so, their hands are tied. this is a meeting to talk about a creative solutions to close this gap. host: among the creative solutions that have been talked about in the papers this morning, many states are selling of park lands, trying to figure out ways they can sell state offices, trim personnel. in wisconsin, the biggest issue seems to be these pensions. guest: ultimately, it is the king we are seeing in washington where republicans -- is the thing we are seeing in washington where the republicans are taking on all of the spending. it accounts for one eighth of the whole budget. in a lot of these states, it is a huge part of the pie chart, pensions. and the skyrocketing costs that are locked into place that we are currently seeing. ultimately, both democrats and republicans would say we need to address those in order to ensure

the fiscal long-term of any state. they're not >> live, now, for a discussion on the future of the afghan national security forces. we'll hear remarks from the afghan defense and interior ministers as well as lieutenant general david barno, the former u.s. and coalition commander in afghanistan. the international security assistant force is scheduled to transfer full control to the afghan forces in 2014. the u.s. institute of peace here in washington is the host of this event, this is live coverage on c-span2, and can we have just heard it'll get underway in just a couple of minutes. [inaudible conversations]

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>> so, ladies and gentlemen, let me welcome you to the united states institute of peace. this might be the last event that the united states institute of peace does in this building. we will be moving sometime next month if everything goes, if everything goes well, as i suspect it will. we very pleased this morning to welcome the latest in a series of afghan officials who have agreed to come speak to you here at the institute of peace. you may remember that president karzai was here a little less than a year ago, dr. abdullah was here, we are very pleased that we've got this arrangement with, with the ministries and

the officials of afghanistan. before i introduce the panel, let me welcome afghanistan's new am ambassador to the united states, we're very pleased to have you here, ambassador, we hope you'll be here regularly or at our new facility, thank you very much for coming. and ambassador tony wayne is also here with us today. tony, welcome. very good to have you. and we also have minister -- i still call minister, jalalli who is with us as well at the national defense university. we're very pleased this morning to have two very distinguished ministers, very senior ministers, very experienced ministers from afghanistan. minister wardak, minister of defense, has had experience going back which he can describe, and i'm sure you'll have questions for him, pack to the time when he was -- back to the time when he was fighting the soviets. he remembers many of the battles, he members many of the locations that took place then.

he knows that terrain, he knows that battle. he has, we were talking last night, he has also spent some time in the united states doing some infantry training. he is an airborne ranger having been trained down at fort benning with general barno and team. so we're very pleased that minister wardak is here. he is joined by the minister of interior, minister no hamdi. we're very -- mohammadi. he has taken over the minister of interior which, as people know, has the police under his command. and this is a big challenge that he has take on with enthusiasm -- taken on with enthusiasm and to great reviews by his colleagues as well as the mentors that are in afghanistan from the coalition forces. finally, we have lieutenant general, retired, dave barno who

spent 19 months in afghanistan as the commander of forces, of u.s. forces. and i say that he was succeeded by several people, now including general petraeus. and so they were all filling his shoes. and general barno is now, of course, with center for new american security. security. and we're very pleased to have general barno here. what we hope to do is invite minister wardak to make some comments followed by minister mohammadi followed by general barno. we will then have an opportunity to ask questions. we hope that you will be able to get your questions in. we have people in another room right down the hall here who may also have questions, so if you see people handing me little cards, i will be relaying those questions from people in the overflow room. this is a particularly important

time for afghanistan and for the coalition forces supporting the afghan forces. they're looking at a transition. we're looking at a transition now over four years rather than a shorter transition that people had been concerned about earlier. so a four-year transition during which time the forces of the army and the police led by the two ministers here will take increasing responsibility for security in afghanistan. this will be an enormous challenge for both the ministers and for the forces that they command. it'll be a challenge for isaf as it prepares to turn over province by province, district by district responsibility for security in this these areas. so this is a great time for us. we're very pleased that we're able to host these two ministers, and i would like to invite minister wardak to make a couple informal remarks. we talked last night, he said, i don't want to make a formal speech. i said, please, don't make a

formal speech but just your comments, your thoughts as you're looking forward until 2014 would be very useful. so, minister wardak. would you like to speak from here? >> that would be better. so good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. it has been a privilege to participate in this dialogue with some of our old and dearest friends and to others, such prominent audience in this prestigious institution. so i would like to begin, first, once again, i mean, to express the profound gratitude and deepest appreciation of the afghan government, the afghan people for all the help, assistance and cooperation and most generous support which have been provided by u.s., particularly its nato and the nato partners to my war-torn

country. they are definitely playing a vital role in shaping the destiny of my devastated nation. i'm more than sure that you are all aware the danger which we are encountering recognize no geographic boundary. it threatens the human civilization, and it cannot be overcome by a single nation regardless of how ever powerful. so, therefore, it needs a strategic global response and a coordinated and concerted effort by community of nations if we are going to defend our collective freedom. otherwise, no place will be safe

wherever it is located on the surface of the planet. there is no doubt that we are at a critical juncture, and also the media are always portraying a gloomy picture and always saying that it has been the longest war, and in the nine years we have not made any progress. much progress has been made. i think the answers are very simple. i think we have underestimated the enormity of the rebuilding a nation, institution that's infrastructure has gone through three decades of war and destruction. also we underestimated the

threat that a nation for the afghan national security forces, 70,000 in army and 60,000 in police were far below based on any troop to task on any other historic examples. the insufficiency of, in our forces have had any much negative impact on conducting the proper counterinsurgency operation. relying too much on counterterrorism operation and raids and, also, air strikes have alienated some of the population. and also afghanistan was an economy of force for many years, and only in 2007 and '8 we are

seeing some effort to build a credible afghan security force. and then i think there is, also, we have to admit there has been underperformances by afghan also, and also the implementation of the aid program with the, these overhead charges have drained a lot of resources and also weakened the afghan institutions. so we have come a long way on a difficult journey, but with the announcement of the new strategy, i think the way ahead was clear, and it was not a strategy that was focused narrowly on counterterrorism

operation, but just on the comprehensive civil/military campaign which has the element even to defend -- i mean, to defeat the ideology and give us a lasting peace. and it had all elements of success which we have longed for since 2002. and based on that strategy, now our mission is unequivocal and clear: protect the afghan population. we've all agreed explicitly that civilian casualties are unacceptable. and all effort has to be directed to assure that the afghan government authority and to reinforce the government legitimacy and its sovereignty.

based on that, to insure the inevitability of our success and victory, we have all agreed to accelerate the growth of afghan national security forces, improve government's rule of law and economic development, strengthen our partnership with isaf forces, afghan-led operation including transfer of -- including the operation in transfer of detention facility. and also full-supported afghan-led peace and reconciliation and strive to achieve closer regional cooperation, and, finally, to optimize all element of the afghan national sovereignty.

all these years i think i have been saying that the only sustainable way to secure afghan is to enable the afghans themself. for the afghans, success means to be able to defend the nation independently with having isaf, nato and the united states is a enduring strategic partner in support. and we do believe that the afghan solution the cost effective. it is politically less complex, and it will save lives for our friends and allies. now, we really believe -- i will touch the security situation. as you're all aware, the enemy

attacks have increased considerably, so the use of improvised explosive devices and correspondently, the number of casualties have risen also. but some of it was because isaf and the afghan national security forces were operating for the first time in some areas which they have never gone before. in the meantime, there was a high tempo of the operation for isaf and afghan national security forces. so the result, i think, was that the violence have peaked during the elections, but after that

with the high tempo, operational tempo for nsf and isaf, we were able to gain the initiative and, and we were able to do that by conducting a proper counterinsurgency operation for the first time in afghanistan. the results were quite obvious in be helmand and also in -- in helmand and also in kandahar. we were able to establish the guard and control in some of the most difficult in the actual leader, the hearts of the enemy. territory. and the result is now the people are not oppressed anymore there, they have a right to choose which they're exercising, and the perception of security and the government has improved

