region. if those two realizations can be made it becomes more obvious that using diplomatic means to seek a diplomatic process that is durable within afghanistan will be the most effective way to do much, much more with much less both in terms of blood and treasure than a policy that only emphasizes the escalation followed by hand over to a very shaky regime at this overtime will much better secure the long-term national security interest of the united states as well as the interests of the parties within afghanistan. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, and thank you to all the three speakers for very, very rich presentations, which both teachers quite a few lessons but also holds quite a

few new questions. my policy is to offer some reflection before we start, and hopefully to those reflections will further stimulate the debate. i was reminded this morning about the engagement in afghanistan. the guest house where we were living tended to discuss issues, but we also had -- before written? in discussion with other guests at the guesthouse. and, of course, that also is telling not only because engagement but because that engagement is also one key resource in reducing the ideas. softly we will find pure reflections and resolve this even more tangible ideas from you and the audience. not that i will deprive you the opportunity to ask questions, it is your privilege and you're

right. let me limit myself to three brief reflections. the first one is on what is potentially a strategic gap between the military and the public part of the strategy? as andrew reminded us, what we have at the moment is really all we talk about his talks. it's easy to mistake this talk about talks. they are are not really anything that it must do concrete things work as far as, at least as far as we know. there are a number things have been point out the past few years which could possibly inside the scene. that is also all. i haven't spent -- i've been visiting regularly but only for short visits. one of the things i was struck with was here perhaps at least a little bit, i think you're

absolutely right, minna. over the past two years there's more and more interest, more and more support for the idea that the political process will be necessary. my sense from his last visit was really bad there has been a setback in terms of support for a political solution. perhaps not so much with international community, but more so within, particularly the afghan political elite i would say. i actually wonder if the conference -- the lisbon conference and the relaxation of 2011 deadline, the 2014 deadline really contributes to that more lukewarm attitude to need for clinical process. -- for political process. we've heard a lot in these presentations about military

strategy and the possible political impact of the military strategy. i think many of us, many of the people we talked to in our research are really skeptical about the ability of the military surge to produce a conducive, starting point for a conducive political process. and here again, this is perhaps a different aspect of the gap. at the moment we have a military certainty which is very much driven by the international community and the international community i think increasingly means u.s. where as the very responsibility for the politics is supposed to be going with the afghan government. and there is a cat. that is potentially quite problematic. another aspect that strikes me as problematic when i discuss

this many, amongst the afghan political elite, political association seems very much perceived as a zero-sum game. and without criticizing you for what you did, trying to come because i think the way you laid out your positions is accurate and also flexible your but once we lay out the position, there is also the risk we can't -- not only those positions but the perception that it is a zero-sum game where the party said that at the table, show their cards. because as you rightly said, a political process is like if something goes wrong, in that long drawn process of course positions, perspectives are transformed and compromises are being worked out. and what initially made look like a need for a compromise may

actually have, may end up being a comparability between positions that looks very, very different. so i guess what this brings me to is really a rather general and overarching but nonetheless terribly important question, which is really what are the possibilities in the current climate given the skepticism within much of the afghan ,-comgovernment by and large part of the international community to develop a politically, they truly politically driven strategy for afghanistan. the second issue i want to pick up on is the issue or consultation with the afghan people. and you may forgive you for being a bit selective but i'm trying to push some of the issues which i think have not received the necessary attention in the debate. there is certainly a widespread concern amongst many afghans in

afghanistan in the diaspora are what the political process result in terms of hitting up over the past 10 years, giving up on rights. there is certainly very little dialogue between anybody who has an influence on the very strategy and those who express those, larger civilian population. as we heard hamish say, in many other consultation, people are not necessarily so concerned about constitution itself. this may be a bit of a surprise since from the international community we say the constitution is not up for negotiation. that's not necessary such a concern. we also talk about red lines again. most afghans seem not to think that entering negotiations with a finite set of red lines is very constructive. but there are deeper concerns about rights, about justice,

about what sort of afghan state, what sort, with what sort of protective mechanisms for its citizens, or what welfare for its citizens that would come out of negotiations. so there is definitely a need here for some type of society consultations. hamish use the term inclusive, inclusive peace process. what the peace process should really look like is something i don't think we have a sufficient attention to. there is no doubt that given the experience we have from peace process that the durability of peace hinges on such rather consultations. existing mechanisms doesn't really seem to contribute to this. of course, back in the beginning of the decade was the electoral

mechanisms, the representative mechanisms could really be the mechanisms through which the sort of consultations should come about. but that doesn't seem to effectively be the case. the peace council is a new invention that is possibly also fostered such a dialogue. at the peace council itself doesn't necessarily see this as a central part of their mandate. so i think a key question here really is what could be the shape of a peace process which is inclusive, transparent or perhaps even what exactly is the type of consultative mechanism that should run throughout the possible peace process that could really make the voice of the innocent or the non-armed or the civilian population heard. and then finally, and again i allow myself to ask a rather overarching question, what

should be the contours of the negotiation process? we've heard here, and i think with a good substantial to his argument, that there is no way one can think about the peace process in which there is not a commitment by the united states. it is a critical party. what exactly the form of that commitment should be is a different question. we also heard, and again i think very convincingly argued, the engagements from afghanistan's neighbors is critical. and we also heard, again i think, the current escalating needs of the afghan presidency and the afghan government is a liability. and i certainly got very concerned about that because it seems to me that at least we are now at a stage where there could be reasons to ask whether, not only the government, the

tensions within the government are of such a scope is not fully good to lead a political process, but, in fact, whether burdening this rather, this rather tender alliance that we call the afghan government within the peace process could be held the very nature that tips the balance. and one thing that was emphasized by several other speakers which i also think is terribly important, the whole question of readiness of the taliban. at one point, it struck me as i listen to you, what is the impact of the current driven military strategy in terms of helping the taliban are encouraging the taliban to develop that readiness? we don't know much about what sort of reflections go on within taliban leadership's, leadership

about a political process. but it wouldn't be surprising if the fact that there is inherently a rather intense military surge that is taken away from the energy that could otherwise be put into discussing what a political situation could look like. so somehow is there a way in which one can actually create a more conducive space for bringing about a political reflection within the movement itself, because that is certainly a rather important element of readiness for talks. basic question accepting some sort of representation for insurgents, numerous countries have been suggested as the host of a new taliban office. nobody has been wholeheartedly enthusiastic so far. i think but again that may also have to do with the fact that there is no clear signal from

the international community that this is something that is really wanted. and, finally, and i think minna said this very clearly, who is it that can be critical third party in this situation. there are certainly at the moment many tracks, teaching tracks perhaps, not that there are any tracks but there are many tracks and nine of them are terribly strong. none of them have the support that it takes to become strong. but most importantly, i think we need to ask at this very moment what are the contours are constructive political process in afghanistan, and what would be the first elements? because i'm not sure at the moment we're really making progress in terms of converting the past 10 years of the international strategy into what is first and foremost, a

political strategy. thank you. [applause] >> i'd like to thank the four panelists are very interesting and rich presentation. now, over to all of you for questions and comments. although preferably brief questions and comments, but we have two microphones on either side if you want to come up and ask your questions from there. we will probably take two or three at a time and then get the pin was an opportunity to respond. please. spee if you could also introduce yourself first. >> i work at the department of state. minna spoke of the war economy in afghanistan and professor jalali i think suggested that

the war economy is also a large part of the explanation for the increase in corruption. if a political strategy succeeded, what is the economic future, postwar, post-withdrawal of foreign troops? we hear that afghanistan also is the world's largest producer of opium. nobody has mentioned that in the course of this discussion, but it is an important element of the economy. so where does -- what's the future of the economic future of afghanistan and the afghan people? >> scott? >> i work on rule of law issues. my question relates to parliament, and i realized and asking it we still don't know what department will look like. and it could take a shape that

this question becomes irrelevant, but if we assume that this crisis over the parliament gets resolved and you have established body, i wonder what role, if any, do you see them playing in talks as you mentioned the need for more inclusive process and accommodating different groups? because as flawed as the election was is still a body that has leaders from around the country representing different parties and the only formal institution in high peace council i would say which gathers those leaders in a peaceful setting. and so, both in terms of i guess hamish, your interviews with a lot of parliamentarians, they see themselves, their institution playing a leading role, and even if not, for others is that a potential mechanism for introducing this inclusiveness or not? >> one last question. >> a couple of strategies proposed, which were

interesting, one was a semi-peacekeeping role essentially between the afghan government and the taliban as two warring parties. a fact that came out was there should be de-escalation with insurgent and leading up to a cease-fire. [inaudible] >> secondly, in both the strategies we are not really talking about disarmament perhaps, in which case can we really imagine a sustainable peace after a cease-fire or after some kind of peace accord? thank you. >> okay, whoever wants to take on some of those questions.

>> on the issue of the economy, i think one thing that is not always there is that there has been economic growth for the last 10 years. it's unclear exactly how we measure it, but there does seem to be at times double digit growth. and i think a great deal of potential with peace for capitalizing on that and on the sort of, it's very energetic face of afghans. if it's coupled with regional infrastructure initiatives and with trade agreements across the region and so on. people of course speak a lot about the mineral wealth, which i think has a potential of course to become a foundation for afghanistan, but it will take an awful lot of time and

investment. and it will take security. to be able to really harvest. i think, scott, you're absolutely right that the parliament passed to be somehow involved. it is a body that could potentially provide some kind of inclusiveness and a sense of different regions being represented. i don't quite know what form that might take, but i do think that as soon as the parliament is accepted as not being -- as excepted as legitimacy, there needs to be thinking about how to work that into. on the questions about de-escalation, disarmament, yes, it's very hard to see afghanistan really going through a full disarmament process. this is a country that has a

great history of weapons being held in homes. i think it's not so much about the arms. it's about the question of how the various groups are integrated into this, the political process and have their integrated also into security forces, and those questions. there's a lot of details that would need to be worked out. >> yes, about the economy, economics in afghanistan future depends on the stability of the nation. talking about opium. there's not a long history of opium production. it started as part of the war economy in the 1980s during the soviet occupation. and then would be breakdown of state control or, and also the droughts and others and some of the war, it actually became their regional problem.

i think mainstream, this counter narcotics strategy, in all aspects of development, that security, governance and economy, there's no simple solution for that. today, i think the most, you know, the part of the opium is produced in the south which is unstable. in the north and west, it is easier to control but in the south is very difficult. on the other hand, as long as the insurgency continues in the south come it will be very difficult to control production of opium. with regard to the peace console, peace council is something which is created by the government.

