and hopefully be policymakers so one way is through education, a long-term solution but through education. another way is to recognize, i think, this division of power, that imbalance of power. secretary clinton and gates have made headway in recognizing it and trying to do something bit but now the physical situation of this country is such that no one is going to give up a single dollar because they know they'll give up billions across the

board as this physical situation gets worse and worse, which it's going to. so i'm into the sure how you do it in a fast way, given the physical situation that we have today and the fact there's not enough money to go around for everybody. the long-term solution, i think, for the american people and for those who will go into policymaking positions is education. it's opening their eyes to the fact that diplomacy is still an instrumentality that ought to be used. interestingly, if you studied the demise of empire and history, you will see that one of the things that becomes atrophied as the power becomes more arrogant and more dependent on its force as its principal instrument, you get this frittering away of that power on the fringes of power, think afghanistan and iraq today for example and then you get a -- if you're smart like the british

were, you get this reaction that says, wow. we do need a civil service and a foreign service that can do things for us because our power is no longer that way can do everything. and so you get a resurgence of the diplomatic instrument. i'm hoping that that will be an attribute of what's happening in the world today, that is the defusion of power, not just our power that is being diminished but others coming up in terms of our relative power, so it's a mess if you want my real appreciation of it but it has ways it can be ameliorated and one ways i'm work on myself is education. >> let me give you a more specific 30 seconds. you need a unified national security budget age look at all the instruments together and goes up as one then the president can make the trade-off as head of time, missile defense or diplomats or whatever it might do and that will do it

quickly. now, congress may or may not go along with it completely but if you send it up there you at least started the battle and gates talked a good game and said we ought to spend more on diplomacy. well, where are you going to get it from? the sky so that's what you need to do. theand you alsed go after ..i'm a republican. my party in some of its more right wing members takes great pride in not even owning a passport or never set foot out of the united states and doesn't want to. takes great pride in the fact it doesn't speak any language but english. you've got to change that mind-set too. >> if i -- i've often heard that thing about the bands and foreign service and i assumed it was just a flippant remark and wasn't serious because my flip apartment remark serious back would be when they become effective at representing the united states as our military bands do maybe we'll increase

the size of the foreign service. but let me say this, nobody in the military would prefer to take the lead in foreign appears. we all would rather have things resolved through diplomacy but i think it's a mistake and i do agree, we need to have a larger diplomatic core and it needs to be opened up to more than graduates of georgetown and princeton, i might add and duke, yeah, seriously, more than just the graduates of the elite universities. but we have to understand that what gives our diplomats leverage is our military power. so the idea that we could be militarily insignificant particularly in a particular theater, for example, and have the same kind of leverage that we would hope to have i think is not very realistic. there's interconnection.

>> right there and then i'll come down here. right there. >> paul sloan, retired military served both in the draft era and the volunteer. is it a possibility that the military of the all volunteer today with the civilian contractors equaling as much as they are could morph into truly a mercenary army? s>> well, that's why i think if you go to war, we kept draft registration and that's one way to prevent it. if you just say, you know, forever we'll never draft again i think you do, you know, run that -- run that risk. particularly with your private contractors because you have virtually no control, you know and we've seen all of the stories. even the military doesn't like

the private contractors i mean because if you go back and you look at what happened in fallujah where the marines had to go and fight when they really were not ready for that particular engagement. >> let's distinguish between security contractors and the vast, vast majority of contractors which are not performing security duties, the vast majority of contractors are leaning latrine, serving food, doing logistics and things like that. i totally agree that when you have contractors guarding the u.s. embassy, i remember going into the green zone. it just shocked me that we had contractors guarding that compound. in the interperimeter. that shouldn't be. i don't think that they'll -- and a lot of them, most of them are not americans. most of the contractors we hire get subcontractors from all over the world so i don't think this is a good thing but do the american people want to pay the

incremental cost to hiree ssentially security guards? what we're paying for now, what we're buy something a highly trained sophisticated infantryman that the decision has been made it's better to use that sophisticated infantryman in other tasks other than standing the important much simpler task of guarding point defense. but the rise of military contractors is troubling especially since more and more are being employed by nongovernmental organization and media and so forth so even if we got out of the business of security contractors, i think that there would still be a market for them. >> down here. >> boday aberdeen. i have a question for the three panelists about the imbalance of power within the defense establishment which we heard about, the imbalance of power between state and defense but is