immensely. and just to mention, i think there are really good indications that there is a change in the tides on our favor. if the key to success in current operation or is going to be the support of the people, in that case i think we are getting that support. and that has been, can be illustrated really easily, that the number of ieds which we detect and neutralize with the help of the people have increased between 70-80%, and for the last four or five months it has been that high. and, also, the if urge -- the number of the cachets which have been identified with the help of the people which have been

captured and destroyed. it was 163 and now for the last three months of 2010 it was over a thousand. and the recent statistics even have gone much, much higher. so -- and, also, i think what we have done during this operation that we, we have focused our conventional forces on protecting the population and directed our special operation forces to keep the enemy off balance. and that is the result, you might have the statistics, the enemy has suffered really heavily. and both in their fighters and also their mid-level and low-level taliban, and that have been the cases that in three

times i think the shadow government which they appointed were eliminated, captured or killed. so there is improvement as far as the security situation is concerned, and we are hopeful that we have the great capability enough that though i think some of us are predicting that the coming year will be really bloody and difficult, but i hope that will not be the case. the enemy is using more or foreign fighters now than afghans in a lot of these suicide attacks which have taken place recently. i think most of it has been the work of foreign fighters. and, also, that shows some sort of desperation on the part of the enemy that in actual combat operation they have lost their confidence, and they are focusing to help these news-making, sensational attacks

which multiple suiciders combined with commanders' raids. now if i go to the afghan national army, the afghan army continues to be a -- [inaudible] i'm not saying it's perfect, there is a lot of room for improvement. it's really difficult to raise an army and fight at the same time. but it is actually an important symbol of reform, and it is the physical manifestation of the new afghanistan, illustrating our transformation to a nation which would like to take, once again, its destiny and in its own hand. we have with accelerated growth, which was approved, we were worried that the quality of the force might be in danger.

but, fortunately, that has not happened. the quality is almost, there is an improvement of more than 50% in the quality of the force based on all the statistics which are available, and the result of, the reason is, i think, more focus on the lessons learned through the past so many years partnering and isaf have enabled the enemy to eat and to sleep and to fight together, so it has been a 24-hour, constant training process. and the ratio of trainers to the trainees have improved to 1 to 29. so that question of quality, we do hope that in the future we will be able, i mean, to make further improvements. the other issue, also, accelerated growth have enabled

us to outnumber isaf forces in some major operations like in operation in kandahar, i think it was 60% to 40% of isaf forces. and now i would like to say that how i see the future and what is our way ahead, how we will go and proceed. so i think that our journey to a self-reliance and professionalism will continue with more zeal and vigor. so we will also improve our performances through transparency, accountability and reinforcing our codes of conduct. and with improved attention and attrition, i think we will reach the 378,000 figure ahead of schedule, ahead of the end of

october of 2012. we will also have positive improvement towards self-sufficiency in combat, supporting combat service support units and also in our broader institutional buildings. we will strive to lead more operations and also what we will do, we will increase the proportionality of afghan national security forces to the isaf forces in some of future operations. we will try to change the winning the war of perception which is helping -- have been negative all along. and as we become more capable to defend our territory, we do hope

that our neighboring powers will come to the conclusion and they will accept the reality, and then we will be able to establish those mutually-beneficial relations which we have sought since 2002. and with the help of our friends and allies, i think we will vigorously address the question of sanctuaries. and we will apply all the lessons learned, especially the protection of the population and insuring their participation, participation in the govern nance and rule of law -- governance and rule of law and security and economic development. and based on our mutually-agreed

plan, i think we will, we will commence transition which is of utmost significance to the afghans and also to the international community. transition is, is a result of the already jointly-agreed plan of the afghan ownership in afghan leadership. so all our fourth generation attempts and operations will be conducted toward transition. and we have all already agreed that it will be a process, it will not be just an event. it will also, will not be detached from the realities on

the ground. it will be, also, not a victim to the desire -- to the, that hope which is stemming out for ugly results. and it will not be hold hostage to local political agendas, and neither it will be synonym to the draw of winning the commitment of international community in the longer term. so we have all agreed that it will be meaningful, it will be condition-based, and it will be, it should become possible. so based on that, i think we are, we afghans are totally

dedicated to the reason which was articulated by our president in his inaugural speak, to take the lead of all operations in three years and whole security, physical security responsibility in five years. so we will not spare any efforts or sacrifices to achieve that, that goal. it has been a priority, it will be a priority for us. most importantly, security will be playing a major role in the process of transition. and for that i think we have to remind ourselves something that so far what we have built in the afghan national army, it has been totally and plenty centric. even -- not regular, it's slight

centric only good for counterinsurgency operations. and so for the transition to be successful and be to be irreversible, there is this requirement that we have to gradually get all those enablers -- which we are now relying on isaf, which they are providing for us -- and that's our hope that we will be provided gradually as the time passes. and once this transition started, the rule of the isaf forces would change from actually conducting the fighting to supporting and mentoring role. and then that will also allow the gradual thinning out of the isaf forces. so for that, the ceiling of the forces which are required which has been totally analyzed by

different institutions including the u.s. army analysis center, i think that should have been agreed. .. and i think enablers are already i think we will need improvement in our firepower, with our mobility with

integrated firepower and then some ied -- anti-ied capabilities. reconnaissance capability, the support of the troops, ground troops by area and also in absence isaf forces i think we should have air capability and capability to secure our airspace like any other country. in the meantime i will think i will cut it short that cooperation will play a decisive role as far as all our joint efforts are concerned. in afghanistan are closely linked to the development particularly in the region. so in most cases only the

country where terrorists are located i think they can act better, action can be law enforcement, can be intelligence operations or can be military operations or developing an educational system to counter the ideas of extremists. we do see a better prospect for coordination as a result of two or three recent tripart i'd and other meeting with our neighbor and we hope we should be absolutely sure we have a common enemy, a common threat so that cooperation which between the two countries should be reality and also inevitable.

so we hope that with the by helping each other we will be able, to interfere with the terrorists planning training weapons, command-and-control and also to disrupt their funding and capture their senior leaderships. also beyond 2014 i think there is a strategic imperative. we do expect afghanistan should not be only viewed in the narrow prism of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operation. but rather than in a greater context of regional and global security.

we do hope that afghanistan's geographic proximity and its role in the region, its role as a linking bridge between central asia and southeast asia and its close and projected mineral resources should be taken into account. and it should be dealt with was relevant and reliable partner in the future for peace-keeping operations and also operations of mutual interest. i just, just one last comment i think. then i will stop. so i think after many years of struggle our goals are

insight. what matter as is our will to reach it today. the costs have been high and the stakes even higher but the good news is that hope as been replaced by progress though it has been deadly bought. so that the debt of gratitude which we will be owing your soldiers and citizens we can never be able to pay it. we pay tribute to all those who have given the ultimate price for the struggle for stability and prosperity in afghanistan and no one knows

more than us after gans that -- afghans the pain of losing a dear one of the we pray for the families of the fallen and all the wounded. and now i would like to say that no one shall doubt our firm determination, the afghan determination to succeed and also you should be assured that we really don't want to be a burden on the international community or on the u.s. more than it is required. so we, i'm quite confident that you will stay with us in this last part of our journey which the final destination is now visible

and i'm sure that we will prevail because of our cause is just and our endeavor is a noble one. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, minister wardak. it was fine. it was fine. >> that works. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> can't hear you. >>. >> translator: in the name of god the most fwrash schuss, most merciful. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: in this gathering today, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, thank you for being here. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i would like to express my gratitude to all of you for your presence here in the united states institute for peace. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i would like to also express my gratitude to his excel send are -- excel lenly, minister wardak for touching on many fundamental general points vis-a-vis our countries and our affairs. so i would like to concentrate my talks with with you on the after began national police i've been heading for the last seven to eight months as the minute steer of interior.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i am very grateful to have had this occasion to be here in washington, d.c. with you today. it has also been an occasion to have fundamental talks and conversations with our friend and ally here in washington, d.c. about the strategy for afghanistan and its future stability. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: most of you will i would like to express my gratitude to the government of the united states, to the people of the united states and to the department of defense. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i am fully aware that the costs for the united states has been quite