people who are on the peace council, those were hit by the government and, therefore, it is actually the voice of the government. but parliament is not. all these peace jirga and other things are not going to a. i think parliament is the real state of institutions that can play a role because they represent the people across the country. i think this problem, i'm not talking about the secular parliament because for the past one year they were not able to elect their speaker. but generally speaking, parliament i think yes, it is a very good institution to be involved in the peace process. with a peacekeeping role, i

think first we have to the peace in order to keep. there is the peace in afghanistan. and when you have peace, peacekeeping. in 2006, when many internation international, nato countries came to afghanistan, there was no peace to keep. and, therefore, i think first we have to some kind of peace. you have to keep the peace first and then probably that will work. >> a couple more questions. marvin. >> marvin weinbaum, middle east institute. you made reference to the fact that we really don't know much about what's going on in the thinking of the taliban. should we be talking about, however, about whether in fact we can treat them as

interlocutors here in the sense that we would have some common sense that they in fact understand compromise and what that means? it was suggested, and i don't think there's much to indicate that it has changed, and i say that even with -- they never represented -- they never represented the connor hart shura. what we found was that they we were, they had a true believer notion hear about the righteousness of what they were doing. and the sense here of there being part of a compromise of power-sharing, taking cabinet positions. it seems to great many of us, i think, is antithetical to their

thinking. so in our effort here to find the way out, have we perhaps projected onto the taliban the way we would like for them to respond if they were, you know come even like other afghans? because you can make it argument that their ideas, the traditions they acquired in pakistan gave him a different mindset than most afghans, for whom the idea of compromise is very easily relied on. thank you. >> brian marshall. i've been serving in a series of areas of the state department. one thought and relates to a previous question, actually i'm

struck by the fact that always the reference to the taliban is not doing individual come just to the taliban. and i wonder about do we have a good idea as to who has the authority to speak for the taliban interests in at least political discussions? for example, there was an awkward situation a few months back in which someone claimed to be speaking for taliban interests, and was found to be a fraud. >> colin cookman. doctor nixon sort of tucked on this -- touched on this. i was wondering if you would discuss the role of the militia programs which delays incarnation of which i think the afghan local police, the role to which these actors tie-in to the

karzai government network and the degree to which they, assuming this negotiations were conducted with the karzai government in the lead, the degree to which it would lead to smaller local groups would be a part of that process, or would be pursuing their own sort of local economic or otherwise, other interests. >> take two more questions and go back to the panelists. >> good morning. i work as an afghan analyst. i have been involved with the peace process in nepal and sudan and iraq. i have a number of questions. first of all it was a wonderful work carried out by you. i appreciate that. a number of things that come to, and i would like to share with you, one of the major demand of taliban or other insurgent is basically withdrawal of foreign

troops from afghanistan. in many cases they demand that. and you have coded that even the afghan army and police can not ensure peace in afghanistan. and you have chief of afghanistan speaking out day before yesterday saying afghan army is lacking the moral leadership. now, if the capacity of afghans on military police is a condition we have to provide -- why it's not elaborate more on that side than how we can bring the more leadership because we have people who are leaving their duties because of the lack of transparency and so forth, in the country, the nationalism. and again, you talked about the political sentiment in

afghanistan. no peace -- [inaudible] afghanistan, in fact when the peace process came to afghanistan it was very much urban-based, you know, development, services. and the taliban during their time when i have been through the country during that time, it was very much seen in two different fronts. in the rural afghanistan was a much seen as security, the fact for stability. rural afghans, when it comes to the urban population there same then as an occupier who have given the basic right of freedom. when the problem started forecasting very much on the urban population, therefore they don't see any change. with all the development, all the millions of dollars spent in afghanistan, they don't see that change and that contributes to

the volume, that from 3000 taliban it has moved to 5000 taliban. [inaudible] >> that's an important. one of the things which is probably could have been incorporated is that the taliban rule,. [inaudible] now, i wonder if north country still not heavily supported the taliban. now, the pressure on these countries if you take the example of pakistan is limited to drone rocket in pakistan. but there is no other pressure in term of policies, strategy. and as you know these are very strategic allies in the war against terror. so why strategic effort is not taken by all the nato countries and united states to pressure is pakistan? you talk about the haqqani

network. they are all in pakistan. so why not put pressure on that? that is very important element that i see about that. i would fully argue with professor jalali that there are -- [inaudible] not really doing so good in afghanistan. during the 30 years of work, not a single movement emerge in against a. despite the fact of all the war but nobody wanted to north afghanistan or south afghans do. they fought among themselves but they maintained the afghan national id. so this is really not a big thing on the table as an alternative afghan i can assure you of that. and again, let's be hopeful about it. there are lots of hope for things happening in afghanistan. we have fundament. actually take it has signed democracy we're talking for two months to select the chairperson of the parliament, but they are not developing. i would say it is good which

they are talking. you have the professor as a leader, and you have got a female activist coming from the west. they are talking in the public and talk. so i see a sign of improvement and progress your thank you. >> my name is debbie smith. i run a nonprofit organization for building a school in kids with disabilities afghanistan. my question is, you addressed talks that should happen between the taliban and i believe it was isaf nato forces. and you listed some conditions that each party could bring to the table. however, nowhere did you discuss the role of the future of women and girls. and i just wonder how we can build a durable peace in afghanistan without addressing the rights of women and girls in

the future of afghanistan? >> let's start at that end of the table now, kristian and hamish. >> i don't know my question. >> in the interest of time i won't touch on all of those many interesting questions. i think maybe what i would touch on was the question about parliament very briefly in which many parliament members are also members of high peace council, and those particular respondents do have a view of the role which is much more focused on reaching out to different kinds of disgruntled groups in their own regions of the country, et cetera. so there may be grounds for the. a lot of the respondents outside either the high peace council or the parliament felt that i think

more because of sort of ineffectiveness or division of the parliament rather than an argument against it is intrinsic or theoretical role in this regard mentioned frequently mechanisms like those, like the emergency constitutional jerk is as kind of way to get views from across the country represented. certainly your characterization that most felt because it's an appointed body, the high peace council is limited in its ability to play that role. i think another thing that was interesting is that my own work in the past is on local governance. we have quite a formalized debate among western specialists about whether decentralization is part of the solution in afghanistan. a lot of the way of this issue is interpreted through afghan stakeholders i would say is about diffusion of power centers generally. there's too much power

concentrated in the presidency, anything you can do to defuse that outwards on an institutional basis is a good thing. not necessary downward, but to other parts of the government. slightly different issue than your core question, scott. they don't take up the question about peacekeeping. i mean, i think we have to be realistic. the likelihood of a robust international interest in the scale of disarmament and peace keeping effort that would be needed to do a traditional post-conflict peacekeeping effort in afghanistan i would say has zero chance of manifesting itself, even after a political solution to this conflict. and so, the nature of the political solution in how it deals with armed men in armed groups is going to have to take into account the structure of the national security forces or the national security framework, shall we say. and i think the current direction that the national

security force framework is being played out raises some questions about how adjustments could be made to make it led by a political process, if one was to emerge. and those two directions are obviously a great deal of interest and effort. and i was in some ways more effective effort than in the past, and increasing the size and as well the quality of the national security forces. there are a wide range of opinions on whether any of that is sustainable about attrition rates and other things, which others can speak more effectively than i can. but the second direction is also the afghan local police which was mentioned by colin and generally the localization of the duty which has been a kind of recurring theme, serving in the entire time i have worked in afghanistan. and those two trends are not necessarily the same, compatible or in the same direction. if you mobilize an armed local

group and if you try to increase the size of the national army and have a more formal framework of security forces, and i think it's clear funny which is coming through among the commanders which currently expressed interest outside basically the core kind of areas that the taliban has a stronger structure, but nevertheless their strong interest in retaining their ability to basically manage their own security speaks to the need for a framework where mutually reinforcing our mutually checking security arrangements between the armed groups would have to form part of the political process. and just very briefly on marvin's very interesting question. in terms of the leadership level, this discussion that we don't know enough about what the talibans leadership position is, i think it's an important one but i wonder whether we ever know that much about an

insurgent organizations true political position, or viable outcomes and to enter into a process. that doesn't necessarily mean committing to it in state or in negotiations, but by putting forward a clear position on the part of one side, you may elicit a response which tells you more about what the position of the others is. secondly, i would just finally say that while we may not know much about the position of the leadership, i would argue that we ask you know quite a lot about what motivates and mobilizes a large large portion of the fighters were fighting in the insurgency. and they are the two things with all pointed to. their poor government performance and a sense of injustice. and they are the presence of foreign forces. so by putting for scenarios in which we don't agree to withdraw foreign troops as a precondition but we say no, we don't agree to that. here are the conditionconditions

under which that might happen. we think that process and possibly elicit a response. possibly not. the future is uncertain. but in addition, that process could be even better linked to certain amounts of certain element of a reform agenda that is underpinned by a long-term strategic partnership. that in turn might elicit a response. again, it might not. and so there's a political means to undercut a huge amount of the non-core ideological taliban as well as what's currently what is being pursued which is a military and the offer of surrender. >> about this, who speaks for the taliban, i think it depends on the situation. different groups speak -- i do think taliban has a position yet other than their rhetoric's and some statements that were made by individuals.

in fact, we should not ignore the role of pakistan here. pakistan is shaping and trying to control any kind of negotiation with the taliban. therefore, there are groups in pakistan who are getting their cues from pakistan. the only group that so far has offered a position was -- actually they sent their delegation to kabul. but, unfortunately, neither the government or the taliban, they do not have a clear position that is clergy find. so, therefore, since there's no clear position it would be difficult to start that process. afghanistan and the international community lost missed opportunities in the past. one was in 2001 where the

majority of talibans, 90%, wanted to join the political process. but they were excluded from that because all taliban were considered to be part of al qaeda. in the next time that they offered, came up in 2003-2004 when he had a meeting in -- they contacted me. at that time the position was clear, very simple. very acceptable. they wanted protection. at the same time they had to be allowed to continue their political and peaceful means. but they wanted this to mean guaranteed by all stakeholders, at that time not only afghan

government, all ministries, ministry of interior, ministry of defense, ministry of intelligence, coalition forces, isaf, and all countries. and they wanted us if we can create a mechanism that altogether can guarantee this protection and a lack of political activity, they will actually join the process. but, unfortunately, neither the afghan government came up with an agreement, noted international community was so enthusiastic to support this idea. so then after 2003, after that today the position is not as easy as in 2003-2004. today, you have the pakistan influence. at the same time the international community. it is very difficult now to

realize what is the real position. yes, maybe that position can be clarified when you start talking. however, talk for talks is not happening. the rule of the militia, you know, in the past we have had experience with malicious. and although you call it afghanistan national please are afghan local please come you can give it any name but it depends on the situation on the ground. they help the afghan government in order to help, local security, and even fighting outside the invasion. however, that worked only when they believed in the viability of the government.