there any balance of power in the pentagon between the civilian leadership and the military leadership? >> okay. good question. >> in terms of what is the proper balance. >> is there? is there an imbalance? >> well, i think it changes depending upon the personalities. i think you can -- you have secretaries of defense who are not afraid to confront the military. you have some people who don't want to confront the military. i do worry, you know, in terms of somebody, you know -- i mean in secretary gates was in the service and he's also, you know, an ncia. he dot not seem to be afraid to confront the military. you may disagree with him but he's not afraid to confront them. it's important and doesn't necessarily have to be military

service but understand the background. i see it even now, you got people there -- they want to be popular with the military and don't want to take them -- you know, take them on. and, you know, for example, we all talk about military health care and the cost for retirees. if you don't take that on -- they finally made a little bit of change this year but we haven't changed it since 1995, okay. and nobody wants to take that on because you don't want to be seen as unpopular. people forget and bill would remember when stockman was in there, we froze military pay one year, no raise like civilians. would you try that today? let me tell you nobody would do because the men and women and all this. if you look at the military pay it's higher than it's supposed to be right now because you have an index and it's been going over it all year but, again, i think, you know, that is very,

very difficult than -- i do worry about that, you know. i used to tell people working for me, if you leave here after a couple you have years and the military loves you, you haven't done your job, okay, because you've got to take the bomb. >> so quick question to all three of you. will congress pass an increase in the co-pays and fees for care? for the first time in its history every time it's been floated up congress has shot it down. >> i'm afraid so, but it's wrong. it's wrong because we're in the middle of two wars and you're going to balance the budget on the back of 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds and 25-year-olds? if you want to cut charlie dunlap -- if you want to increase my co-pay and co-pay of every general officer, if that is somehow going to solve the budgetary problem, have at it. but don't do it on the backs of -- >> so that's the distinction, charlie. it's between active duty

personnel and retirees because otherwise they don't affect the rates much the retirees either. >> i can tell you in the great keep of themes this is not a lot of money. let's start with entitlements to people who have never served. >> there is a -- >> because if -- if -- yeah, if -- if we are -- if we have to -- if we have to make a decision, i think we can do both. i don't think it is -- we may have to increase taxes or whatever, i think we can do both but we should not try to balance the budget on the backs of that small portion of this country that served -- is either serving or has served in uniform. chiefs, we ought to look someplace else than to take away the health care for them and their family or make it more expensive or more difficult to obtain. we're the united states of america. we don't do that to people we

have set in harm's way and so many have come back very different than how we sent them. >> we don't. we've done it since the revolutionary war and i will tell you something going on right now i'm following very closely as are many of my retired colleagues. if you belong to a military associations, used to be retired association, they're the lobby group for retired people, you guys know about them, i'm sure. there is actually very sophisticated orchestrated i think from the pentagon who's oshth straighting, i can't say campaign going on to divide the veteran committee and steal from the old veterans to give to the new veterans and the rhetoric accompanying it is being put out by varous and sundry congressmen who come down on either side of the fight but that's very dangerous in my view. you divide and conquer in this way and of course the most acute

ve veterans group is the ones who have the athengs are those veterans from afghanistan and iraq particularly because some of them have some really horrendous wounds due to the fact that we can now save pretty much almost anybody on the battlefield so this is a dangerous thing to be doing to start the fight within the community as to who should be the bill payer? i agree the sums are so small this shouldn't be necessary but it is necessarily apparently because it is so difficult to get into cutting any of these. >> let me disagree here and i can't emphasize this too much. first of all, what is happened -- we were not at war from 1995 on so number two we've increased the benefit, okay, if terms of you didn't have dry care for life in until 1999 so this idea that you can't touch them is nonsense.

and nobody is saying you're going to balance the budget on the -- with the defense budget but it has to be part of it, okay? and the fact of the matter is, you get -- you have the same thing with police and firemen. well, how much can you, you know, pray somebody to put their life on the line? look, i'm going to give away -- when i went into the navy i got 220 a month. why did i go in? because my father said you deserve to serve your country. we didn't go in for money and say how dare -- i took a cut from being a new york city high school to go in, okay and we never said, oh, you owe us this, no. we love this country. we owe them -- owe the country so you can't -- mullen says health costs are eating us alive. what are you going to do about it? and that's the key thing. if you were paying right now, admiral allen when he retired, head of the coast guard says i pay $19 a month, okay, for, you

know, coverage? you have military people what retired have a health care plan. they don't take it because they stay on their own. that was never intended. nobody to talking about wounded veterans and the bill that gates proposed is for retirees under 65, okay? that's what he's talking aboutle now, you ask me how to do it i'd means test it and we've made changes, for example, it used to be if you served, you know, you could only get 75% of your pay regardless of how long you save. now it's 100%, we changed that. that wasn't part of the agreement. who came in after 1986 said you'll get 46% then 50 perhaps we changed it before the war stated. you can do it. you've got to take it on because if you don't, you're not going to be able to buy some things that you may like to defend -- to defend the country but this argument -- nobody is trying to