high. and it has cost the lives of many of your young men and women who have selflessly sacrificed their lives for the future of our country. you have sustained a great deal of expenses from your national treasury, yet you remain committed to this assistance. the debt of gratitude we owe to your country can not be repaid but it can earn infinite gratitude and appreciation of the afghan nation. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i serve as the chief of general staff in the afghan national army for about nine years. about eight months ago i came to head the ministry of the interior at a time when the afghan national police was facing severe challenges. but during the past eight months because of results of

close collaboration with my colleagues in the minister of interior as we as the support of the international community we have made tangible progress. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: training and education has been at the forefront of our list of priorities and during the last eight months the capacity of our training centers has increased from '9500 to over 12,000. one of of the main challenges also in the afghan national police has been the undereducation or illiteracy rate among the afghan national police members. as i'm here speaking with you, more than 20,000 officers are enrolled and receiving training and education in us coulds of literacy, basic education and above. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: leadership and leadership development has been our second highest

priority. having committed professional leadership without having committed professional leadership, all of our efforts will be fruitless. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: on this path and towards this objective over 66 general officers and over 2000 police officers have been removed from their positions due to erroneous conduct and this will continue. this process started from the top and will continue to the lower ranks. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: corruption is another high priority we focused upon during the last eight to nine months. we hav+++/v?

commanding officers have been sent to the zones of all the nations to tangibly verify the possibilities and equipment and supplies that each units that available and with which they operate. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: in order to

increase the capability of system that would hold people accountable for their actions within the police structure, during the last eight months, i personally visited 28 of our 34 provinces and personally verified the capability gaps in our attempting seriously to bring to decrease those capability gaps. the level of attrition has decreased on a daily basis. even though we have taken many fundamental steps, we still have a long path ahead of us and much hard work remains to be done. the security situation. in result of joint nato and african -- afghan security force operations, particularly in the north

and south the security situation has improved vastly. the losses suffered by the enemy in result of having lost high-ranking and mid-ranking commanders as well as notorious drug dealers have dealt a severe blow to the enemy. areas and provinces that were traditional safe havens for the enemy have been cleansed of their presence. joint nighttime operations between special operations and afghan security forces have hunted taliban leaders successfully as well as terrorist organization leaders and notorious drug dealsers. and this goes to show that our mutual strategy, that our mutual strategy, vis-a-vis our fight against this common enemy has been correct and we have embarked on a new road towards mutual

success. the secret to our recent successes has been earning the trust of the, of our nation, of our people. we now keep our presence in the areas that from which we drive out the enemy. we maintain security and we bring fundamental help to improve the daily lives of the people of the local populace. the development of the police force. given the level of security threats the area the nation occupies, and the level, the level of the current threats we1j

development of the afghan national police has been done can great deal of concentration toward the fact it is primarily a law enforcement agency. one of the priorities, one of the priorities of the afghan national police during this expansion and development has been to separate the authority and the responsibility between what is the afghan national police and what falls on the shoulders of the afghan national army. theate0q0v0x1s10=50atdt120234726

weaknesses as well as their equipment. increasing the, apologize.

decreasing their capability gaps by providing better and appropriate equipment. the transfer must be done according to the realities of afghanistan and as they are today. it must not be a political decision. we must insure that this transition indeed irreverseable. it must, insure, it must, it must bring particular focus on the destruction of the safe havens and training camps of the enemy and the terrorists on the other side of our border. the sincere collaboration of our, of our nation, of our neighboring nations will be a key component for this success.

having said all of this and bringing particular attention and focus on the points that i just shared with you all will pave the road towards success in this transition. distinguished friends. we do believe that in our fight, in our mutual fight against terrorism and the taliban, insuring the stability and security with wan objective of final victory, the role of the police has been a vital one. and development of the security forces without particular focus on the development of the afghan national police will not be a realistic. therefore, particular attention to the development of the police within the framework of their daily primary responsibilities must be a primary focus from now until 2014.

recently, in representing the government, the nation, the people, and the police of afghanistan, i would like to again reiterate my gratitude for all of your concrete assistance and sacrifices and i do hope that the aid and assistance in training and developing our capabilities will continue during this upcoming sensitive phase. god bless you all. [applause] >> thank you, minister mohammadi. joe barno. >> thanks. i know the audience is really here to ask questions of our two distinguished guests. two my left, not including this one of course so i will be very brief in my remarks

this morning. i would be remiss if i doesn't point a late arrival, deputy assistant secretary of defense david sedney who works the defense department's policy for afghanistan, pakistan and central asia. to my knowledge, maybe the most senior u.s. government official who is actually working nonstop on this region, devote he hadly since at least 2002 when i met him. without any breaks. and he probably has a deeper knowledge than most people until this room who aren't after gans. great to see you here, david. i hope we get a few questions from you and, if not, i'm sure you will get some questions when we adjourn here this afternoon. i've just come back from a week-long trip to pakistan. in the last week of january. and i found that to be very intriguing in light of conversation we've had so far this afternoon. i will expect, to get out to afghanistan a little bit later this year and, tromp around on the ground there a bit. i, as, bill noted, i'm now a

senior fellow at the center for new american security. we just publish ad report in december that i coauthored with andrew exum, called responsible transition that actually lays out view of what the next five plus years should look like in afghanistan. so i'm going to draw a bait on the research and on our writing for that here in light of the remarks the two ministers here this afternoon. i clearly, if you're not aware, i do not speak for the u.s. government. i'm not part of the u.s. government and what i'm giving you is not the isaf position or the defense department position, it's my own personal opinion here today. it is also informed by having a pretty deep family commitment in the afghanistan enterprise not only spending time there myself but having two sons who are army captains, one whom already spent a year out there as a scout helicopter pilot. another one is deploying in april, attached to an infantry bringing i had ga. -- brigade.

so i get some first-hand feedback whether i like it or not what is working and not working down at the captain level in afghanistan which i find to be quite important and very informative. last spring i had the opportunity, here in washington to listen to a recall follower senior official of the afghan government who was coming through town talking to various groups. at the end of his lecture, he concluded by saying, 30,000 taliban are not going to dictate the future for 30 million afghans. and i raised my hand and i said, yes, they are. 30,000 taliban have every prospect of dictating the future for 30 million afghans, unless the 30 million afghans take ownership of the war against the 30,000 taliban. in part of what we heard here so far this morning clearly has been the tremendous extent to which the afghan national army, which has grown from a very tiny, force when i was there of under 15 thousand.

and the afghan national police and grown and gotten into this fight the last several years. that's a huge change that has gone somewhat unremarked here in the united states and it is going to be more important than simply the status of where we are there today. it is going to be the future of the conflict in afghanistan. two years from now, three years from now, four years from now, this afghan national security force will be taking the fight to the enemy enabled by u.s. advisors and by u.s. capability but the large contingent of americans and nato forces, that today are fighting that population centered counterinsurgency campaign will be replaced by growing numbers of afghan soldiers and police. they won't be standing out there alone which has sometimes been the case in the past, especially with the police but they will be advised and mentored by nato forces by american forces.