[inaudible] >> that works with each other when that system is there. that system is no longer intact. so at the local level, if they believe that they can be supported, they can believe in the viability of the afghan government, they will cooperate. however, the afghan government is no not in a position to suppt them, then they find their own ways to reach out to other groups internally or externally. i think -- it might work. at least they can create a situation where all local strongman will not create their own militias. something that is happening today. because in the north under the name of local police, the warlords, strong local warlords are arming their own people

under the name of the local police. which is a very dangerous thing happening. i think some of the insurgencies in the north was not ideological. most of them was because they were mistreated by some people in the north. today, when you see that people are coming to the site of the government or not, these are the same people who, for one reason or another, joined the taliban. not the taliban that actually were known to be -- or haqqani group. thank you. >> if i might just collect some of those questions under the framework of what i sing at the very end of my presentation, which is about repairing the parties for talks because i think a lot of the falls into that idea. and i think there's a lot of work to be done by the international community. to try to help these parties and

try to help them make coherent. and if we start from the taliban and marvin's questions, i think there are elements in what the guesswork by various peoples, there is panels is saying might be the taliban's position. that might be quite compatible in fact with western physicians. we don't know what the taliban -- its guesswork. it's based on a series of interviews by different analysts of mid-level and senior of taliban commanders but it's based on others who speak about these things. it's based on the talibans own pronouncements and what they put out on the website. but i say that one way we would start getting closer to what the taliban would be to support this idea of some kind of office for them, to give them a space or they can articulate their position. but on those issues where we

might find actually a surprising amount of compromise are things like the question on al qaeda. there's a very clear readiness to start drawing some distinctions. i mean, one of the things that the taliban, at least people will say about them is that al qaeda is a religious issue, which is always created some differences. there's also, the history of how al qaeda and the taliban came to interact is not so clear-cut. al qaeda was actually -- other groups originally. and then jalalabad mixed up with the taliban, and i think is always quite a lot of mutual suspicion. omar became -- osama bin laden. among the other movements does

not ever a close connection. and so those are the things that i think any work done and can be a basis for change in their position. the constitution, i'm not sure that the taliban are really looking for government ministries. and maybe looking for influence in the south, and so again there might be some space there. there's clearly a mutual interest in westerners leaving afghanistan. that can probably be exploited in talks. so while i agree, and kristian, hereby. it's not that helpful to articulate positions because those will not be the final positions. talks will change all the positions. but it might just be a way to start analytically thinking about how does one see a way forward and what issues need to be discussed and where the positions might start off at. and part of making, creating

that coherent with the taliban is giving them, finding a way of giving them a platform. on the government side, i think there's quite a few things that have been mentioned, kristian also mentioned earlier, as to the afghan government leadership and support for the poker process, a question, and i would agree with the. i think there are many interests among the senior members of the government that point to perpetuation of conflicts, not the least of which is the money that comes through and the ability to partake in that, and those inflows of money. but also things like the militias. i think we should be, rather than encouraging for the initiatives for localized and fragmentation, i think we should be asking the government to cohere as much as possible on

also who are the players on the government side of the conflict. then on the question of civil society i think was important to bring up the women and children. i think the reason i haven't emphasized too much is i don't think this is something that the international committee should take on and make demands. it is something where we should be very actively building up the capacity of afghan civil society to articulate what kind of afghanistan people want to live in. and building up the capacity to put pressure on the parties, put pressure on the government, the pressure on the taliban about women's rights, human rights, children's rights. and i think from my own testimony -- my past expense, the days in boston where we were pushing very hard for returns, and there was such a strong constituency among the bosnians who were insisting on those returns happening.

we could come behind them and support them. so i think there must be a role for us to help galvanize both society and an articulate their position. and, finally, on pakistan and some of the regional questions. yes, i think more pressure would probably be needed. at the moment pakistan -- pakistan's situation is one that will probably not be very -- it will be hard to put the pressure on because i think that such a sense of fragility in pakistan itself. but i do think that pakistan is starting to see the stable afghanistan is, in fact, in its interest. and i think that there's some potential there to also have, start having bilateral talks with india about afghanistan, separate from some of the other issues like kashmir. so i think is probably scope for engaging pakistan, maybe not talking so much about pressure

on afghanistan. >> okay. i see we don't have anymore questions, and we are running out of time. i have one or two last comments, or questions. just to throw out there, but i do think for me, my perspective, the militia issue is just a very good example of i think the contradiction between what we currently have -- or the lack of a political strategy and a military strategy. there can be some short-term stabilization gained at a very local level, possibly with some of these initiatives. at its very striking to me in 2002-2003, when i get a lot of research, the very number one demand was disarmament. it's very hard to find any example in recent afghan history of where in certain weapons at the local level our creating militias. so just to me, i think that's a

critical issue that we might be getting some short-term gains from that but i think we have to be moving more towards looking at political processes and politically negotiated settlements. i think more weapons, the more it will complicate the more strategic level objective i think moving towards a politically negotiated settlement. the other interesting thing that came out is a discussion, the real need for the u.s. to i think clearly articulate what its position is. there's a lot of questions about this. again, hamish mentioned, when you're in afghanistan, the theories of what do we want to be there. the very senior level afghans, cabinet level afghans will tell you believing that we are really there, we are there backing the taliban, arming the taliban because we need them there to justify this long-term because we really want long-term basis there or to steal their

resources. or whatever the reasons are. but this lack of clarity on what our clinical objective is and what our position is regarding the negotiated settlement i think is very damaging right now. but that does create tension why think the u.s. needs to articulate the position, but what the u.s. may find right now is this has to be afghan lead and led by the afghan government. again, we've heard from many the afghan government is the number one problems of fueling the insurgency. they are a party to the conflict. so are they actually the right body to believe the process? i think just a real tough issue there that needs to be dealt with, but also get a urgency for the u.s. i think to clarify what its position is. i think the issue of the withdrawal of troops, we didn't talk about that too much, but it is certainly one of the key demands of the taliban.

and yet there's a tension there where lisbon in the context of the transition, the transition of the afghan national securities lead, but didn't immediately clarify that there'll be long-term strategic partnership agreements. we'll be hearing about that more in the next few weeks i think about longer-term commitment. nato secretary-general also talk about longer-term commitment and you know a bit of ambiguity about 2014, exactly how matrix do stay behind. it seems to be clear there is a brand for troops to stay behind, not least of all the afghan, the afghanistan national security, there is no air force. it would be an importantly important role. i think the issue i think is going to be interesting in how that is resolved, demand for withdrawal of troops and get increasing signals that we don't plan to withdraw.

and then lastly i think the issue of the afghan national security forces, which a real push in terms of numbers now, and yet it seems pretty clear from the current fiscal and five in this town that the sustainability assumption seems to be a bit of a stretch. we had good meetings in kabul with the general caldwell and his team are doing excellent work but they're also very explicit that the systemic cost cost of the nsf are about $8 billion a year. and where is that going to come from? so are we creating these institutions that are completely unrealistic in this context? and given the context as a troops withdraw, the appetite for funding these things is going to also decrease. we're seeing that in the right. for everyone american troop could pay for -- the fact of the

matter is the american congress is much better to pay for one american troop. but also just the amount of resources that is invested into building the afghan national see kitty forces relative to civilian institutions. and again, this problem that you don't need to look too far in the region to see what did he stabilizing consequences, and so question i think is also the umbrella of isaf starts to move away, how will the afghan national army in particular be perceived? we know the afghan national police is not too terribly will proceed. it has been so closely linked to isaf that i wonder will the perception of the ethnic imbalance really come to the floor, and could the exit

strategy which were hinging quite a bit on actually potentially become a decisive force if it ethically or in terms of military imbalance. so again just to highlight some other topics and some of the points that were touched on, but i would just like to conclude by thanking again the panelists for really a rich rich presentation. survey on what i think is i think the most important issue confronting the u.s. afghanistan into day. .. >> next friday we will be having another event with the minister defense about afghanistan and the minister of interior also speaking at a public event on friday morning so i am hoping that many of you can come back to that, but i'm sure it will be very interesting discussion. thank you.

in a little conversations [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ..

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washington, d.c. today hosted a discussion on the future of egypt and it's military. speakers included former u.s. military attache and cairo military committee. they will both confident egypt would run the military and cede control once the new government was in plate. >> good evening. i'm kate. thank you for joining for the examination of the egyptian military. come on in, we have a lot of seats here in the front. when we began to plan the talk, hosni mubarak was still in power. now that he's done, the question of the egyptian military, who they are, what their focus, and how they might react is more timely than ever. just to remind everybody, it was

exactly one week ago, only a week ago that hosni mubarak stepped down handing over power to egypt's military to general muhammad and it's amazing to think it's all happened in seven days. since then the military has pledged to oversee an orderly transition toward civilian rule and democracy. they have dissolved the parliament, suspended the constitution, and formed a committee to oversee constitutional reforms they will put before a ref -- referendum. they will run egypt for six months until new election are held, which ever coming first. in mean time, the cabinet that mubarak appointed before leaving. a lot of changes in just one week. a lot of excitement, but also a lot of fear and suspicious the military may hold on to power or may hijack the nation's

democratic process under way. and so with this in mind, egyptians are continuing to demonstrate throughout their today to mark what they called the friday of victory and continuation. it was interesting because sheik, for those of you don't know him, he's the leader of the muslim leadership, he came in to lead friday prayers today. and he prays egypt's new military rule, but warns they must quickly restore civilian rule. a lot of pressure on the military to do the right thing. can they? will they? how will they? how will they react to obstacles in their path? all of this remains to be scene. it's all somewhat of a mystery because it's a mysterious institution. we're lucky to have two

individuals that know more about the egyptian military than most of washington put together. between them they have decades of experience working on a personal basis with egyptian military officials. and we're very lucky to have them here with us today. thank you both for joining us. we're going to start with dr. -- colonel englehardt, he's the director of middle east studies at the army war college and military advisor in the bureau of middle eastern affairs in the state department. he lived for ten years in egypt, serving first as the defense attace, and defensive of the multinational forces and the peace treaty. during his resident, he was deeply involved in the egyptian military and other state constitutions. dr. graeme bannerman is one of our very own, mei scholar, who has headed an international

consultant firm since 1987. prior to that, he worked on the senate commission, under richard lugar from 1979 to 1984 and was responsible for middle east and south asia. before that, he was with the state department as the member of the policy planning staff. as well as the middle eastern affairs analyst, he's done a the love teaching on middle eastern affairs all over washington universities. thank you both for joining us. we're going to start with joe englehardt. thank you. >> thank you. good morning. what an exciting time. kate has laid out the kind of questions that have come up particularly in the events of this past week. and i expect you are here thinking that graeme bannerman and i am going to answer all of those questions. we're probably not. in keeping with kind of the way

that mei does business, we're going to try to give you a little bit of background, a little bit of understanding how the military operates, and some of the things that go into some of the things that have happened over the past few weeks. and the particularly the last week. and see if we can get understanding there. i'm not much on predicting the future myself, maybe graeme was going to try to take that on. but one the -- one the problems that we have and that many of the commentator's we have had speaking about the egyptian military and egypt over the past weeks the problem arises because the egyptian military is a secretive kind of organization. any military is secretive. any military leans on the secrets.