bat the budget on the backs of people but has to be part of overall. don't give me this, we're helping people who haven'tered it. you haven't earned it? you paid your social security. we use the social service surplus to go to war. that's what we did. we took that surplus, we didn't raise taxes on people. that's the big mistake. this is the first wars we have's ever gone into which we haven't raised taxes so who do we expect? this again and i'm not demeaning it. i know what it is, okay. i went and the reason i went is because my family told me, i could have had deferments ras a teacher and all that. that's what killed the draft. we got all these politicians the last two vice presidents and the president they didn't serve, okay? that's what killed it and we let them get away with it. so this idea that somehow, you know, and i among to -- you should see the stuff they write about me. i love it when i get my thing

every month with all these horrible things that these people write about, this type of thing, no, okay, so i think, you know, in terms of pay, we have a standard. employment cost index. we're way over it. that's the standard. that's the law and nobody ever said when you come into the -- you know what you promise military people when you came in, read the contract. you will be entitled to health care at a base on an availableability basis. that's what you're promised. there was no tri care. >> we got the one thing that could get the panel ifs to disagree and get larry fired up. >> if we talk about means testing why limit it to only those who served in the armed forces. i'm not into it but if we're getting into means testing and go down that route. that takes us in a whole different direction and we

immediate a new panel. >> two more questions, 10:40. go. right there. >> alex dirk with national legislation. i wanted to go back to the idea of the unified national security budget. we've heard secretary clinton and others argue that could increase the state department's stature as the budget goes through the congressional appropriations process but do you think it's also possible given the imbalance of power that already exists that could actually exacerbate the balance of power between dod and state? thank you. >> go ahead. >> in brian stek, captain u.s. army national guard. my question is back to the all-volunteer versus draft. it seems me the reality of it regardless of the political imbalance is a socioeconomic imbalance. you do not have members of all walks of society continuing to serve in the united states military.

as a result, the policies that are being put out by the politicians are now being carried on the backs of 1% and mainly a. >> reporter: affected by it. isn't, in fact, the question is, is that really good for democracy for the fact that everything that we're doing everything, everything that we're imposing is in fact not in any way shape or form whether through taxes or mutually service good for the democracy. >> you brought up the unified security budget. are you putting the kitten in the cage with the lion? okay. so that's number one because you raised that, as well, colonel wilkerson and unified security budget? >> well, basically what you would decide can how much you want to spend on defense, diplomacy, development, okay? the decision based upon, all right, then you would be able to make trade-offs and you'd have to say do i want to buy another

submarine this year or do i want to spend more -- we're not just hiring foreign service people but talking about development. you know, development of foreign aid an you would make that trade-off so that basically you could say, well, for this dollar in foreign aid i can deal with what the military says is a big claimant change. i can deal with that or deal with the scarcity or something like that. then when you send it up, yes, congress can change it but you've already made those changes and congress accepts about 90% of what you do and what i want is get the executive branch to sit back, the president and his team and look after you make that decision and, bart, the other question, basically that's why volunteer military is a peace-time military. go back and read it, 1981 the military wrote that to president reagan. it's ray peacetime because then in war you would get, you know,

to deal with the problem you want. >> senator? >> i think it's a reality -- it's a reality, and we're going to have it. we have to make military service attractive enough so that the best and brightest will continue to solve to do the things that need to be done. in terms of putting the lion with the cage that is always going to be a problem because of this factor. at the end of the day we can have battalion after battalion after battalion of diplomats but they're not going to be hunting al qaeda in the hindu kush so there's things the military has to do which requires a much bigger infrastructure so i do think there will be imbalance but i do think it's a good idea. i support the idea but -- >> last word. you do have the problem for some of the reasons i pointed out and others that you may be letting the fox into the henhouse, but i think if you reorganize the congressional committee structure to provide better oversight of the process you would be a long way down the road to trying to stop the head or prevent that.

you'd need probably a joint national security committee sat on by both members of the house who have the power by the constitution of the purse and by members of the senate who by historical precedence or a little more shall we say sagacious when it comes to long-term thought but a joint oversight committee and eliminate all the committees that have their own fief domenici fiefdoms could go a long way in preventing that. >> thank our panelists. we'll take a quick break. [ applause ] we'll take a quick break to allow the panelists to leave and our second panelists to come up on the stage and reconvene just before 11:00 so pay attention to we'll flash the lights or i'll make an announcement. thank you very much.