and that in many ways is the key to their success. in our paper, that andrew and i wrote in december, we actually postulated a long-term, post-2014 footprint for the united states and afghanistan along with selected allies of about 25 to 35 thousand troops. those troops would be focused on two primary igss. -- missions. one to put relentless pressure on al qaeda and threaten our enemies in the region. to enable and mentor the afghan security forces to continue the counterinsurgency battle against the taliban and their movement that is an extremely important long-term dimension. my trip to pakistan was very notable and connects into this dynamic, in the sense that for the first time, i found the pakistanis now

beginning to believe that the united states is staying instead of going. that the u.s. has now committed to having a long-term engagement and most likely some type of long-term presence in this region. these forces that continue to enable and to advise and mentor the afghan security forces are part of that commitment. clearly some cts, some counter-terrorists capability is part of that too. that i think, in my judgment has the potential to be a strategic game-changer in the calculus in this part of the world. which, for many years, many recent years has been dominated by the question, what will our policy look like? what will this approach for us as pakistanis, as afghans, as even the taliban, what will this look like the day after the americans are gone? if now the call youlous begins to shift -- calculus, how does this position for

us day the americans are staying for upcoming years we'll have to interact with americans that is a different calculus. i think our long-term commitment to afghanistan going back to something minister wardak said is much more about the region than simply about afghanistan. and our presence and out commitment there, perhaps beyond 2014, with a very modest size force, again, that has yet to have been decided by either the u.s. or the afghans. but i think that the confidence in u.s. staying power is a strategic multiplier for us. where that confidence exists and where we can grow and nurture that. where we can convince our friends in the region that's part of our plan to stay engaged, then, we have a strategic leg up on our adversaries. where we continue to erode or contribute to beliefs we're simply to move for the exits and looking to view of many in that part of the world, abandon afghanistan again, that undercuts our strategic interests. i think that's a key part of

you are calculus here today. i will leave it at that and i look forward to perhaps entertaining a few of your questions. thanks very much. [applause] . . >> my question is for the minister of interior about the dangers of infiltration. we saw some recent reporting that there's a new plan to be unveiled next month to prevent that. i'd like to hear more about that, and i have specific experience in afghanistan reporting on this issue, and i think it's only gotten worse

over time. >> thank you. minister. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: as you did mention, one of the enduring tactics of the enemy remains to infiltrate the ranks of the ana and the afghan national police, the security forces as a whole. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: unfortunately, as i'm sure you're as painfully aware as we are, they have succeeded on these objectives many times. [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: and i also want to share with you that given the bitter experiences of the past, we have done our utmost to put those lessons learned to good use and proper use. so we are no longer accepting within our ranks those people whose identity is what foggy or not completely established or whose background may be even slightly questionable. indeed, that is aiding in decreasing dangers of -- the dangers of infiltration. >> in the back. bob? >> good morning. my name is bob, i'm directer of the center for security and

governance here at usip. i have a question for the minister of interior. there are two new entities that are the responsibility of your ministry, one is the afghan local police and the other is the afghan public protection force. i wonder if you could give us a status report on these two forces and then answer the question which has been raised as to whether or not these new forces are a distraction from your main work. >> i'm so sorry, sir, i wasn't quite able to keep up with you. >> okay, sorry. the final part of the question was whether or not creating two new forces at the time that you're working so hard on the after ban national police is a -- afghan national police is a distraction. [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: i do believe that the creation of the afghan local police over the short term is a much-needed ingredient towards achieving the objective of security across the regions in afghanistan. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: and i think within the framework of your question you also were alluding to the, if you will, doing away with the private security entities or as the president has said, those parallel institutions or entities which all of that will come under the overall umbrella of the min city of -- ministry of interior. [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: over 52 companies have been, 52 security companies or institutions, so to speak, have been let go of, and all of the responsibility we are committed to executing the will of our president which is to bring and encompass all of the responsibilities under the umbrella of the ministry of the

interior. we are only now, we've worked quite hard on executing the wishes of our president, and we are studying the best mechanism within which to do that, and we have worked days and hours on end with his excellency, ambassador wayne, who works alongside us from your embassy in kabul. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: we are also certain that the temporary -- the creation and the temporary use of the afghan local police as well as the appf which brings all of the responsibilities of those parallel entities under the ministry of interior will be a key ingredient towards achieving success of maintaining security in afghanistan.

>> yes, ma'am, all the way in the back. i got ya. >> hi. i'm from voice of america. i work for diary service which broadcasts for afghanistan. my question is for mr. wardak. with all of -- excuse me, withdrawal of u.s. forces after 2014 is the biggest concern of afghan people because in most areas there's no security or security's so bad. is there any guarantee that after foreign forces withdraw afghanistan will not be overrun with mill about thes again -- militants again? >> actually, i think i have already explained that there's thinning doubt, draw down of

forces will be really gradual, and it will happen as the way they have, actually, i will quote you the exact sentence, that the isaf will be -- [inaudible] to thin out as the afghan capacity increases and the threat level diminishes. so with that i this in the future, three or four years, i think there will be considerable progress in capability and capacity of the afghan security forces. but moreover what is really important, that because of our location in that dangerous and volatile neighborhood we are all seeking that afghanistan should be never allowed to become a safe haven to the terrorists again. and i think international

community is committed for that, and that's why then we, we are already discussing the nature of our security relations with the international community and particularly to the u.s. and i think general barno has already explained. so, so i think we should not be worried that something like after 1989 and '90s will happen again in afghanistan. >> minister wardak, let me follow that up on a question from the other room, as i mentioned. and they have sent -- it's a related question, it says, this is from omar -- [inaudible] it says that "the new york times" and "the washington post" reported today that u.s. forces will begin withdrawing from be pesh valley. what are your thoughts on this, and do you think this will encourage pakistani terror networks such as haqqani tribe

to to seek a safe haven in afghanistansome. >> i think i was the one, i was interviewed by that washington post -- [laughter] and, actually, as we mentioned earlier that realignment of the u.s. forces based on this policy and strategy of is taking place all over, but as far as peshawar valley is concerned, it is one of the most difficult area in afghanistan. once we withdraw to regain it back, it's very difficult. the pesh valley is enroute to three, four other bodies which are directly having access on the road to jalalabad from cuna, and i tried it myself, i mean,

to cut it off this old days. in the old days. so kunar province has important, strategic significance than most of the provinces in afghanistan. that is why the afghan jihad have initiated from kunar. and before also there were some rebellion from the government within the same province because of the nature of the terrain. and then its immediate proximity and accessibility to the other side of the border make it most significant. so we have to make the proper arrangement for the afghan national security forces to be able to hold on to the pesh

valley in the absence of the isaf forces. which i explained earlier, i think the capability to resupply a unit by ground is not there, by air is not there, so we will still rely on special arrangement to be made with isaf for resupply, for the air support and fire support. if it is required. it will have another political implication also. if the pesh really results on the fall of the district, i think it will have a lot of psychological impact, districts are falling. and more than ever the importance is that there have been talk about insurgents coming from pakistan to this side take sanctuary and going back and forth. we have this discussed with our

pakistani neighbors which they have claimed that. so giving them the opportunity to come and have a safe haven and a sanctuary is what matters on the question of, i mean, this realignment of forces. so i will say in addition to its military significance and the nature of the terrain, there are other political and school imperatives which should make us to make proper arrangements to hold on to the area either by afghan forces with the help of isaf or still have the isaf forces as they were there for the last six, seven years. >> so what -- thank you.

general barno, not speaking for isaf, but you have faced the same forces. any thoughts on the pesh valley? >> i think the coalition, isaf is going to have to make difficult trade-offs between where it can get the most effect out of the forces it has available. even with the so-called surge that's brought 30,000 additional troops in this year, how those troops have been distributed, where the threat is right now, i think, is causing isaf headquarters to have to reassess a bit in terms of getting the best bang for the soldiers that are out there. today in the pesh, typically, they're remote, difficult to resupply, they're often under a lot of pressure from the enemy, and they're not able to aggressively and, in many cases, get outside of their fence line to take the war forward. so i think my assessment from the distance is that isaf has

looked at positioning those forces elsewhere with and controlling that terrain in a different way. and that could be by raid operations, it could be by some surveillance and strike operations, it could be in concert, i'm sure, with afghan security forces. but, you know, there's -- this is a change and a reappraisal, and it's going to be, i think, more common as we begin to go through this transition starting later in the year. >> thank you, general. sir, right here. >> thank you, i am from radio-free europe. the concerns about pakistan and iran still remain in its place because it is approved and can confirmed by u.s. officials as well that taliban sanctuaries are in pakistan, active inside pakistan and even recent reports

say terrorists have been treated in the hospitals. according to these concerns, what do you think, i mean, what's the way, how to dole with pakistan? and i want to hear the same answer -- i want to have the same question for general barno as well. so what should be the -- how's the way to deal with pakistan in such condition? thank you. >> this question on sanctuaries, probably all three of you will have observations on this. general wardak, would you like to begin? >> sure. i think there are some facts about pakistan. there have been a lot of attempt by the international community, the afghan government and also the recently-established jirga, i mean, to improve the situation and to get more cooperation from