an egyptian military born in the modern sense in it's surprise attack across the suez canal in the 1973 war, has grown up with a secrecy much heavier than most. and now this secrecy keeps the military keeping it's business to itself and it doesn't talk very much about itself in public, expect for those kind of ordinary military things reporting on very broadly something that's going on. i think this secrecy is a -- is an issue worth thinking about. and it has several consequences. first of all, there's effectively no civilian over sight of the egyptian military. particularly, that of the legislature. second, what the military does is largely opaque to the public. although as we've seen, the public is very comfortable with

it's military and very trusting of it's military. third, military officers born in this attitude of secrecy form really a semiclosed society. and that kind of a society can stifle independent thought and foster group think. it doesn't necessarily in all cases, and we have some excellent examples in the new supreme council of people who are not caught up in group think. but but it's a problem that arises from the secrecy of the military. last, this military has a pathological fear and a mistrust of the press. this last issue, you've seen played out as soldiers have tried to shoot cameras away from those tanks that everybody in the world has seen in tahrir

square. it poses a challenge for the military council, dealing with the facebook international internet revolution and the international satellite news channels. now over the past weeks, as i've been watching the news commentators, we've heard a lot of view points that reflect the view that was made popular in anwar abdo melic's book. "egypt: a military society." this was book was written in 1968. it was tells a story about a military asserting control over all of the essential elements of society, and setting all of the

essential elements of the government, and setting out to remake egyptian society. in the 15 years of this book, this government, this military government, set about doing away with the feudal society, breaking the back of the borrow somewhat se and military bite. was evasive in all military societies. times have changed. increasingly, under mubarak, the private sector in egypt has expanded by leaps and bounds. egypt has moved towards -- towards -- a real capitalist economy. this movement and this development has brought economist, technocrats, financial figures in the

forefront, and slowly eclipsed the role of the military on nonmilitary matters. but the time this year's revolution began, i think we can say that the military has become much less significant player in egyptian politics and society than it had in the past. today the egyptian military reflects more about egyptian society than egyptian society about the military. now i'm not not -- there's no dt that the military is an important state and institution, and today certainly it's the most trusted of state institutions. you could even say it's the rock of the state. it embodies egypt's national pride in egypt's national identity. it's a serious, credible military organization. and people strongly believe in it. we've seen this great respect of the egyptian public for the military play out in the public

acceptance of the role of the supreme council, assuming the reigns of government and doing everything it's done over the past week. that said, the military simply does not wield the same agree of influence over domestic affairs that it used to. now there are a number of questions concerning the military and it's role in society and graeme and i are going to touch on these briefly. and then we'll be happy to respond further to your questions. i want to cover two more issues, if i may. one of those is egypt's relationships with israel. we had a very interesting presentation on wednesday here at mei. by two pollsters that highlighted the divergence between the mubarak government and the public on the issue of israel. and, of course, the public being significantly less positively inclined towards israel.

this divergence is also present -- also present in the military. but i have seen in my role as a peace keeper with egypt, that the military is much more inclined to the view point that mubarak previously had. 30 years has built a lot of understanding and trust between the egyptian and israeli militaries. and there is little inclination to change that status. there's little inclination to do away with the positive benefits that the egyptians have seen from the peace treaty. and as you've seen the supreme court council has specifically reaffirmed egypt's commitments to the international treaties. when it was saying that, it was speaking particularly about the treaty to israel. on another issue, questions have been raised about u.s. military

assistance and influence with egypt. graeme, i'm certain, will comment much further. i'd like to underline the positive benefits of civil military relations, respect for democracy, human rights, are much more likely to have been the product of long exposure by a large number of egyptian officers to our ideas rather than as a result of a few recent phone calls. military assistance provides long-term results. perhaps not quite so much in the short term. just for those who want to think about what has egypt done for us lately? in terms of military assistance. i just remember the large egyptian force that fought alongside us in the first gulf war. the egyptian force that was sent

to somalia as that, as our interest in that country was winding down, it allowed us to make a more graceful exist. now all of this said about sort of long-term relationships, it is worth noting that the current personal relationships do give senior officers the ability to communicate directly with each other with a minimum of misunderstanding at time of crisis. and i think that's the best way to -- for us to have seen the communications that have gone on in the past few weeks. let me also say that egypt's military in reflecting it's very strong national pride, i cannot imagine how any attempts to force good behavior by threatening assistance levels

could have a positive affect in egypt either in the short or the long run. now i've got a few more panels of notes here. but let me put those aside for a moment. and let graeme speak and then let me encourage your questions on any of a variety of subjects when we are finished. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> i'm someone who also believes the question and answer period is probably much more worthwhile than anything i say. let me say something about the egyptian military leadership and their attitudes. how they look at the world. these guys, the people on that council are veterans, serious people who care about their country deeply. they have committed their entire life to protect their country, and they have -- and to bring stability. they do not like being involved in the affairs of state.

they do not want to be where they are. they went their reluctantly. they did so because they believed it was absolutely in the national interest of egypt to do so, and they are there for only as long as they have to be. i mean i spoke to one of the members of the council over the weekend. he was -- you listen to his voice and he was exhausted. they are wrestling with a series of problems from the beginning to the end, and they are trying to address them in an orderly fashion and get themselves out of the process of running the day-to-day business of egypt. i'm not saying that the military doesn't care about the national interest. i'm not saying they don't care what happens. but they don't think it is their responsibility to make the day-to-day decisions. if you look at what they are doing, what have they done? they say we set up the constitutional group who are going to write the constitution. not the whole constitution. what they are concerned about is creating the framework so they can elect a parliament and a new

president and they can come out and get out of it. they have said there will be no military candidate for presidency. one of the remarkable changes over the last 15 years when you deal with egyptian military officers is they have come to the conclusion that there does not need to be a military president of egypt. that's not necessary. what there needs to be is a president and the military needs to be there. they still see a very vital role for themselves to intercede when events occur that threaten the stability of the country. look over the last 35 years, when has the military inceded in egypt? in the '77 red rice, in the '85 police riots, and in the islamic killings at luxor in the late '90s. they came in, restored order, and got out. that is their goal and objective now. they are not there to take over. now what you see among the

pressures on them. you have one group of people saying you need to get out fast. you need to show that you are not going to be there. and then another group saying, well, if you get out fast and you are not going to be there, you are not going to give the democratic parties time enough to organize and you are going to turn it over to the muslim brotherhood and the current government. therefore, you have to stay longer. they have a conundrum. they are being told different things. why don't you bring more of the people from the street into the process? they say we'd like to do that. who do you choose from a leaderrous crowd to be the leader? please, form a party, organization, we'll bring you in. they are looking for people to do that. because they don't see that as their role. do they have a keen interest in absolutely. do they want to control the process? no. they are military. military people are not democratic in organization.

but definition, how would you like to have to decide on the battlefield, let's take a vote to take that hill. it doesn't work that way. i can tell you, i remember the first time the field marshal game to washington to deal with congress. you talk about a cultural shock for a person. having to go to capitol hill where everyone is in discipline and you are talking to people five minutes on the car this way or that. then here's a man who's whole life have been discipline and organization. it is very hard for people to adapt to the differences. they are working on that. he has people on his staff, he has people who are in the council who are very good at that. the military has looked after it's interest in washington better than any organization that i've seen in my entire time in washington. every year they send once or twice a year a delegation from the military that goes around washington and talks to people on capitol hill and in the administration for 30 years.

so you have dealt a whole group of people that understands the congress and washington, they advisors to the council and members of the council, they understand. they may not be totally comfortable, but they understand that. and that's positive. therefore, if you ask me am i positive about the military? i am. clearly if they have the opportunity to get -- to bring things to the conclusion to set up a process that will be democratic, that is their goal and objective. now the problems they face, i do not envy them. they themselves share many of the problems that the society does. if you spoke to them in the past, if you sat down and chatted with them about how they solve the society and how things are going on, they express the same fears that the people did on the street. they did not like the police. they had a problem with the

police. because the police were doing two things they didn't think was right. one, their job was to take care of the egyptian people, to protect the people. you can't brutalize the egyptian people and view that job. second, they thought they were indisciplined and untrailed. they felt they needed more of both of those things. in addition, they had reservations about the economic changes in society. this is where i disagree with my friend, a close friend, frank, when he said the military was opposed to the economic reforms. this is the famous with the cable. that's not quite the case. they were proud of the economic reforms because egypt had made huge progress. when you talk to them, before the recent troubles and you said isn't it great that, you know, some of the spanish financial papers were calls egypt the next brick country in all of this. they had the national pride. we are glad we are going. but the reservation was over,

the cost of the society the way the changes were being made. they sat there and they said, yes, we see why you are prioritizing the economy. but our concern is, our concern is that in the process, to make these companies to be sold, you are putting a lot of people out of work. and there aren't jobs for those people. that worries us. that has huge social consequences. in addition, you have created the people who bought the companies, benefited terrifically, you first went to egypt in 1963. those of us who see the evolution of how the society looks and you see the this new conspicuous consumption in egyptian society. on one hand, the gated community on the outside. golf courses. when people in the center of town, some of then didn't have running water or basic services.

it was a problem that not sustainable in a society for a long time. and they were worried about that. at the same time, we -- in the outside -- myself included. first to eliminate the subsides for all of those commodities because it's uneconomical. the consequence was you created -- you eliminated the safety net. it protected the poor. all of the sudden from a military point of view, you were creating a class, a large percentage of society that was dispossessed. that was a formula for instability. therefore, their resolution was not as my friend frank said, because they wanted to keep the central control. their reservation was over the social consequence of the program and how you balance that against the need to do economic development. so they were worried about that. and that was something that they cared deeply about. but they can't address that at

this point. they need to have a civilian government in place to address these longer term problems. this is not something the military could handle on its own. so i see -- what i like to say, they are good people, they are disciplined, they work hard, long hours, and their only goal seems to be is what's best for the country. now do these people have personal ambitions? they are concerned about the institution? if so, they don't display. you don't get ahead in the egyptian military by personal ambitions. this is why you can have something like president sadat, who has been vice president, and has been there. as vice president, you never saw any profile. when he took over for president nasser, it was the talking in washington? he will not last. he doesn't have personality. doesn't have anything going.

that's because he's number one. when he became number one, it was a different personality. the same thing is true in the military. this has been thrust on them. these are people who have worked together a long time and trying to address the issues. now, will they do everything right? probably not. are they doing the best they can? absolutely. i think the best thing for us, for joe and i to answer your questions about anything specific. >> thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> all right. thank you very much for that insight. i want you both to stand at the podium. i think i will start. i mean you are talking graeme, about how you have a military that doesn't want to take the reigns of power. doesn't want to be in the position. but we have many egyptians suspicious about their role. you know, if things don't go the way the military likes, if you have elections that lead towards

a more islamic government or, you know, a government that's not propeace, how do we guarantee the military does not sort of take control? do we need to set up modalities like in turkey where they have a national security council set up as a framework where the military is guaranteed certain powers and so are civilian institution. and the military have respected that. has come in from time to time to take over when they don't like the direction the policy has been going. these days it's step back and letting turkey do it's thing. do you see that happening in egypt? is that what we needed to to guarantee the egyptian military stays out of power but does what it needs to do when things go the wrong way? >> i think the first thing we're going to do nothing. the egyptians are going to do it. >> right. >> they are going to do it their own way.

we're going to have nothing to do with it. we have the great relationship with the egyptian military. because of that relationship, they will listen to us. they are talk to us. they will take our advice. but they are only go to act in what they see egyptian national interest. if we think we can call them all the time, and they will do what we say. no. in fact, the more pressure that we put on them, the more difficult we make their job. because they want -- they'll have to be nationalistic. so all of these people that say -- oh, let's put a sense on foreign assistance and military assistance to egypt. it's totally counterproductive. it gets all of the results that we don't want. we have to have faith in the people. they have been there, they are doing it, we know them well. this military is so different than the military 30 years ago in egypt. when we worked with them 30 years ago, and you met -- you were a friend with an egyptian military officer at this embassy in washington, he went back to

cairo, and you went out to see him, you as his friend could not see him unless the minister of defense personally approved the meeting. why? because he didn't trust us. they thought we were like the russians. they thought that we were trying to control their lives. they were nationalistic. in the last 20 years, thousands of military egyptian officers trained with american. they don't have the distrust. they have a better understanding with our weakness and strengths. they will talk with us, and disagree with us, and have arguments with us. you can still see them. you are not a threat anymore. they do not see us as the threat we once were. but they do disagree with us. they have severe disagreements and they have those discussions. and those discussions though, aren't threatening the leadership, they are discussions between people who are friends. so what is it -- what you are going to see is the military is going to do the best they can to get out.