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>> now an event with the head of the transportation security administration, john pistole. he talks about the agency's efforts to respect privacy rights was securing the nation's airports and railways. the american bar association's law national security committee host this event. is 40 minutes. >> we are actually honored to have john pistole come who as you know is the fifth

administrator and was confirmed in 2010 for the transportation security administration. it is a rather large task that he has. there 60,000 strong workforce in which he administers. there are over 450 federalized airports. is control of the federal air marshal service and the security for highways, railroads ports man's trip -- mass transit and pipeline. john comes to the tsa as a 26 year veteran of the fbi where he specializes in security and counterterrorism issues. he began his career as a special agent with the bureau in 83, served in minneapolis and new york was the supervisor of organized crime section with a special agent in charge in boston and in his career he has won a number of atreides awards for those of us who are familiar with these recognitions given out by the department of justice which include the award for

outstanding professionalism and exemplary part -- in 2005 presidential rank award for distinguished executive. he is a graduate of indiana university school of law and i think he has become quite well-known to the american public. [laughter] i was saying to them there or not a lot of people in washington buying for this seat and i think it is a testimony to public service. there are very few people who we think are fit to do the job as well as john is doing and it is not easy and i think i know this room has a great deal of appreciation and thanks for all of your public service and sacrifice. with that, john will speak and he has been gracious to say he will take a few questions and we will finish the way we normally do around 9:00 a.m.. with that, john it is my pleasure to have you come up. [applause]

>> thank you regarding. appreciate that kind introduction and thank you for the invitation to the committee and all of you here this morning. it is a pleasure to be here. i just want to talk about for brief areas of national security related to transportation security and go over those and see what questions you may have. the first is just to set the stage in terms of what the current threat environment is, what are we dealing with and the context we do all the things we do and transportation security. the next point is how do we deal with this is part of a continuum of national security so the layers of security that we use in tsa, how does that fit into the overall construct? the third is looking at how do we balance the privacy and security issues that became so apparent to people right before thanksgiving and then the fourt will deal with what is the way forward. that is where i'm going to us for participation either now or later on.

we are really looking at what is the vision for transportation security in the years ahead and we talk about that in terms of a 2020 vision nine years from now. what does transportation security look like and what should it look like as we try to balance privacy and security backs all the while recognizing that the key aspect is how do we protect people who are traveling particularly by aviation? those are four points i will touch on. the first, the current threat environment. obviously we know that there have been a number of attempts and stockholm recently but there have been attempts particularly by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula going back, the one-year anniversary of the 12-25 attempts for much of the northwest airliner coming into detroit. coming out of yemen and we saw another attempt here on 10/20 -- 25.

the two words that come in mind are persistent and evolving. we have seen the attempts. it seemed particularly al qaeda and qap is persistent. they are determined. they are innovative, they are creative. they are bold. all you have to do is look at inspire magazine. if you have not seen that -- i'm not one usually to promote people to look at jihad is literature but in those instances i think when people look at that and how they take credit for the cargo plot i think it is instructive for everybody who has any interest in what transportation security looks like is the credit that they take and a description of how they constructed those devices. the fact that they would be in the toner cartridge of the printers that even if opened up, somebody would not be able to detect if there was a bomb there. the fact that they had taken steps to cleanse the outside of the containers so that if

somebody took explosive protection or a bomb-sniffing dog by the container containing the bombs, but that would not alert. the fact that they actually took photographs including a book that they put in the container, the box with the printer just to show they did this and then the fact only cost them $4200 several months preparation and a handful of people to do this. what that does is it addresses the vulnerabilities that we are currently dealing with in the aviation and transportation area and that is talking about on the cargo side. there has been a huge focus on passenger transporter for years but now with his cargo plot it really raises the stakes in there have been a number of discussions and meetings. tsh is hosted a meeting monday and tuesday of this week of the international community on steps that we can take as part of that international community recognizing the critical interdependence that we have with our foreign partners both in government and the private

sector to shore up those vulnerabilities. so we see again a persistent and evolving threat. there is a number of other issues going on. we have seen a number of -- in the u.s. by joint task force is. some people refer to them as lone wolves, individuals doing things that are perhaps aspirational in nature and fortunately for us they are dealing with undercover agents and officers from jttfi rather than true terrorists but for example the individual in portland oregon who wanted to blow up the christmas tree lighting ceremony, the individual here in washington who wanted to attack the subway system. a number of these examples over the last several years we have seen come individuals who have wanted to do something and again fortunately for us they encountered on line undercover fbi and joint terrorism task force officers and agents. the current turnover that is some people say they are not true terrorists and they are