the pakistani side. and as i mentioned and i think general barno also mentioned that after all these years i think there are signs of improvement that we will have some cooperation. there have been, also, recently some arrangement in the border that while there is operation taking place many any side of the border -- in any side of the border, the other side will have to cooperate or make a blocking position, something like that. so and, also, based on our experiences with tripartheid and other engagement, i think the situation have developed in pakistan in such a way that it might compel them to increase and enhance their cooperation

with international community and also with afghan government so the prospects are looking, looking brighter. but still we have to work harder on the issue. and i think that the entire international community is working on the subject as well as the afghan people and the afghan government. >> minister mohammadi, i have heard you, actually, in a conversation with sidney that when you were fighting the soviets, you used pakistani sanctuaries. and so you know about the use of sanctuaries as the taliban are now using them. [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: i am sure that you do remember during the conversation that we, we previously had i also pointed in no uncertain terms that in order for this transition to go from this initial phase towards a successful conclusion and continuity of what comes after, we do not only need and necessitate an increase in the capabilities of our security and armed forces, but one of the keys is also the sincere, sincere and honest collaboration of our neighbors. [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: yes, and also, indeed, i did point out that during our youth, his excellency, the minister of defense general wardak and myself fought for about 14 years

or more against the soviet invasion and aggression. during those years, indeed, i also did say we used to take refuge in pakistan, launch attacks, and take refuge in pakistan again. but at that time the focus of the world was in backing our movement and our fight for freedom. that is why because we had refuge in pakistan and because there was a con certed, worldwide effort, we were able to defeat one of the two powers of the world -- superpowers of the world. and the same thing i say to you is valid today. until the taliban and the al-qaeda terrorists are not purged from their -- [inaudible] it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for the world community to ultimately and decisively bring them to their knees. >> general barno. >> yeah. i think i'll probably give a bit of a different perspective based on my recent visit. i've been to pakistan 12 or 15

times before this. i was there for a week, and i had access to very senior people in the military and the civil service, in other elements of the government, the intelligence agencies, academics, students, governors. so i had a fairly wide cast of people i talked to. i'm also very sensitive to hearing talking points, and this is the first visit out of 12 or more that i didn't hear the exact same script every place i went to visit. so i was actually having some very interesting conversations. what i took from that, one of my major takeaways from this trip is that if i can aggregate perceptions that the pakistanis want to see the conflict in afghanistan settled, concluded, brought to an end. it was described to me by several people that the worst-case outcome -- and you can take this or disagree with it -- the worst-case outcome for afghanistan and pakistan today is a taliban victory. and the we cekd worst-case outce

would be pakistan having to deal with a civil war on the aftermath of a u.s. withdrawal. so they were very concerned about the war next door. you might ask why is it pakistan had a hedging strategy in afghanistan over the last several years that many commentators have argued provide sanctuary for the taliban, provide resourcing, perhaps training, even direction in the eyes of some. i think that has everything to do about their confidence in what the future is going to look like. i believe their hedging strategy was based upon insuring that they were not in a position of grave disadvantage after the united states left the region again. the u.s., as we all know, pulled up lock, stock and after they defeated the sow yets. -- soviets. the pakistanis are incredibly aware of that and expect to see

that again. they are now beginning to believe that may not be true and that's beginning to, i think, change their game plan as far as hedging through the taliban. we're not very far down that road. but if we can convince the pakistanis that we, in fact, are staying in the region as opposed to leaving, i think there's an opening there for their strategy, their hedging strategy to change and for them to put their chips on a different part of the table. we're only beginning to do that though. >> thanks, dave. sir. >> [inaudible] >> here's a mic. there you go. >> national defense university. for the ministers, i'd like to follow that up. both of you have stated it's essential that the sanctuaries close. what is the plan if pakistanis are either unwilling or, perhaps, unable to close those sanctuaries? what do we do then? >> actually, i think we have not discussed here that we have

launched the effort of peace and reconciliation. and i think there is a great potential in reintegration because everybody is not a radical extremest, the ones who are fighting u.s. today. they have definite grievances, and the way this situation is evolving in this regard, i think we can deprive them of their foot soldiers and their mid-level and low-level commanders, and that will have the impact that if we can solve the question of the sanctuary, then i think our, we will have a shorter, shorter journey with less effort and less loss of life and blood. that will be the easiest way, i mean, to come to solve the problem. but even if that did not take place, then the requirement will be to make the arrangement that all afghan refugees from

pakistan return, and that arrangement has to be to deprive them there them also and there to the reconciliation and reget gration, i mean, to deprive them of having all those foot soldiers. and i think that is very much possible, and i do believe ha in the coming year -- that in the coming year we will see some significant reintegration events glsms thank you, minister. minister mohammadi, would you like to address that question about if -- no. okay, good answer. [laughter] very good. yes, sir. this may be less -- mr. mohammadi has another meeting downtown, and so let's see how this question goes, and it might be the last one. >> hi. my name is madi, i'm from afghanistan one with tv. i would like to ask my question in persian, and if it's possible, please, translate.

>> i am. >> thank you. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i wanted to ask his excellence si, the minister, whether in your recent talks in washington, d.c. whether you have come across the topic of permanent bases in afghanistan or not, and if you have come across this topic, what result has it given so far? [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the second question is directed to his excellency, the minister of interior, general mohammadi. minister, there seems to be somewhat of a conflicting message coming out of afghanistan's officials, particularly when it comes to what you earlier mentioned askingful nighttime -- successful joint nighttime operations that have eliminated a lot of high-command level and mid-command level capabilities from the taliban in terrorist administrations and eliminated

high-value targets in general. now, when we go back to his excellency, president karzai, he seemed to be against such operations as operations that do not often yield the desired strategic result. so is, should we take this as a difference in political views, in policy views? how should we translate this in afghanistan? >> so, minister wardak, you will take the first question on bases. >> yeah. i'm not sure that -- shall i talk in his language or -- >> english. english would be fine. >> yeah. actually, we came on the invitation of secretary gates, not on the summit of discuss -- subject of discussing the strategic partnership. but actually i will tell you that this, this issue of bases have been blown out of proportion in the media. there is already some mention of

access of u.s. to afghan bases if it is required and the already-signed enduring strategic partnership document which was signed in 2005. our purpose for this trip was not discussing the bases, but we did discuss the nature of our relations after 2014 which will be related to some sort of streamic partnership -- strategic partnership, and both sides have a lot of emphasis on the need of that. but the actual official talking and discussion on the issue is going to take place later on,

sometime in the future by the u.s. government and, also, the designated members of the afghan government. so that is, actually has been dealt as a separate issue to which will be worked out in the future. >> thank you, minister. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i would like to reiterate what i shared with all of you earlier, that, indeed, joint nighttime, swift operations have dealt back-breaking blows to the enemy so far as eliminating high-value targets in general, but high-level, mid-level commanders as far as high profile and very active drug dealers. and i will say this again and again because i'm convinced of it. and i don't think anything should be made of this rather than purely what it was, which is a concern from the side of our president, president karzai, concern of having civilian casualties. and thank god these have dealt a

much more severe blow to the enemy than was anticipated, and they have been a very fundamental tool, and i'd like to reiterate that again and again. there was simply a level of concern from our president, not a difference in policy, political views or anything like that. >> minister wardak, mr. mohammadi, general barno, thank you all very much. you've been very frank, you've given your opinions of all of these things. it's been an excellent exchange. i also want to thank the people who have asked questions and people who came out. very good questions, as always, from this crowd. please, join me in thanking the three panelists. [applause] and we can allow minister mohammadi to leave the building. are you going this way? ..