they are accept advise and listen, in the end, they will do what they see as egyptian interests. we on the outside can't change that. >> all right. we are going to open the floor. please state their name and affiliation. >> bill weiss from john hopkins. two questions, one is yes or no. do either of you represent now or have you or affiliated with a firm that represents the government of egypt? >> no. >> now or -- >> i work with the government of egypt for a long time. i have not done that for four years or more. >> other than being egypt's peace keeper, no. we represent the united states. >> could you describe the other side, the nonpolitical side, what are the military capabilities of egyptian military? can they defend egypt's borders from attacks either from other

states or from terrorists based outside of egypt? can they defend institutions -- i'm installations like the canal? and are they capable of projecting the military force beyond the borders? as a real military, what exactly are their capabilities? >> let me just expand a little bit about what i've already said. said on that issue. it's a credible military. they are a strong military. i think we've seen some figures recently that they are the 10th largest military in the world. and when you are the egyptian military, in one sense or if you are trying to work out military assistance for egypt, there's some interesting conundrums. when you say defend themselves, are you talking about the

libyans who can't cross the border? or the sudanese who can't get to the border? and in the other -- on the other side, there's a strong and durable peace treaty. egypt has a strong military, that military doesn't so much defend the suez canal against what kind of threats one would have to ask. but it provides a very strong rock for the egyptian society. >> i just want to know from the overflow room, we have question cards and hand them to an intern who will bring them in. >> thank you, stephen annerson, response corps, you paint an enlightened egyptian military. can you comment on the human rights standards and in

particular their possible use of torture? >> do you want to take that one? [laughter] >> how about this, that the egyptian military is part of egyptian society. and it reflects egyptian society. there are any number of things, corruption being one of them, where a different understanding of standards occurs. i'm not talking that human rights can or should be abused, but there's a different understanding of what constitutes abuse, what constitutes corruption, and what is the government expected to do? the egyptian military directly has very little to do with society in terms of face-to-face interaction. so if you are -- if you want to talk in general about the military and human rights abuses, it doesn't come to that because they don't do that. on the other hand, the egyptian military is an enforcement arm

of a government. and that government has some particular views. whether or not in the given situation we might find instances where the egyptian military was involved in the practices that we would appropriate they not do, i can't say for sure one say or another. what we did see, of course, was that the tremendous events of last friday night. or last thursday night where after that speech by mubarak, it was very clear to everybody that the next morning the crowds were going to be out. they were going to be out in the millions. there was a good chance there was going to be destruction and a good chance there would be -- cause real problems caused. the military was right in the middle of that. there's been a fair amount of us listening to what we want to

hear about what people said in the process of this past week and as things went along with the military said was that it would not fire on peaceful demonstrators. the military was on last thursday night was in a very uncomfortable position, doesn't it? where the very real possibility that there could have been violence on the street and it could have been of to them to provide security and to establish security. that was avoided. that was avoided. >> let me -- can i finish? i'd like to add to that. it's an issue. the question is, i sought the amnesty report of london saying that two people said they were tortured by the military. could that happen? absolutely. is it a policy? absolutely not. i think what's important about the military is they try their best to be disciplined and they

try through the whole situation. but the stress upon these peoples, and individuals, you are talking about individual soldiers that get separated and things. could somebody do something bad and awesome? absolutely. please understand what you don't know, some of those people who broke into the police stations, which has not got a lot of publicity, took weapons. and they were after and they killed some soldiers trying to provoke them. so the military has the problem of their own people being attacked in certain places and trying to keep it under control. i'm sure if the amnesty reports are true and the military did torture the two people, i guarantee the military officers corps is as distressed as everybody else. and they will look into it. that said, when you have the chaotic situation that you have now in egypt, you don't know who's the military officer all the time. because the security forces have always worn uniforms, and always

been a confusion. they have some of the other security forces have apc and things like that. so the average person, myself included, cannot tell the difference necessarily between a military unit and something else out there on the street. new a chaotic situation. up hope, i have no idea, the egyptians and militaries looked into the allegations that there was the torture and look after that. they care about their reputation. >> i'm from the boeing company. recognizing that, the egyptians don't know what will happen, much less us. would you commend on the models? three come to mind other than the perfect outcome, reorganize, have a democratic election, everything is terrific. short of that, the algeria model, bad guys win, 100,000

people killed in the civil war. you can think of the iran model, muslim fundamentalist come to power and stay there. major blow to u.s. interest. or i think of the indonesia model. which was a rather slow, difficult to characterize process, change of leadership, but not change of the system for a long time. and a decade gradual transformation where over time the police military became better, the parliament became better, the leadership became better. there was never one. they muddled through in a positive way and are doing reasonably well. feel free to offer a different one. [laughter] >> you know, this is one the things in my life,ive been on a position to predict. i was on the state department in the spring of 1979 and iran was

my responsibility. so my record is not particularly good at predicting the future here. i personally believe that egypt because of the nature of egyptians and egyptian society has a chance for more of the indonesia model. because i think there's an evolution that's going to be here. you see a willingness on both sides to sort of talk about things and work forward. you hope it doesn't spin out of control. as i pointed out before, what you have to worry about is the 40 to 50% of the population that's been suffering and when do their frustrations become great? what happens there? the problem that egypt has to face are huge. can anybody resolve that and reform their government and face all of the other challenges they they have? the answer is i don't know. but i certainly hope so. and there are a lot of good people, both in the democratic movement in the military and others in egyptian society who are working together, trying to get through a good solution.

i think they have a chance of getting there. i hope they get there. but it's going to take all of their efforts and our support from the outside. >> two questions. >> let me add something here. i think that when we look at the supreme council, and we look at the membership which is phil marshall, ten talli, and the senior commanders of the military, and a few other thrown in, it appears to me there's nobody that achieved those positions based on their championship of democracy. these are good people. they are dedicated and they are very songly -- strongly dedicated to egypt and the progress of egypt. if i were to undermine things of the military that interested, i would underline social justice,

peace, security. as we go ahead in this, let me throw another thought out. we had some -- we had some posters other here at mei on wednesday. they did an excellent job of showing some of the issues involved in egyptian society. one of those was that 90% of the egyptians were in favor of democracy. they found the dichotomy in the fact that 75% of the people in egypt were also strongly committed to the roll of islam in government. 75% of the people in egypt thought that, in fact, there might be a group of religious authorities that would take a look at what the -- take a look at what the laws were and have

the authority to overturn laws. i thought back to a lot of conversations that i've had in egypt and elsewhere in the middle east. and i'm struck by the question that when people start talking about democracy, we're not always entirely sure what they think they mean by this. and what kind of a democracy occurs up on capitol hill and in small towns and villages through the united states is likely to be very different than the kind of democracy that finally coming up here in egypt. so as we look at things, as we look at events that unfold up in front of us here, i think we have to understand where this military council is coming from. they are committed to a democratic solution.

they are also committed to social justice, the idea of security, and the -- in egypt. thanks. >> all right. let's take two questions from the overflow room. both from the u.s. navy. one, egyptian military accept the civilian chief of defense under a new civilian government? and two, while it's true the u.s. and egyptian militaries have a close relationship, it's also true there's a widespread distrust of u.s. influence in the region among the general populous when the more representative comes into it place, where there be pressure to back away with the relationship with the u.s. military? two questions about -- >> i like the part about the civilian. not in the near term do i see a civilian minister of defense. that's not in their system. they don't believe that the civilian control over the military like we do that's

fundamental to the american belief. it's not acceptable at this time. it maybe in the future. i would not have thought to years ago that the egyptian military would be advocate for a civilian president. they have evolved to that point. with the military to military relationship, i think they see it different than us. it's more cooperative. they give a lot, and get a lot in the relationship. it's in egypt's national interest. as long as that's the case, they will support that relationship. it's kind of interesting here in washington, we always say we give egypt $1.3 billion worth of aid. and in cairo, they say, look, question give you -- we wave some of the restrictions on the capacity through the suez canal so they can go from north to south quickly. it's supposed to be 30 day. we wave that for you. you are not supposed to have nuclear ships or weapons. we wave that for you regularly.

how much would it be and cost the united states if you had to resupply the operations in afghanistan if you had to go around africa? they say look this is a relationship that we are partners. we are giving both of us, we both benefit. and my view as long as both sides continue to see the benefit that will continue. if they don't see the benefit, it won't continue. if we don't see the benefit, it won't be to continue. but it's not the one way picture that so often conveyed in washington. and therefore we have to be careful about that. >> two questions this time. we will start with mohammed here and then. >> mohammed from the middle east institute. what you should like about the relationship between the egyptian army and muslim brotherhood? and what the dynamics that exist between the two groups? >> okay. let's get a second question in. >> i'd like it know something about the social structure of the egyptian army.

is it a constricted army? how do people enter the officer corps? are they chosen from a certain class of society? and we hear that a lot of the wealth has come through the -- after has come to the army. is that so? >> okay. first of all on the issue of the muslim brotherhood. i started off by saying that the egyptian military has very reflective of the egyptian society. and that is very much the case as far as the brotherhood is concerned. the egyptian military has a visceral fear of the muslim brotherhood from the security stand point. they are strongly concerned about what the government -- what the muslim brotherhood's aims are. on the other hand, the egyptian military like the rest of the egyptian society, understands

that islam is going to be part of the government. when we are talking about what kind of a democracy that we are going to have, it's going to be an democracy with some islam in it. to what extent, i'm not prepared to predict for you today. but it's certainly, certainly going to be one where there's a mixed bag. the military and it's social structure, the -- it is a constrict army. every egyptian is required to sign up for conscription in huge numbers. about half of them go to the military, half of them go to the police. so when you saw all of those guys out with the batons and shields, those were conscripts. the central security force is a conscript force just like the military is. the military uses it's

conscripts for two years and in addition to straight military jobs, military course runs military industries where it reduces foods -- goods and services for military reasons. the officer corps is drawn broadly across egyptian society. if we were talking 20 years ago, we would be talking about a society that saw the officer corps and the path through the officer corps as the fastest way up in society. and i think times have changed. we've had the around -- advent, and the huge increase in availability of college education in egypt. and that many people are seeing that the business route and -- is much more attractive. so the military is not quite in the same social position that it

was back in the time of abdul's book here. >> on the brotherhood, there's no question it's suspicious. because they saw the islamic fundamentalist kill president sadat. they saw the trouble in the 1990s. so they are suspicious. what i found most interesting in the last 18 days when is omar suleiman met with some of the leaders. that was remarkable to me because neither of those two trusted each other. i mean omar suleiman was the man in egypt who spent most of his life chasing the muslim brotherhood. and the muslim brotherhood were the people spending their life trying not to be chased by omar. because it was the national interest and they were willing to sit down at table and talk to each other. i think if you look at the group of ten that are rewriting the constitution, the fact that the

military took somebody from the muslim brotherhood and put them on that is a clear indication that the military knows these are important element of society. they have to be included in the process. similarly, as kate pointed out at the beginning, the muslim has gone out of the way to say nice things about the military. everybody is trying to make it work. that's what gives you hope. i'd like to make one comment. officers, yes, i think there's a high number of officers who come from family of officers. i think if you go to our own military academies, you'll find a higher percentage of people that come from families of military officers. because it's a career that they take. and i think the point joel pointed out too, is that the military officers do not have the same standing and wealth in society they did 30 years ago. yes, their life is fairly good.

yes, it's better than the average person in society. but their life is nowhere in comparison to how the new business class has gone. there's the wealth in the new business class overshines. they have not do that. with regard to corruption, i would think only one would be a fool to say there's no corruption in the egyptian military or any place else. you have to look is it institution, or individual? if you look at the minister of defense, he came to power in 1991 as the minister, the longer serving minister of defense in the history of egypt. he was put in there because he was seen as an extremely honest person. he has been minister of defense now for nearly 30 -- to 20 years. he doesn't own a house. he doesn't have a car. i mean -- that is the representation that he has of being extremely honest. and it permeated down, the people around him do not want to

be scene as not doing that. does that mean that there aren't individuals out in the system that are taking advantage of it? absolutely. but it means is the system itself tries to be honest. >> we've got a question. >> i'd just add to that, part of my job in egypt this last six years was dealing with egyptian businesses. and i had contracts and arrangements with about 700 different egyptian businesses, including many of the military businesses, and my experience was that the egyptian military businesses were almost entirely free of any tint of corruption in a society and in a system where there were payoffs and ask for payoffs all over. particularly in -- well in both civilian and state enterprises.