aspirational. they're not completely operational. they don't have the means of turning out the attack. the concern we share of course is but for that alert worked by the joint terrorism task force is what if that person connected with a true terrorist or someone who shared similar aspirations and could construct the devices that would be used to blow up whether it is the federal courthouse in springfield illinois or a bank building in dallas texas. so again we see persistent evolving threats from a number of groups where that is a al qaeda and arabian peninsula, al qaeda senior leadership out of the tribal areas that we have seen for years, what it is al qaeda and iraq or al qaeda in maghreb or the taliban, the pakistani taliban al shahzad working with ttp. those are some of the threat streams we are working with and seeing. that is a context that we in tsa

are working on. the second is that nasa security apparatus we have to try to secure the and transportation obviously those means of transportation particularly focus on aviation. i would like to describe it as part of a continuing. tsa is part of a continue on that is part of this national security apparatus. on the one hand we have the foreign efforts whether that is foreign intelligence collection, foreign intelligence services or law enforcement agency security services. as we saw with the saudis in the cargo plot. they were able to obtain not only strategic intelligence that there was a plot the tactical intelligence that says here is the tracking number of these two packages that contain bombs, go track them down. that is a rare occasion where we have credible, timely and accurate intelligence that we can take action on but that is

the best case scenario and that is so rare that we just rarely see it. that is the best situation. what was -- we usually have as their is intelligence that something is happening and it may be a plot to do something on an airplane. we had right before christmas on december 23 we received no intelligence that al qaeda in arabian peninsula may be using thermoses to put tat p. the same material that was used on christmas day and that 10/29 cargo plot and the assassination attempt against the deputy ministry of interior. the same bombmaker made those three bombs to carry out the suicide bomb against mohammed bin life so this plot was that they would use tat p. around the cylinder of a thermos put it on a passenger or cargo plane and the initiation of the detonator

they didn't describe. that is general intelligence. we make sure all of our transportation security officers tso's are alert to that and do additional physical screening and additional to the x-rays and whatever other screenings, to see whether there may be a viable plot so if you happen to be traveling in the next come or the near future and you want to take your thermos with you just be aware that they will be subject to more physical screening because that is intelligence out there. that is on the one end of the continuum and obviously what our men and women in the military are doing overseas, trying to limit the effectiveness of having training camps overseas, whether it is in pakistan, afghanistan, yemen, somalia, wherever you describe to make sure that there are not opportunities for training camps as we saw prior to 9/11. that is one end of the continuum. we then move more towards the shores of the u.s. and as we

look at what we have going here, the fbi is where i came from has thousands of investigations of individuals here in the u.s. in the joint terrorism task forces 100 of them around the country are the lead operational arms for the u.s. government working with state and local authorities to try to at this -- address those issues that may pose a threat here. than we have a state and local police, nearly 800,000 of those around the country who hopefulll likely be the next set of people who will detect the plot. they are the eyes and ears out on the streets of their the ones who have contact with the community and all those things. so we have all those as opportunities to identify and disrupt a terrorist plot. it may be a state trooper pulling somebody or for speeding or it may be in a number of things. we have all those opportunities. we also have concerned citizens. somebody may talk about their neighbors as we saw in the u.k. was one of the plots leading up to the july 705 bombing

the fact is concerned citizens whether it is part of the see something say something campaign or just being alert can be great force multipliers as we try to protect our citizens. those are all opportunities we have to identify and disrupt a punitive terrorist plot. what it comes down to venice for the men and women of tsa if all these layers of security we have had not identified that person and we have somebody particularly here in the u.s. who is perhaps a long book but perhaps it's just been under the radar, perhaps it's just been very effective in acquiring the knowledge and the skills and the ability and the material to construct a nonmetallic device just like we saw on 12/25. you go through the web site and see where advanced engine technology machines are and

recognize there are places where we just have the walk-through metal detectors. whether it is like the 12/25 underwear bomber or somebody else that will not alert on the walk-through metal specter so concealed it artfully and goes to that airport and get on a plane. detection officers try to detect something through documents that would indicate something, whether it is a secure flight which is operation which the tsa runs. it has the name, date of birth and gender for everybody traveling through to the u.s.. if they are on a watchlist they get secondary screening, perhaps no-fly. but that person may get through. let's say it his regular dulles, they may get through and then it is really up to the federal are marshaled as the last line of her sort as far as the defense for the u.s. government. flight crews and passengers and