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] 

>> and now to the city club of cleveland where discussion on national broadband policy. you hear from the chief architect of the national broadband plan when he worked for the documentation commission. the plans goal is to spread a portal broadband access throughout the united states. he left the fcc and the spring of 2010 to take a job at the aspen institute. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon. and welcome to this special city club forum today where we are honored to have the principal architect of the national broadband plan brought to you in partnership between one community and rutgers university. i majority. i'm honored to be able to make the introduction of our guest speaker for today. and i've been involved with technology and 20 for many years. as the founding president of nortech and just recently i've been asked by fitzgerald to own

-- to join his team as the director. so very excited to be here at the city club with all of you. but more excited to individual guest speaker. here in northeast ohio we are fortunate to have several organizations that recognize importance of broadband early on. thanks to the work of one community and its cofounders including northwestern university, nortech, i region has been positioning itself to compete in the 21st century, knowledge economy. many other local leaders have emerged as well, some of whom you hear from today. as part of the american recovery and reinvestment act from 2009, the federal communications commission was charged with crafting a national broadband plan to spread affordable broadband access throughout the united states. with the goal of creating jobs improving health care and encouraging energy independence, the man chosen to lead this

ambition -- ambitious endeavor was blair levin. mr. levin and his team present a plan to congress in march 2010. among its recommendations were connecting 100 million u.s. households to affordable 100 megabits per second broadband service by 2020. identifying and making 500 megahertz of wireless spectrum to be authorized or shared and used for mobile broadband by 2020. building a network nationwide interoperable mobile broadband network for public safety records and agencies, and restructuring the fcc's universal service fund including the redirection of $50.5 billion from traditional telephone subsidies to broadband deployment. executive director of the national broadband plan was mr. levin second row with the fcc.

previously he served as chief of staff to chairman reed hunt from december 1993-october 1997. mr. levin oversaw among other matters the implementation of the historic 1996 telecommunications reform act, the first spectrum auctions, the developing of the digital network television standards, and the commission's internet initiative. mr. levin also spent eight years as principal telecoms come at me and tech regulatory and strategy analyst at legg mason and stifle necklace. mr. levin now serves as communications and society fellow with the aspen institute communication and society program. please join me in welcoming mr. levin. [applause] >> thank you very much. it's a great pleasure to be here today, and i didn't want to thank my cousin, adam.

there he is over there. a native of cleveland. it was a great pleasure to see him and his family, but the astronaut here just to see family. i'm here to talk about a sputnik moment. our nation is having a sputnik moment at the moment. in late november energy secretary chu suggested that china's gains in a clean energy areas should be seen as a sputnik moment. an op-ed in "the wall street journal" saying a recent international task force show that education we are in the midst of a sputnik moment. the same time senator kerry was saying we were having a sputnik moment. the president was to north carolina and described entire nations moment as a sputnik moment. it represents a pervasive sense the nation is at a sputnik

moment where it either rises to face international competition, or it does not. so if you look at google you will see the free sputnik moment essentially had no traction from 2003 to november of 2010, and then shall we say shot up like a sputnik rocket. now, this phenomenon of what included belief, that america is a country in decline. but as many have analyzed the meaning at this moment, they generally ignore what is a foundation question which is what are the requisites that we need to successfully respond to this moment? that's what i want to talk about today. in 1957 when sputnik went up we have the necessary efforts to respond. great institution researchers, political will, cohesion, financial capital to effectively react to the threat we perceived

sputnik represent. but today is very different. an important element of today's challenge was acutely described by the great business visionary peter drucker in 1999 when he wrote the most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is to increase the productivity of knowledge work and knowledge workers. the most vital assets of a 21st century 21st century institution whether business or nonbusiness will be the knowledge worker and productivity. it is on the productivity of knowledge work above all that the future prosperity and, indeed, the future survival of developed economies would increase independent. and as dorothy mentioned, knowledge work is the backbone of our economy now. and broader understood this. the courts have said the task is knowledge exchange. it is fundamental what most of us do. we gather information. we analyze it we act on it and

then through feedback loop continually revise courses of action based on new information. the way we do this has been completely transformed in the last two decades. by three revolution. the data revolution allowed us to collect and provide trillions of data points released and available. the computing revolution, analyzing the data, making task that once would've seemed like finding not just a needle in the haystack but a needle in a galaxy of haystacks. been taking medications revolution which allows us to transfer the data analysis anywhere, anytime to anyone. so, this knowledge exchange revolution, it's not a high-tech phenomenon. it affects every sector of a gun. it's how wal-mart became the largest retailer. how the largest manufacturing process in the country, boeing development of the tree line is

being done over there in the states and across the country before the final assembly in washington. it's not every construction project in high rises to houses, and it's essential to farmers on tractors. what's interesting is that all of this knowledge exchange now shares a common platform. it is that broadband ecosystem, the combination of network devices, applications, and above all people who know how to use that combination. so from management to rise to drucker's challenge to increase productivity throughout the economy, we need a broadband ecosystem to enable high-performance knowledge exchange. having this ecosystem does not assure its success. not having it guarantees failure. so my principle it -- my principle point today is the table stakes respond to the sputnik moment includes assuring a broadband ecosystem that facilitates high-performance knowledge exchange.

congress in the recovery act asked the fcc to develop a plan. and during that effort, certain things became very clear. number one is not just about networks. it is about the interaction noted above a network devices, applications, and above all people. number two, has to be ubiquitous so all can benefit and all are included in our economy and our society. number three, it has to be diverse, different things driving innovation from all its different parts. number four, it has to be constantly improving. improvements in each element to drive improvement in the others is a constant virtual feedback loop, better applications drive more usage driving upgrade networks driving more powerful devices capable of better applications and ever onwards. government is not the primary provider. but nonetheless it has an obligation to assure it will

strive and will not depress and put us in this ecosystem. and further an obligation to rethink out delivered essential service in light of new opportunities created by this ecosystem. so i'm just guessing but i'm pretty sure no one will find anything i just said either controversial or surprising. but what i have to to you today is that what i just said is deeply, deeply at odds with prevailing government policy. rather than what i just said, the most dominant idea in broadband policy is at the primary metrics by which our policy should serve is to maximize the speed of the wireline network to the most rural areas. this is a profoundly bad idea that is hurting america. it is the principally way we ask acted it is wrong almost in every respect. first of all there's no primary

metric. how would it profit us have high speed if our devices are slow, our applications useless and their users illiterate? consider how the iphone change the mobile ecosystem that led to an explosion of use of innovation and not coincidentally and accelerated network upgrade. contrast this with how boxes connected televisions, the fact only two companies produce more than 95% of the set top box is there something to do with the difference in innovations throughout the mobile world you have seen the last two years compared to the multi-talented video world. hopefully that's changing, but the key point is that telling measure is improvement throughout the system. not just a single metric which leads to a second problem. and knee-jerk focus on speed. speed is an input on what matters is the output. the data we looked at in the plan shows while we do need to increase speed in certain areas, the biggest untapped promise has much more to do with application, particularly the

new way of delivering education, health care public safety and job training and other critical public service, a third area to focus is primarily a wireline services. wireline is important to mobile wireless service is as a big important economic growth in the next decade may be more important. because wireless today is a horizon industry, and industry the point of how retail manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, health care, every segment of our economy can improve what they do. emerging developers in nanotechnology, location awareness applications and machine to machine communication will make wireless even more important. but because policymakers don't think of wireless as the essential underpinning of our economic future, we are slow to grasp the potential danger of lack of spectrum. in just a few years individual spectrums could lead to higher prices, worst service and will cost our economy billions and billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of jobs.