>> you had a question. in the back? no. all right. we've got. >> i'm from professional solutions. and i must say i'm not quite as on the mystic -- as optimistic as you are. it's true i've been there a long time ago. for 20 years i've been working on briefing and debriefing teams. i agree entirely it's much more professional. they have learned a great deal from the united states in our military security assistance. a relationship with egypt is absolutely vital. and we should not ever think about dropping the amount of money that we put into the egyptian military. but let me say this. the egyptian military is a very privileged class. it still is. there's still no corps that's

professional. that means there's a wide gap between the officer class and the enlisted men. what brothers he is expectations are quite high now. you've gotten rid of mubarak, they are going to expect good things to happen. i don't see that happening economically or in terms of a better life for people for the next six months. so i wonder what's going to happen when their starts to be these expectations are put into demonstrations or whatever. how will the army react? will they actually enforce control? or will the soldiers obey the officers? i still have a doubt about that. >> one more question. >> yes -- i'm sorry. i'm from the security independent consulting. so before you mention omar suleiman. i don't think we can consider

suleiman out of the military apparatus. what is his role? the press reports he's dealing with israel to send the military in the right way to deal with the crisis when the security forces there will throe. so basically, is he reporting to the council, or council reporting to suleiman? >> who wants to take expectations? >> you take suleiman. >> i'll take expectations. >> no, tex and i were in beirut together. i don't disagree with him on all of the issues. these are clearly challenges and it's going to be hard. and i think hope we didn't -- we weren't too polyanic. they have a huge amount of problem. they are working through it. there's a lot of goodwill. i'm glad i don't have to face the problems. they are clearly not going to address the economic problems of

egypt. they want to get it out of there so the civilian government can address the economic problems of egypt. they don't think they are in a position to do that. this is where the united states can come in. we used to five, six years ago give some of our assistance in the economic side was to help people make the transition while the economic reform was going on. we were helping the people suffering from the loss of jobs because of privatization. we put money into the ministries to help them do that. the problem is we stopped. it became not an american interest. it reduced on the economic side. a lot of was it going to be consulting and democracy and civil societies and things like that. we didn't have the resources to have a real impact to make the cushion this transition. we are part of the problem ourselves. because we moved away from that. >> i'll take suleiman. suleiman is not there. the council is running it.

in fairness, he's not there. >> all right. two questions from the overflow room about the economy and the military. the egyptian military and the links to the economy, can they be a stumbling block? will they try to guard the economic privileges from the german embassy. mei member, what the military running the industries? they are out of favor. will retired military and industry move to get more of the pie? military getting more of the pie, and the military blocking liberalization to guard their own economic privileges. >> i think that we have to see where military privileges are. and this is partially an answer for you, in context, military salaries have stagnated over the past years. as graeme has already indicated, the new, rich class has blown

far away and above military in this society. the businessmen and the financiers leave in villas. military people lives in apartment. their society, they are in a comfortable place in society, but not the same place that anwar was talking about. yeah, there are officers clubs, perks, those are probably better seen today in the context of a military where there has to be some additions to salaries which had been stagnating for years. military is comfortable, but not in an over lough's ten issue place in society at all. military businesses, military as i mention before, has been running a number of businesses.

where those businesses are today, generally is, for example, the military food economy and the military water industries, they produce those kinds of goods for the military, primarily. although they to use areas where they have economic advantage to sell into the civilian market. now i have to say i don't know, and i've done a lot of business with the military in this regard. i don't know any part of the economy or any sector that the military is involved with where it is anywhere near even a major player, not much less dominant in this society. it would be hard for me -- let me refer -- i almost made a prediction here. i want to be very careful about that. let me -- let me refer back to something that graeme said earlier.

and i'm not at all sure that the military wants to do anything other than get out of what they are in right now as far as running the business. i can't manage that they would be interested in running the economy or taking on the issues of the economy. we used to joke. tex joined us, who would want to be king of egypt and take on the problems? i think the military is smarter than that now. :

it's home going into the pockets to meet the guys running the factories rich. this way they can say off budget. i'm short our pentagon would love to be able to have its own source of revenue where they didn't have to go to congress every time to get things done. this is how they see it, this is what they do. is that space popular control? absolutely not. is it a corruption? no. it's a distant system the military is basically taking over so the regime isn't going anywhere. the military is saying it is

going to be a military state in a lot of ways so what hope does that give us for the change coming out of mubarak's demise? >> the state budget legislatures. i am interested to know what role the military will play in facilitating but elections in september. >> i think that latter one is a great question. i would certainly look to where the military has been and what it's doing so far. the military is not expert on constitutional law and the committee is doing that. what we expect that the military would try to run the elections themselves when there is already a system for running elections in egypt? the system for running the

elections, counting the votes and all that sort of thing operates and has operated. the issues involving the elections have been more about qualifying candidates, harassing the candidates as they were trying to can pace, and of course been trying to prevent people from voting. does the military need to run the system? i'm not sure that we would see that it really does. military regime? >> military civilian, how do you guarantee this? >> the question over here is has the regime unchanged and will it change if the military is still there doing these things. i think the change will come to egypt. the question is will it be the change everybody wants? will let go as far as we want? it's certainly not going to endeavor to be a jeffersonian democracy. it's going to be something of the egyptians and foul on their own that meets the needs of

their system. i think what you should hope for is that the military goes back, lives in its isolation and sits on the sideline in case things fall apart they can call me things down again. when you don't want is the military running the day-to-day life. you want a president who's a civilian, a prime minister and cabinet responsible to the people who run the regime, run the day-to-day life, address the problems of the country and with the military sitting on the side lines and developing a different relationship over time with the rest of society. is it going to leak? note. by the way we all have problems with democracy. candles were the lead wisconsin state legislatures are right now? we all have our problems. >> question. >> jet from the washington institute for the near east policy. could one or both of you talk about how it works, what the

relationships are at the top, who the key people are, the dynamics operating within that? it's a big question. this is the group is supposedly run in egypt now. really who are they. >> who's on the council? we can go through that easily. the council was the minister of defense. number to this the chief of staff. in addition, you have the force commanders, second army commander and third army commander, the militant commander, the lesson commander and central commander. in addition to that the military intelligence on the council. you also have the head of the operation of 40 and the head of the financial authority and the legal justice. to those people you add the two advisers to the minister who are

the special ministers that makes up the council. the field marshal is in charge. there's no question. this isn't a democratic group, they are making decisions being assigned people and i assume so and so, general so and so can talk to the protesters and address that because he's good at that, so you're the lawyer there for the constitution. they have responsibilities. >> i have a question assuming you have parliament in the place, the government is there and the parliament in 75%

[inaudible] do you think the military is going to be a good guy or bad guy in? following the parliament or the good guys follow the russians? >> i told you what i thought about predicting the future. >> that's pure speculation. you just hope it doesn't happen. you see people on both sides and all sides of this question having good will and hope they work it out. we often the ninth defeat could design scenarios yes we can but we have to help them not get there and have a system from the outside. >> the last question or to. >> i want to ask in africa middle east people go to the military to --

>> i can tell you that's not the case in egypt. they join the military because they want to be in the military and that is where they stay on till they return and then the senior officers very often just like senior officers here in washington and in the government enterprises or civilian enterprises, but that is where they are appointed. we always said there's a field marshal in every knapsack. what's not there is a presidential seal. >> that we have been true at one point but clearly if you sit down with these people and spend time with the officers they never talked about anything but the national interest. it's incredible.

very interesting group of people and they've devoted their lives to this. a group of people coming along somewhere in the ranks that we don't know well, we don't know. it's the answer. it's really quite interesting. >> the relationship now between mubarak before and after. [inaudible] [laughter] >> that is a question that remains to be seen. clearly there's a lot of skepticism about the egyptian military handing over the reins of power easily but we will follow the development for the next six months and watch and see. thank you for joining us today, thank you brann and joseph. [applause]

>> amol conversations [inaudible conversations]

we talked to the secretary of transportation about his agency's budget and the 53 billion-dollar plan for high-speed rail. cont is 40 minutes. >> on your screen making a return visit to the washington journal we are pleased to have haveas the secretary of thesportation ray lahood. we want to talk about the budgep but i'm going to startl becausee right in the middle of it. tell our audience about. guest: the governor decided he did not want to move ahead --

after two decades of planning by rail enthusiasts and government officials, after a very strong commitment on the floor of the legislature come after our commitment to give the second largest amount of high-speed rail money, over $2 billion, the governor made the decision that he doesn't want to move ahead with this. we have really accommodated every concerned that he had. i met with the governor on three different occasions and we talked about high-speed rail on all three occasions. and we addressed the issues that he wanted addressed. he did not want the state to be on the hook for any money. the state would not have been on the hope for any money and all of the ridership studies showed that high-speed rail would have been successful. a lot of doesn't -- disappointed people in florida today who have been working on high-speed rail for more than two decades and we

made a commitment to the florida congressional delegation yesterday, led by senator nelson, that we would take the next week to figure out -- if they could figure out if there could be another group that could accept this money other than the state. all of our high-speed rail money has gone to the states, has gone to the governors. so, we need to find somebody else. they need to find somebody else. if they could do that in a week, we will try to work with that group. if not, over $2 billion that we were going to get to florida for high-speed rail will be allocated to other states. host: in the the budget proposal, you have a one-year and a six-year transportation plan he presented to the congress. the high-speed rail project, 53 -- how does the partners of work with the states? how would the 53 allocated and what responsibilities do the states have?