things may be able to do something but that is not what we want to rely on. that is why we have these layers of security. that is the context for why we are doing the things we do which brings me to the third . we do the things we do in terms of security screening based on the latest intelligence so as we saw before thanksgiving, we went to more thorough pat-downs. the reason was because we don't want underwear bombers to get on planes and them up. and kill people here in the u.s.. that is the bottom line. there is a lot of controversy about that and a lot of controversy about the advanced imaging technology machines. i will know, i am not sure it is -- but we actually started deploying the advanced imaging technology machines back in the fall of 07. some people say why are you reacting to yesterday's thread? two points. we need to make sure we are addressing yesterdays threats though if something happens that

was rigorously attempted or successful and we didn't take steps to shore that up such as harden cockpits for taking over the aircraft so that is one point. the other is how do we best go about doing that? what do we do to ensure that we are informed by the latest intelligence that we are taking steps to address those security concerns. we deploy the ait in the fall of 07 after 12/25 of 09 the attempted bombing. we been accelerated the acquisition so that is what is caught a lot of the public's attention. the exhilaration of the deployment coupled with a be enhanced pat-downs. so those are simply steps we are taking to try to make sure that you, your loved ones, everybody else can arrive alive. that is the bottom line. so what do we do in terms of trying to balance security with privacy? we try to make sure that we are

using the least intrusive means of detection, that we are sensitive to and attuned to those privacy issues into france. one on the technology, trying to use the best technology that can detect nonmetallic threats of the current most significant type of threat that we see while at the same time preserving the best privacy for individuals that would go through that. we do that's two ways. right now with our technology obviously we hope we are aware that the person that the security office has seen, the person seeing the images in a separate room and never sees the person so we never make that connection for those concerned about modesty and privacy. so we do that. the other thing we are doing is always looking at responding to technology and so we are very interested in what is known as the automated target recognition technology which is currently

used in the airport in amsterdam. we are testing it out right now. we are very interested in that because i believe it completely addresses the privacy, the modesty issue that many people have concerns about by simply presenting a generic image. i was out at our immigration facilities at reagan airport yesterday looking at how that testing is going. and simply present a generic image. some of the stick figure and some have what they call a blog but it is a generic figure and if there is an anomaly from what the normal variation, what is normal for men and women but if there is an anomaly that it would just show up as say it talks. for example yesterday one of the individuals demonstrated, kept his blackberry on just to show what would happen and so he goes through and so the passenger walks through and actually sees the image right there because it is just a generic image.

so the passenger in the security officer see this at -- image at the same time and there is a yellow box on the left hip so let's try to resolve that. so the person says i forgot to take my blackberry off. so i think it addresses the privacy issue and modesty issues in a very good fashion. we are working through that. and we are hoping to have some refinements in the technology that we can deploy that sometime this year. we are just waiting on the technology on that. on the pat-downs, we are working to look at are there other ways we can conduct a pat-down that would be less intrusive but to achieve the same results in terms of being able to detect very well hidden items and we are still working through that process. we are always trying to respond to what we do and how we do to address those privacy and safety

concerns recognizing that we need to make sure we can get the highest level of confidence to everybody traveling that not only everybody else on that plane has been thoroughly screened but that you have been thoroughly screened too because nobody -- every but once that high level of confidence. what it comes down to a believe is where do we find a balance between privacy and security and as they mentioned a couple of times in some media events around thanksgiving, i think reasonable people can disagree where that balance is for themselves. other people i think they generally say yup, it is good but when it comes to me what is my comfort level with privacy and security in that balance? so again i think reasonable people can agree that we want to be sensitive to and hear those concerns and at the same time making sure that we are providing the best security possible to keep bad things from happening. so, that brings me to my last point in terms of what is the

way forward. what is the future of train station security? so i am very interested in looking at the best risk-based intelligence driven approach possible. we talked about that -- i came in six months ago and have been talking about that since i came in. how do we use the latest techniques, tactics and technology to ensure that we are using a risk-based approach. what does that mean in practical terms? it means we will look at using more behavior detection opportunities. some people talk about the israeli model and for those of you who have traveled through injury and, depending on what you are status was it everything you were afforded some very thorough security or fairly light security frankly. is a very tailored approach and i am very interested in not recognizing that ben-gurion has about 11 cometh between 10 and 11 passengers year and we have

dozens of airports individual airports here in the u.s. obviously that do multiples of that every year. so we have about 628 million passengers in the u.s. this year and last year and about 100,000 person difference for those interested in tracking those things. 628 million versus 10 or 11 million so the challenge becomes how do we best go about doing that, recognizing they can't be all things to all people all places at all times so how do we best leverage our resources significant as they are, 61,000 employees, but with over 450 airports and not even considering surface transportation issues in terms of rail, buses, some of the things that harvey mentioned. does a rather opportunities and talents we have to focus on aviation. how do we use the information we argue know about passengers and an informed and intelligent manner so we know the date of