so there's an urgent need to act and a simple solution which has bipartisan support. allowing existing spectrum license holders to participate in an auction creating a new spectrum but if there is no action in part because some want to try solving this problem through shifting support, or support through rural america. and as to rural, it's important to connect all of it but rural should not be as effectively as the major focus our effort. the same with residential. a great example of the wrong way to think about the problem was a recent op-ed in the "des moines register" by the head of the iowa telecom association who attacked the reform proposed in the national broadband plan. it's extremely well-written, and i highly recommend reading it but it also happens to be wrong in almost every way. it attacked the plan of anti-rural when it got to plan his first effort to connect all of rural america. part of the problem today is a

rural route divide caused by our current system. we subsidize some small rural carriers to essentially provide a mercedes quality connection while providing other rural carriers nothing. effective counter such drivers to walk. the office solution is more government subsidies for his clients and nothing to solve the problem of unserved rural areas. but the worst part of the editorial was it sounds great. afternoon of the plan set a goal of at least 100 million american homes having access to networks capable of doing 100 megabits per second, he wrote quote it's hard to believe the fcc does not fit all iowans should have access to the same type of broadband speed your this sounds like a lovely democratic small d idea. but it ignores the fact that it's the market, not government that sets the speed most most americans receive it ignores that to provide the same spee-2 all rural residents would provide tax and all current subscribers about $30 a month

which would cost tens of millions to have to drop off a network which is hardly the result we want. but the most important thing is it ignores a robust concept improving broadband circle is essential to all the economic engines. we need to have some sectors have far higher speeds than they have today. for example, if our research institutions certainly a critical asset to respond to the sputnik moment are dreaming the best in the world, they need world leading conductivity, the same other medical centers and other institutions, public and private energy to our national competitiveness. so we need a broadband plan that serves the strategy of economic growth, not a bumper strip that serves embedded interest groups. another peter drucker insight is relevant here. the danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulent. it is the act of yesterday's logic. our policies today are based on yesterday's logic in yesterday's realities. we identified a number of critical in ecosystems such as we need more did you later see

time. we need gigabit conductivity to ever communicate but we don't spend any money on those things because instead we are spending billions of dollars on doing things such as subsidizing some carriers, $20,000 per line per home. are subsidizing a dozen competitors in some areas. another example of yesterday's logic is that we further subsidize rural phone companies through an outmoded set of intercarrier compensation rules that are so arcane and complicated it would probably take me 25 minutes to describe it, and i guarantee you he would obviously by the second minute. but there's two things to understand about that. first, the system that perpetuates drives business models based on regular arbitrage, not economic and disciples innovation. and second, perhaps most interesting, for over a decade there's been an intellectual consensus on how to fix it. and yet the system remains intact. we are also present to

yesterday's logic in how we use the network. our emergency alert system, on a platform most americans spend most of their time disconnected from, by the way, everybody is either watching, not in this room, connected to the radio or the television broadcast, no one is. how many of you have a cell phone in your pocket? just let the record reflect basically ugly but it was an emergency but how would you like to be informed about it? by television or radio or by cell phone. the answer answers itself. the question answers itself but the more interesting thing though is not only are they connected 24 sevenths doing it through smoky mutation feature you can adjust to what language you want to dig up what area you're actually in, you can get much more information in terms of interactivity come in terms of where you need to go and what you need to do. so we have an emergency alert system that is about yesterday's logic. our educational material we deliver through technology that

was delivered five centuries ago, textbooks, instead e-books which are easy to update, assess and provide students far more diverse and dynamic and best ways that work for the student are all at a cheaper price. while we apparently will endlessly debate health care reform, we almost never focus on the fact that in nearly every metric measure, the adoption of health care technology the united states ranks in the bottom half of comparable countries, even though such measures can save half a trillion dollars in 15 years. our job training program can our government jocund program force yourself into physical centers while private efforts show that job training as was job searching is more cheaply done over broadband networks. i could go on but the point is our public arena is still using the logic of the past, the era of low performance knowledge exchange. fortuity news is not all bad. in our efforts to respond to a properly and one of the best is

the one committee effort here in cleveland. that effort of courtney the implement of fiber networks to key institutions and improve the performance of some 1500 schools, hospitals, clinics, government and public safety entities serving over 1 million citizens. if it ever does not just about deploy faster networks, but also helping develop educational and health related applications, training people to use these tools here for example, is a one classroom initiative often or somehow thousand students with additional skills that they need to compete. before joint were unaware of this plan and we noted this effort several times. it was instrumental part of the background for two important recommendations. that congress presents the limit went in just ask them to ending the bandwidth needs of their communities. and a unified community anchor network, a proposal that was basically based on the cleveland one committee program to build other committees will do it. you know from this experience

that none of this alone solves our big problems. but no big problem can be solved without having this high-performance knowledge exchange platform. it is indeed a table stakes for economic growth and social justice in this next century. the bottom line is this. we are facing sputnik moment in energy and education and economic competition and many other areas. and many of the damages we had in 1957 have diminished. we can offer many words either rally our spirits in response to this reality. but unless we act, put in place a ubiquitous diverse costly improving broadband ecosystem, and less we as a nation start to act as you have done here in cleveland, the cries about the sputnik moment will be alone. let me quote by noting as seen from the 1981 movie, raiders of the lost ark, and perhaps some of you will remember it takes place in cairo come a huge men

dressed in black robes takes attitude toward and with great swagger and brandishing skills confronts indiana jones. doctor jo silva takes out a gun and shoot him. i think we should all be careful about the use of metaphors, medium i was about guns. but i didn't want to say that for the man in black with a sword, and his supporters, you might think of this as his sputnik moment. because he was confronted by something he was unaware of he didn't realize how the technology was advanced beyond us toward. and at the time of the movie's release, not long after the 440 day hostage crisis involving the american embassy in iran, a scene provide not-so-subtle and not so unconscious psychological comfort. that we still had a technology that would allow us to get out

of the seemingly impossible situation. so we should all welcome bipartisan recognition of the sputnik moment, but what i think about how we are actually responding to it, what i think about how our institutions responded to the calls for help, calls for action a bit in the national broadband plan, i fear that we are now reversed our roles. we are now more like the man with a sword. we still have swagger, but we are caught in the path and what about to be overcome by those who truly understand today's logic. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, but. today we're listening to a special program featuring blair levin, principal architect of the national broadband plan. we will return to the panel

discussion momentarily for our traditional city club questions. we encourage you to find a question for our speakers now, and remind you that your questions should be brief and to the point. we welcome all of you here, especially those who are guests. we hope you'll join the city club and become active in an ongoing civic dialogue. we are pleased to welcome guests at tables hosted by the design partnership, case western university, the cw are you information technology services, ibm corporation, one community, and connect your community. thank you for your support. and now we would like to return to our speakers for our traditional city club question and answer period. we welcome questions from everyone, including guests. holding the microphone to a city club program manager jerry miller year and marketing manager heather are now, our first question, please. >> actually and it's all right with you, dorothy, i'm going to

let our panel go first and then we'll open up the floor for questions. first, i'm the vice president of information technology at case western reserve. it's my pleasure to be a green this afternoon's panel discussion of distinguished colleagues and friends. two mighty neat left is scot rourke, the president of one community that you would reference and the talk blair just as. beside scot is bethany dentler, from the economic development corporation. and probably most of you in the know will know roy church, the president of lorain community college. when we heard that blair was good to be speak about tables speech about the conference center, i asked my colleagues to reflect in fairly short order one or two table stakes that are meaningful in the regional context. blair has the advantage of

seeing the entire nation and beyond, and all of that needs to come out any meaningful way in north east ohio. and we asked have a nice representation, a nice cross-section. such as kind of a table state conversation. scot to you, wanted to kind of passionate one or two key insights that allows to the transit from the national picture to the regional picture in terms of positioning our region with the 21st century. >> i think from my sputnik moment came when i was in korea. is a quick example, in korea which is the most digitally advanced community, i saw actually a classroom with one student, one teacher teaching in a small car reengineered in the sole. it's 600,000 kits online after dinner for free with no grade, just an opportunity to learn. they are governed as an example has 300 services online with no

computer. so from a table stakes perspective i'm most concerned about our inability to innovate, entrepreneurs develop new software is, for new technology services or so i think the public innovation and the private innovation, particularly in the technology market is really a terrific opportunity for us in northeast ohio to take a national leadership opportunity, but it certainly a national disadvantage. >> bethany? >> i guess you can sit on the case study in the room here. i've been working on building a fiber optic network for the past decade, and really it's all about the economic element and about jobs. that's why we are doing this. we've talked with companies again over the past decade and we're hearing today that broadband and acted access to broadband were born than ever to other companies to grow and get these kinds of employees that are going to be able to use those innovative technologies.