guest: the states have a responsibility to match of the money we give them. they can do it if they have private investors -- they can do it through the legislature. states have done it in many different ways. at $53 billion over the next six years continues the down payment of $11 billion that we allocated already to several states around the country. we will get additional states and the high-speed rail business and we would enhance some states we were not able to get -- of all the money to that they needed. the president's vision is a bold vision for high-speed rail. no one has ever talked about this really. and president obama and vice president biden decided they wanted to get the country into a high-speed intercity rail and connect 80% of america over the next 25 years. that is half the time it took to build the interstate system. our investment would be to states, matched with the money from the state's or resources that they can provide. host: let me give you the phone

numbers, because we would like to have you join in the discussion. the transportation budget covers a lot more than high speed rail and highway infrastructure -- airports and air-traffic control systems. all modes of transportation really are under the purview of the u.s. department of education. we know many of you have thoughts on this and question is the sow wheat welcome them. one skeptic is a columnist robert samuelson. i know you saw his, but i would like to have you respond to it. here is what he wrote on february 14. there is something wildly irresponsible about the national government underlining states already poor long-term budget prospects by plying them with grants that provide short-term jobs. worse, the rail proposal cast doubt on the administration's commitment to reduce huge budget deficits.

your chance to respond. guest: amtrak actually made money last year. ridership is way up, on-time service that people can afford. that is not accurate. amtrak made money. we have to think big in america.

and in order to really accomplish our goals to put people to work, to get the economy going, there is no secret about the fact that transportation does that. we have proven it over the last 24 months with our stimulus money. created 15,000 projects and put 65,000 people to work who would have not been working on those projects have that money not been allocated. the president has a big, bold vision. similar to the big, bold vision, president eisenhower had when he signed the interstate bill. those same critics existed back then. why create a huge interstate system? we know why today, because it connects america. 25 years from now, americans will not only have an interstate that they can drive their cars on, but they will be able to go on a train and go visit their relatives at christmas time or take a vacation. they can go from new york to california, they can take a train all over california. we are going to connect america.

this is the same kind of big, bold thinking that people came before us had. we are not going to just sit back on an idea that we cannot do big things. we can do big things and we can still work on the deficit also. this kind of criticism, i am sure, was leveled by eisenhower and others that have big, bold visions of connecting merkel with a state of the art interstate system today. i am glad we don't listen to the critics because we probably would never really accomplish any big things. host: to the big numbers. here are the requests the department of transportation asks for in 2010 -- $77 billion. this year, $128 billion. a big increase in two years. what have american taxpayers got and from that increase in funds to dot. guest: what we are really talking about is the idea what we will continue to build roads and bridges.

we know there are lots of bridges and very bad art this repair and roads that need fixing up of around america. we also want to use the money to increase the capacity for people who want to ride on buses, who want to ride on light rail, communities who want to get into other forms of transportation other than just automobiles. creating opportunities for people. all kinds of transportation. so, we needed to create some additional capacity in this country. we did that by putting money into infrastructure. the one thing that our money does, it puts people to work in a good paying jobs and it creates what kind of capacity for transportation -- roads, bridges, transit, light rail, streetcars, and all kinds of forms of transportation that people really want, of -- and airports that people use on a daily basis.

host: the budget request for the six-year plan is not fully paid for. there is a gap between what you ask for and what is covered by the highway trust fund. how you pay for it? it raised and gasoline tax? guest: the president has made it clear he does not want to raise gasoline taxes in a lousy economy with almost 9% unemployment. we want to work with congress on a way to pay for it. i think congress recognizes that a strong transportation program will put people to work. we will continue to build our industry in america. it will help state economies that are hard hit by a lack of funds. we will work with congress on how to pay for it. the highway trust fund still exists, paid -- paid for by the gasoline tax that we all pay for. we want to create an infrastructure fund to do big things. big, bold projects, again, that we have been talking about. that would be a pretty good

chunk of money. but we need to find resources to do this. and we will work with congress to do it. host: how much do we pay on a gallon -- guest: 18 cents. host: has it been at the level since it started? guest: in 1993 the congress raised it -- part of it went to deficit reduction. that was a huge debate when president clinton went into office. part of the way the congress and the president balance the budget that was to raise the gasoline tax in 1993. not all of it went to roads and bridges. it's pretty big source of irritation. part of it went to deficit reduction. host: the first call is from new jersey. jane, a democrat. caller: good morning. in response to the article. a big difference between spending and investment. it will be great for business because not only in the in belize but the merchandise will move faster. the way to pay for it is to

change the corporate tax structure and have them pay their fair share. they covered it nicely since they really do profit from our infrastructure more than any others. but we have a problem here similar to what is going on in florida with our governor. we had a plant in new york city to have light rail and our -- our governor decided it was something he did not want to do, for all the same reasons the governor of florida listed. i am sorry. secretary look, i honestly believe that our governor as well as the florida governor, who has something in common, they don't want to create jobs, especially if they are coming from the federal government, because it means they will be union workers. they honestly want to see this country failed because that will ensure that they have more of a chance of being elected in the next election cycle.

it breaks my heart to watch. but i can see that with the transportation situation and i can also see it in the education policies. host:, we have a lot of callers. thank you. guest: where disappointed when the arc program for people travelling from new jersey to new york, with thousands do every day -- they have a 100- year-old, and there is not enough capacity. this was a very good project. but governor chris christie made the decision and decided to terminate the project. host: you expressed optimism about working with republicans in congress. let us listen to paul ryan, budget committee chairman. >> not a fan of high-speed rail. we are rescinding a high-speed rail stimulus in the current cr. i think there is a $53 billion

high-speed rail initiative. that is something we just disagree with that -- we disagree with the high-speed rail. i can tell you about the wisconsin plan. calling it a boondoggle would be generous. we are rescinding the funding for this year and we do not think it is a good investment. >> i believe it totals $120 billion over a period of time and the president's proposal to have it within walking distance of 80% of americans is a bit ambitious. and and and time when we have no money, you know -- and i raised the question about the train that comes through my home town of mobile. it goes through three days a week at 1:00 a.m. going east and 2:00 a.m. three days a week going west. not a lot of people use it. their areas of the country that can use better rail -- no doubt about it, and we should use forward with that but this plan is way too ambitious.

and our governor in wisconsin and john kasich of ohio opposed the program and the bill we are bringing today, or tomorrow, to the floor, reasons that money for ohio and wisconsin and i think that is the kind of thing we ought to be doing in the future. host: secretary lahood, your reaction? guest: i agree that it is a very ambitious plan. the same kind of big, bold vision of the presidents have had. and we don't take a back seat to anybody when it comes to having -- the president is dreaming big about high-speed rail but there are a lot of americans dreaming big about high-speed intercity rail because it puts people to work, it builds new infrastructure, it builds a new capacity, it is what americans want and we did rescinded the money from wisconsin and ohio because those two governors decided they did not want to move ahead with the project. but i go back to what i said before. 50 years ago there are governors and elected officials is said, we don't need an interstate

system. 50 years later we have a state of the art interstate system that delivers people all over this country in a very efficient way. 25 years from now, we will be connecting people and delivering people on high-speed trains because of the president and vice president's vision to connect america. this is what americans want and we are moving ahead of it. host: i know you are a lincoln died. this twitter, it has a little bit of history to it -- i know you are a lincoln guy -- guest: ehud talk about somebody with a big vision, it was president lincoln -- you talk about somebody with a big vision. he started the intercontinental route of system. i am sure people said, we are in the middle of a war, we do not have any money, why are we doing this? because we elect people to provide the leadership, and in

this case, president obama is providing very strong leadership in the area of transportation. so the next generation, susan, will have the same benefit that our generation has but the interstate system. we will provide the next generation with the next generation of transportation, high-speed enters bit -- interstate rail. chris, florida. caller: can you hear me? host: you need to turn your mute on your tv. caller: sorry. i just took off of speaker. i apologize. i am a truck driver for landst ar -- i am concerned about the cross border program in trucking that allows mexican trucks -- it seems to me the self-employed owner-operator will have a hard time competing with this. can you, mr. gluck, and you tell you will fully implement but

cross border trucking program -- mr. lahood? guest: the reason why we will implement it. i did not know if we have enough time to discuss this. the nafta agreement, signed by our government and the mexican government, calls for cross border trucking. congress suspended at about two years ago. we have a proposal that we are working with the mexicans on to restart that program. the answer is, it is considered a pilot program. it is not necessarily a full- blown program. but we intend to restart the program because it is in the law. the law requires us to do it. we don't want to cause it will be restarted. we will work with trucking companies in the united states to make sure it doesn't impinge on your ability to continue to have a job and make money. host: here is all look at the

dollars behind the six-year transit division. paul requested -- host: tell me about the national infrastructure bank. guest: apot of money to debate, significant projects. i was just in nevada. i was dedicating a bridge the goes over the hoover dam. that project was started seven years ago. people were thinking big. we know there are big, bold, significant projects in america that need to be funded. we will continue to use the highway trust fund to fund

transportation projects. we'll use the infrastructure bank to leverage some private dollars to leverage some other dollars from the states to continue to build a significant projects around the country -- bridges, finishing interstates, and other types of infrastructure. host: our next call comes from morgantown. caller: am i on the air? the last caller was talking about the cross border truckers per if you could get the truckers to get the trucks up to code, there are a lot of trucks on the road. they will get the bridges and roads. i think it would be a lot better spent than the high-speed rail. if people want to go somewhere, they get on amtrak and the go slower. we cannot afford this right now.

a lot ex-presidents have had big vision. we're about to go broke in the government right now. we need to think about getting andregular roads straight not the rich people back and forth. things have been slow. 20 years ago,, 50 years ago, we had people who wanted to work. people to not want to work no moderate welfare queens, they don't want to work. i don't see how you can get this made. host: let's get a response. guest: people want to work. i have been to more than 40 states and over 100 cities. there are people that want to work. we create 15,000 projects were stimulus money. we put 65,000 people to work. people want to work. they want to work in good-paying

jobs. we're going to creep that opportunity with the kind of bold vision that president obama has for infrastructure and high- speed rail and doing big things for our country. host: we have a twitter who asked this question. what is the role of government and what can be done by the private sector? we have some experience in washington with a highway that was built and people pay to use it. help us understand what you see is the public sector responsibility. guest: europe and asia have good high-speed trains. people come back and scratched their heads. the government made big investments. private companies made huge investments, too. there are probably six companies in america, in california,

florida, illinois beginning to set up businesses to build train sets and to build the infrastructure. they are going to make huge investments. it is not just the investment we have made. there will be huge private investments from companies who know how to build train sets and infrastructure. this will be a good public- private partnership. these will corridors will become economic engines. you'll see businesses along these corridors. you'll see lots of jobs. we have told foreign manufacturers to come to america and hire americans to build american trains that will be used by the american people, taking shuddered plants in ohio or illinois or someplace else, and use it to hire american workers. we have a lot workers that can build train sets. our vision is this. build american trains for

american people. this is what our leaders did years ago in terms of having a big vision. this is what we need to do for the next generation of transportation. host: harrisburg, pennsylvania. caller: this is wayne. i was born and raised in the inner city. i am a carpenter. that was my chance to make it to not just middle class but to make a good living. where did the people in the inner city go to get these jobs? and why do you have to have a license to get these jobs when you can take transportation that get to their perfect i am ill little nervous. that is my main problem. people in the inner city wanted jobs. they want a decent job. that is all i have to say. guest: thank you for your call.