birth, their name and their gender. not much to go on. we know that the u.s. government and private entities hold a tremendous amount of information about individuals so one of the opportunities we had is looking a trusted traveler programs. those individuals willing to provide more information about themselves in exchange for a different level of screening. so more identity-based screening in the physical screening. we will still do physical screening obviously for virtually everybody but for example, we made a decision back in november about pilots. we have got over 110,000 pilots here in the u.s. and yet we have them go through the same security as mohamed atta would have. that doesn't make sense from my perspective so we are working with the airlines and pilots associations to refine the technology we have piloted, a

pun, in three airports to allow for privates to use identity-based screening so they would not go through the traditional physical screening. flight attendants also go so we are looking at refinements within that have made minor modifications as we work through those issues. there are groups of people out there, the very frequent travelers who again are willing to provide information. we have them programmed in the past and we are looking at those but also looking at what we can do as a government in terms of providing probably a fee-based service but to say okay you don't want to stand in line here is what we can do. there may be other groups of people that we look at in that respect also. so those are some of the things that we are looking at in terms of the tsa of the future. we are also looking at the checkpoint of the future, really looking at it from the perspective of from the curbside when somebody is dropped off to the cockpit. there are opportunities through

that ross is to learn about an individual through an israeli model, simply talking to this person. where are you going, where have you been coax where you live? all those things and through that you learn a lot more about a person who is traveling. obviously we have a number of k-9 max's and k-9 mack handlers. people are glad to see k-9 mack coss and airports but generally it is a friendly dog and what we do is have k-9 handlers walk through airports with the plainclothes behavior officers observing from afar and they may look like passengers and they have a boarding pass that they are transportation security offers, to watch and see how people respond to that k-9 and i would have loved to have been in

the airport in amsterdam last december 24 when abdulmutallab walk-through. if there had been a k-9 and handler walking through the airport and to have a behavioral detection officer observing people reacting to the k-9 to see how abdulmutallab may have responded. how would he have reacted knowing he had this bomb in his underwear and being concerned about dogs, to see what type of reaction so those are the types of things we are talking about comic standing those areas and their k-9 program. doing things from and risk-based intelligence perspective. those are some of the areas we are looking at. it would be interesting to hear your thoughts and not necessarily if you happen to have it fine, but my e-mail addresses john at dhs.gov. there's a pretty good spam filter on there. [laughter] he got tested considerably around thanksgiving, but it

still works. if you have ideas, a lot of smart people in this room a lot of national security, a lot of perspective on how things work and a lot of frequent travelers and so if you have ideas -- why can't we do this are why can't we do that? i would like to know about that so send me an e-mail, call me whatever and we will take that into consideration because we are working for a number of things. with that let me stop and turn it back over to harvey. [applause] >> we will take a few questions. we have a few minutes left so is there any questions. >> my question is there have been a number -- increasing number of cases where american citizens are able to depart the country when they are in a foreign country and a no-fly status is imposed on them and they are not able to return to the united states. how do you think those cases should play out in the courts?

>> the a question about the individuals who go overseas and i've been designated as a no-fly and can't return to the united states at least biplane. they can always return by other means which is not a good option for most. the question becomes, is there an interest by the u.s. government to have that person return? is that in the interest of equities whatever. some individuals there may be charges pending against them, either sealed or unsealed so each of those instances are treated as an individual situation are going to last year we have seen a number of waivers for those individuals to come back either so the fbi could interview them in more detail or because there are pending charges perhaps sealed that they could come back and face charges. each situation is reviewed and then an assessment made within the intelligence and law enforcement community. >> is very prosecution all issue here in the right to -- the

united states? >> i would defer to our lawyers on that. there has been some discussion on that, but to my knowledge there hasn't been any successful challenges to that. >> i thought your idea of stewart baker -- focusing on the traveler more than just on the materials. obviously where we are going to have to go and saying there are some travelers that we can give less scrutiny to is fine but the real key here is to find the travelers who want to get a little more and to do that you have to be able to make distinctions among travelers based on intelligence. that raises some issues but i wonder if you have thought of ways that you could do a better job of selecting the people who need more scrutiny? >> so i mentioned those who have worked in the government and others are just aware of is the u.s. government holds a lot of information about many people, a

significant amount about many people especially those who hold clearances and things like that. so there is obviously some distinctions there. what we are reviewing our all the holdings coupled with industry holdings about people and what can we use from -- recognizing the privacy and civil liberties issues, but we are keying that issue up again to say okay, we are using more physical types of screenings. these are more intelligence-based information-based screenings that they can use. that is on the horizon for 2011. >> john, a comment first and then a question. i travel extensively in november and december and i think i mentioned this to you a couple of weeks ago. to include coming back from overseas the day before thanksgiving which i swore i would never do.