it goes to the point i made earlier. there are americans that want to work. people want jobs. because of the investment that this administration, that president obama is making in transportation and many other areas, housing, education. people will be able to get good- paying jobs in the case of transportation, and building infrastructure, building new capacity. in the case of education, the opportunities hopefully will be provided to folks. but this president has a vision for investing in those kinds of opportunities that do create jobs. host: we saw senator sessions on that video we saw it earlier. we have a tweet.

i will use that as a way to talk about your views as a member about the budget battle. guest: i came here in 1994 as a member of congress after being a staffer. i have seen these budget battles go on year in and year out. a lot of new members were elected this year on an agenda of fiscal responsibility, bringing down the deficit. i was in a class of 73 republicans and 13 democrats, one of the largest class is a came in 1994, republicans came into the majority. i am a majority. speaker gingrich was the speaker. we had huge debates. we had long sessions at the end of the morning, voting on amendments. i was here when we had the government shut down.

so it seems like these things are old cyclical. in the end, the congress will have to get it right with the administration for the american people so that we do continue programs that make investments and to continue making sure the government is providing the services that we have told people we would do. host: are you planning for the possibility of a government shutdown? guest: we have not discussed that. i think those of us that have been in congress-watchers believe that this matter will be resolved in a way that will not lead to a government shutdown. that is good for no one. host: next call from sarasota, florida. caller: good morning. the governor who i voted for horrified me when he decided not to do this high-speed rail

program. this is the second time one of our governors has abandoned this project. we had jeb bush -- the voters voted on a bond issue. he came in and said no. florida is a long headstay, difficult to get around the state. -- florida is a long state. the only way you can do it is on highways. we're delighted to have them. if you could connect our airports, tampa to orlando, unit gets these people moving. i can see a lot of ridership there. in times of a hurricane, you could put a lot of people out of harm's way on a high-speed rail and get them up to someplace out of the hurricane's path. you could have done that perhaps in new orleans, getting those people out. i see this as a public benefit.

host: to live. let's go to tampa. this is bob. caller: good morning. i am an unemployed air traffic controller. five or six years ago, lockheed martin took 3000 of bust and reduced the workforce by 80%. i was wondering -- a bill was being supported the would of restarted our pensions. i lost my career, and i lost my pension after 19 years of federal service. i was wondering if you would support that and to make sure this thing will not happen again. host: are you still unemployed? caller: there are no jobs. host: thank you for your call. he mentioned the next gen

system. guest: florida has a very strong high-speed rail program that connects orlando to tampa and then connects orlando to miami. it is a plan that people have worked on for more than 20 years. we gave floor mat the second amount of high-speed rail money because they had a good plan that made good investments -- we gave florida the second of high- speed rail money. my suggestion for the gentleman who is laid off, i know the faa is looking for opportunities for people. i would encourage you to go on making faa website. next generation technology is the highest priority for the president. as you can see, we put

significant resources in for next generation. that is technology that will go into every airport. that is the technology that allows air traffic controllers to guide planes in and out of airports. the next generation technology is like putting a new computer in every airport and putting in new computer, if you will, into every airplane, so that planes can be guided more safely, saved and there's a strong commitment from this administration to fund this and to make it happen. we have made some investments in the gulf of mexico and other places. we're prepared to make a strong commitment for the next generation technology. host: we're talking about airports and airlines. there is revenue involved. spending cuts. the construction cuts and grants for airport improvements --

host: what is the new proposal? guest: i do not have that off the top of my head. it allows airlines to put an additional fate that then goes to the airports to do some of the improvements. you have played some of these members of congress saying there has to be some reductions. we have made a reduction turkish airports want to continue to improve capacity, add capacity come the way to do it is to add this fee or have the airline's ades add this fee. host: airlines have been lobbying about this suggestion.

what is your response to that? guest: i think the airlines have done pretty well. most of the airlines are making money. they have put additional fees on passengers. there's a fee for a blanket or a pillow. this allows them to get too much better bottom line. we're going to work with the airlines. we want to make sure we have a strong airline industry. we want to make sure that they can continue to offer people the kind of airline prices where people can continue to fly and take vacations. it is a delicate balance. we want a strong airline industry. host: pennsylvania, you're on with secretary llahood. caller: you get more bang for the buck if you did not award

all these contracts to unions. people from the inner-city -- if they get in -- i moved from new jersey. you have contractors that have a lock on everything. the electric bill, everything. every infrastructure is covered by the unions. you are lucky if you get hired by the unions. what are you going to do about non-union workers on some of this work? guest: on federal contracts, the prevailing wage has to be paid. that is a strong provision of the law. it is something this administration supports and believes it allows people to get

a good wage for the hard work that people put in. that is something that has been in the law. we support that. it does provide good wages to people on this federal jobs. host: could you explain the 4 per $1 billion requested on some recalled a little committee -- a $4.1 billion request? guest: that is offering alternatives than other just automobiles. dot has been good at building roads and bridges and infrastructure. the program is about light rail and a good buses, serving rural america was good bus service, good transportation. it is about communities like washers, d.c., -- like washington, d.c., and atlanta,

georgia, getting back to a street car business. more walking and biking paths. it is a comprehensive approach to transportation. washington is a classic example of a little ball community. you can live in this town and not own an automobile. you can get on a natural or a bus -- you can get on a metro or a bus. you can get to the baltimore airport by taking the marc train. eventually you can get to the dulles airport on the metro. there should be options for people, is best for those who do not have a car or do not drive a car or cannot afford the insurance for a car. we have many different options for mobility. host: callers in washington are complaining you propose to cut

the budget for metro. guest: we have a strong relationship with the metro system. we have held their feet to the fire on the safety issues. we have allocated millions of dollars for them to be able to buy new equipment and new, safer metro cars for the metro system. there are others who do want to make reductions. we think this system is very strong. we have been good partners with them. host: so no cuts. guest: that is correct. caller: i wanted to make the point -- this or al -- florida is a terrorist state -- this or for itself.ay

it will create jobs. florida is one of the highest unemployment rates. i don't understand why the governor is so against it. he is not given a concrete reason that i have heard as to why he is so against it. guest: i met with the governor on several occasions to talk about high-speed rail. he raised some concerns. we addressed those concerns. this particular project as a part of our high-speed rail project will put thousands of people to work building the infrastructure for the high- speed rail, building the train sets for the high-speed rail, and then the employment that is created when you have a train system in your state. there is a number of jobs that people that manages the trains. this is a job producer. it is also the next generation

of transportation for america. the next generation of transportation for florida and a floridians. to see what the governor said. the concerns that he raised, we address. host: connecticut, steve. you're on with the secretary. we lost steve. i wanted to use this tweet. this is a tweet that says streetcars have replaced buses. we grew up in an age where there still were some streetcars in american cities. the cyclical nature of america's transportation system is rather interesting. guest: in my hometown, i remember growing up writing streetcars -- riding streetcars.

streetcars are not a replacement for buses. they are another option. streetcars are made in america. they are made in portland, oregon. we don't decide if a community wants a streetcar system. the mayors and city councils to decide that. many areas have decided that. where streetcars exists, people use them. they are a great option for people. it is another form of transportation in their communities are getting back to. host: you remain optimistic despite the budget battle that congress will fund your budget. guest: i served in copper is for 16 years. -- i served in congress. we passed two bills. the past bipartisanly. -- they

passed bipartisan way. this bill is a bill to put americans to work, building american roads and bridges and high-speed rail for the american people for the next generation of americans. that is what this is about. i am optimistic that this congress will pass a bipartisan transportation bill the way that every other congress has donee because it

today the u.s. institute of peace released a report on ending the war in afghanistan. it was written by a former u.n. official who's now an independent analyst working in afghanistan. we will hear from the offer met along with the former afghan interior minister on the report's findings at this to our event in washington.ng. the topic at hand making peace in the afghanistan is a importan sufficiently important one that we need as much time as possible to be talking on the substance of those issues issues. thank you all very much for coming and thanks to our panelists for coming. i personally see this issue of the critical strategy in afghanistan as one of the most critical issues facing, certainly the u.s., but also afghanistan. a critical issue to which i think we have a lot of gaining

recognition of importance, but we are still lacking a lot of answers and clarity about how to go forward. i was last in afghanistan in november, and every time i go i come back even more confused about the situation. in particular confused about what is our overarching critical strategy in afghanistan that we are spending roughly $100 billion per year today, at present in afghanistan on military and development in particular. still, a lot of questions about to what end in terms of our political objective there. i am hoping that today's discussion and touch on those issues. at think this is a particularly important issue, especially now as we are heading into this transition time of transitioning to afghanistan security lead by the end of 2014. i think that it highlights the need for political process, i

think, because if we currently with 140,000 or so international troops in afghanistan are really struggling in terms of defeating the insurgency it is hard to see how they're guides the able to be defeated militarily as we start testing this troop levels out. the urgent need to focus on that. i think we are seeing more attention to this end afghanistan and out, the appointment by president karzai of the eyepiece counsel with the symbolic gesture of the importance of this issue. however, their is a lot of question about the substance of the high peace council progress of rumors and discussions of contacts, especially last fall with taliban and fake taliban. talks and talks about talks to not strategy make. i'm hoping some of those issues will come out in today's discussion. given the importance of this

topic it is my honor to introduce the esteemed group of panelists today who bring a lot of expertise on these issues. we are going to each panelist have approximately 15 minutes to speak and start with unama team who is the author of this excellent new report that has just been put out that i hope you all get a chance to read on "making peace in afghanistan: the missing political strategy," which is the topic of today's conversation. at book tv was formerly the head of analysis and planning. she is currently working out of oxford for the european stability initiative on projects and intervention and state building. prior to working in afghanistan after one had extensive experience working on peacemaking including as a senior adviser to the nobel peace laureate, the former finnish president supporting his work in northern ireland and throughout the balkans. minna järvanpaä has worked

extensively in the balkans including two years with the u.s. mission in kosovo and holds a degree from the london school of economics from harvard university. a second speaker is minister at 17. we are privileged to have them. currently it distinguished professor at the national defense university and formerly served as the interior minister and afghanistan from 2002-2005. prior to that he has lots of experience in counterinsurgency. quite active as a military planner for the afghan resistance following the soviet invasion of afghanistan and prior to that served as a colonel in the afghan army. graduated from high command and staff colleges in afghanistan, the united kingdom, and the u.s. and is the author of numerous books and articles on the political, military, and security situation in afghanistan to be our third

panelist is dr. nixon, currently coordinating a product -- process. basically he is doing research on the whole issue of how do we -- issues around the durable peace in afghanistan and in particular trying to map out the interest that various afghan parties. the connection will speak briefly about some of the preliminary findings from his research. spend five years in kabul prior to this working most recently for the world bank's national governance program. prior to that the honor of being a colleague of hamish when i was the director of the afghanistan research and evaluation units in afghanistan. hamish has extensive experience with issues of conflict governments and transitional elections. he holds a ph.d. in peace process seas and post conflict

political developments from oxford. last but not least i am honored to welcome dr. christian barnard who is the director of the piece research altitude of oslo. his research interest includes the dynamics of civil war, migration and transnational communities and methodology and difficult context. extensive experience working in afghanistan and on afghanistan and is the author of the social networks and migration and wartime afghanistan and has a ph.d. in sociology. an excellent group of panelists. i'm looking for to what you have to say on this very important topic. over to you. >> thanks for coming today. just as a preface i would say i started and afghanistan