i wasn't delayed 22nd and any airport on any trip so i thought the whole hoopla and hullabaloo was far too overblown. with that, thank you to the men and women that work for you. the question is and i've had this for a long time and he started to answer a lot of it's going down the road of technology so it is twofold. in your mind as technology eventually get us to that point if the enhanced backgrounds are necessary or do you believe they stay as part of the process like you talked about in terms of layers? a magnetometer has always confused me once people started taking their shoes off. the technology now takes you from the top of your head down to your ankle. what is stopping us or maybe just his money in investment from taking that technology all the way to the floor? >> two points on that and the latter.being guess we are looking at all types of shoes, scanning's, screenings, technology to see what we can do. i would just know there is also

a policy decision there. most of the e.u. does not require shoes to come off so there is a policy issue there and that is part of the risk-based from my perspective we could always require people to take off their shoes but one of my goals is to have the technology coupled with the policy development in such a fashion that people will no longer need to take their shoes off. the question is when of course and laptops are a different issue because of what we have seen and concealment and laptops that is a challenge and coats out loosely can see a lot of things so thank you for your comments about thanksgiving and i think the calm professionalism of the security officers helped carry the day on that. in terms of where we go, for example the pat-downs right now are always a secondary screening techniques so if you just walk

up to a screening the first screening type is not a pat-down so to resolve either an anomaly or an alarm or somebody is refusing opting out to go through ait because we don't want abdulmutallab to say i'm not going to do that. the goal is to use more information intelligence which will limit the number of individuals that we need to resolve some type of anomaly. i will stay ait, we have had a number of instances where things have been found, artfully concealed on individuals, since we have been using ait whether from ceramic knives that would not show up on the metal detector or of course drugs and paraphernalia and things. >> touching upon the last.you've mentioned the e.u. and in your discussions earlier he talked about from the curbside to the cot that.

had we get other countries, e.u., other countries that may not be as -- to come to the same standards domestically since a lot of the attacks have been more internationally focused and whether the international standards are something we can do without. >> one of the key positive elements from the christmas day attack guest -- last year was for the community to come together under the auspices of the civil aviation organization. in october a few months ago i kale which is based in montréal part of the u.n., passed a resolution, security resolution for all 190 countries to sign onto, green to minimal standards recognizing that critical and dependence we have. the meeting i mentioned that we had tsa hosted monday tuesday included them and the e.u., included some other key partners including iata international air transport association which represents all the airlines so that partnership is working together so we are seeing a

number of initiatives coming from -- for example we spent more than a day on security matters is a once every three your meaning. the fire triangle meeting except i understand it was 22 minutes on aviation security as opposed to safety and environment and all those other things so the international community is coming together in an unprecedented way. >> we are getting close to the end. >> having lived through total information awareness i feel for you. but two questions. one is have you physically built into your waiting process some sort of public health advisory group because for the structure and pyramid was an afterthought and secondly, having gone to a national airport over things giving four hours early thinking i would have to wait, it scared them all away.

[laughter] and i wonder part of what grates on people is right. i almost lost a bottle of chanel three years ago. a 150-dollar bottle. so whenever it is the first -- it is a shock and lack of anticipation i think serves people so could you address that? >> suzanne spaulding. i'm picking up on that last point. you have been wonderfully opened today in your remarks and candid and i thank you for that and shared more than i think we are used to about specifics in terms of what you are looking for and how you go about it. and i'm assuming that was a conscious decision on your part, which is a little bit in contrast to the usual instincts in washington to hold things close to the -- so i would love if you would say a word or two about that.

>> clearly with 1.6, 1.7 million passengers traveling every day, to be successful in our mission we need to have the body and of not only the traveling public that those who follow the industry and look at things and a number of issues about thanksgiving in terms of not wanting to tip off the new procedures but as it relates to other ways that we can do things i am encouraging a healthy, vibrant debate and discussion about okay what are we willing to do in terms of exchange of information for perhaps less physical screenings. that is why i am interested in that discussion and debate and make sure that not only the general public has an opportunity to weigh in but all associations and trade groups then obviously the hill, everybody that has been interested in this issue as an opportunity to weigh in. decisions we make in making sure

we are always protecting privacy and civil liberties and providing the best possible security. >> please join me and thanking john. [applause] >> of if you have a quiet moment we have the u.s. intelligence community sourcebook which is something the committee has put together. i usually say we hope and governments you keep on smelling like a rose in her job but now we can say we hope you will keep smelling like a bottle of chanel. >> there you go. [applause] [inaudible conversations] ..