when we talk to companies and they say i can't skype and download data at the same time, you know we are in a new agent we need to be able to put the broadband in place to keep up with a. and to get ahead of it. >> again, bethany, a key as i understand, before we go to roy is it's really a prerequisite for economic velvet in the 21st century in regions such as yours. obviously, are trying to get ahead of the curve as you are facing regional, national and international. >> absolutely. just as roads and sewers and telephone calls were import in the industrial revolution, we need to have this broadband access to prepare the infrastructure for the next century and beyond. >> scot, as i under stood your first and second in order to provide basic services were those are public services through the government or education services, real table stakes are is leveraging the infrastructure. not unlike blair's insight on textbooks. went to understand how to leverage the broadband to deliver basics to both of

citizen services as was educated services. it sounds like a good segue to roy. what would you take to be some insight on table stakes for the national broadband plan as it relates to our region here in northeast ohio? >> i go back to scott's point about connections innovation. when you look at northeast ohio we have epitomizes that transformation from assembly line manufacturing to what's coming next. we have been very proud of the notion in the united states that we have been ahead of the curve in utilizing innovation to maintain our economic preeminence. the reality is that broadband services and this ecosystem are challenging that proposition. and we face the risk of falling behind in the most critical factor in economic success, innovation, in today's

environment because we haven't had this strength across the country. and i think that it really ties to the whole notion that we may not have resources enough to give everyone the level of broadband services that they would like, particularly your point about the rural america issue. but you're focused on getting the anchor institute -- anchor institutions to function more effectively to me can help us spot that gap. and enable that balance between divergent and convergent thinking in our economy to favor innovation in the united states in real and compelling ways. >> that's great. thanks, roy. before go to the audience i want to give blair a chance to chime in at the end of this first round to reflect on other talks of innovation, regional efforts that are underway. you are very kind and generous to cite some of the good work that's going on represented by

my colleagues here at the table and some of the institutional investments that have been made. help us understand how other regions of the country are responding to the national call for broadband adoption. >> well, i wish i could cite a bunch of other examples. there are certainly some communities that are doing some small things that part of the problem we have is that the nature of the innovation which is so critical to this, you need to have a certain kind of political matter. you need to have a certain number of people are actually have the speech about the application. that's what i think the right metric is it costs and improve. that's why the iphone was a perfect example. it was somewhat surprising, there was a better device that drove better applications and now need for better networks. it also drove lots of people how to learned who preceded know how to use it. so we need that, and the problem is that ,-comi think your point

about korea was very good because usually people think of korea and they go they have all the apartments and so. that's not that big of a problem for us. what is a problem for us in korea is educating their kids better. they have an initiative to get rid of all textbooks. that is the competition we face which is one reason it's surprising people, but in the plan we spent a lot of time focused on public sector applications that really drive us. unfortunately, that has to be done i think part at the federal level, only the federal government can really drive a nationwide emergency alert system, nationwide public safety network that i think the federal government, actually the move to e-books is being driven by a lot of individual school districts, particularly in the states that don't have state book -- state textbook adoption boards. but you don't see as many examples of regional activity. in part frankly because the

providers a pretty good job of getting a bunch of states a few years ago to stop local efforts, which meant much more difficult for local communities to do what you guys for chilling were able to do. >> thanks, blair. several of the of mention on to partnership under the first question from one of our local entrepreneurs, and if it's all right, we will start going to question. with several other preprepared conversation pieces, should they be a short wall. but with that. >> my name is mark. i noted from california after 21 years. if you have ever heard of flash. my question has to do with economic development. the idea of jobs being based upon companies is i think one of the mistakes we're making. jobs of the future will not necessarily be full-time jobs where i got a nice cushy existence, whether companies paying for my health plan. jobs of the future are

project-based. they are based on individuaindividual. in fact, you can sit with the best people are independent consultants are working on their own in a project-based flex and violent. the problem here is the economic development will not recognize that. they do not count these jobs. i was wondering when the economic development world will recognize that jobs are not being counted, we are not being tried for and which is completely missing when, in fact, that it's a growth area in the digital economy which of these people, that's a project that i do company was working on to create these jobs, part-time jobs. we plead, plead, recognize the fact that jobs of the future are not full-time jobs. that are project-based. how can we work for development people can help create those kinds of jobs which are not based at the company but our individual based?

>> got a. tell us what you really think, mark. [laughter] >> thanks for the. and maybe we can put, let both bethany and roy make a run at the. one is the aggregate kind of view of economic development. then certainly, roy, you lose every single day in your life. >> i agree with you actually. i think entrepreneurship is the key to economic development. and i think part of what we need to do as a community, you know come in the field of economic development start counting those jobs differently. and to look at wealth creation in the community as a metric for communities success as opposed to the number of companies and the number of new jobs that have been created. we're working on things that would help those are governors innovate. what we hear a lot from the companies that we do deal with is they are working with those part-time folks working from home, either here or in another state or across the country. they need have access to the broadband so that they can work with the developer out in

california who is sending materials back and forth at 3:00 in the morning. so we need another pipeline in place to be able to provide for the entrepreneurs who really are going to be starting the jobs of the future. >> there's never been a tighter connection between education and success in the economy down there is in this environment. therefore, i think as educators we've got a huge challenge in front of us to prepare people to develop skills that they can apply in a wide variety of settings in different ways at different times. we need to use the film industry model as the example of how work will be organized in a significant way in the future. and enable people to be comfortable in that setting, to be able to accept the ambiguity that that brings. but to have the skill set that can apply across the range of opportunities that are created by that model. and i think some of us are working very hard to try to do

that. embedding entrepreneurship and innovation in every curriculum and every way for every student. >> you -- on the question whether that we're solving problems of yesterday, sort of orientation. as marcus outlined, this really is one of those big fundamental questions for us all to work on. next question. >> the infrastructure question is wonderful. i'm a lawyer here in the den. i'd like -- i wonder if we can get some response specifically about education. there's been some historic under investment in education. perhaps technology is an opportunity to leapfrog that to give people the skills they need to be able to meet the digital economy that mr. cantor was outlining early. how do we specifically re-energize some of the education needs here in northeast ohio? >> roy, i'll let you sort of state what is underway.

perhaps light on this. >> i think warren buffett said never waste a good crisis. i think education is very much in a financial crisis. so it's a great time to explore ways to what the technology helps us address, how we redesign and reinvent what we are doing. we happened to be working in and innovation allies with university of akron, and one of the first projects that we've undertaken is to create a shared services model where we use the information systems and services in both institutions in creative new ways that drive down our costs. in the long-term for development. that's just one example. there are many others across the business. one of the things i would hope would happen through the onecommunity in tying all of us together more effectively with this broadband capacity is that we would be able to share services, technology-based services that would not only

higher education institutions, but with k-12 and with government and other anchors within our communities as well. that's how we're going to drive down the cost. >> do you want to take a run at kevin's question? >> i will build on the shared services model, and perhaps take the last couple of questions. i think the human factor is some of our big challenges here. you probably are ahead at least five years and probably accelerated that with the help of stimulus funds in this region on the supply-side. we're going to get some broadband after two strategic sites to help the education, with the public and private sectors sell. the next issue is the talent issue which is the technology talent on how to actually deploy it and make sure it is used and and particularly k-12 areas it's very challenging. at the statewide level come at a regional level, local level, very, very challenge. so i think the damage of the shared services, and you've heard of the cloud services,

taking some of the high very intense technical skills which is a weakness of the public sector, taking this out of the paradigm and finding centralized or even decentralize but mostly toast to come you plug it in an old technology works. i think is where our schools are good have to go especially k-12 but it could be to hire and their provide the services. it could be the private sector but i think the technology is the easy part now. i think it's the human factor getting people interested in it and getting the talent aligned to make the technology visible and just work is really the next key step that this region needs to focus its time and talented energy and investment in. >> before we go to the next question i will give you two other examples that come to mind. leveraging broadband. it is especially in the city of cleveland, a particular challenge. one is to acknowledge things like health or education are gone. music education is largely gone. as to how to address those?

one way to do is to leverage the broadband might actually collaborate with her health care provider, direct delivery of health care education directly to the classroom. for those kids who don't get health education, it's one way to leverage it by partnering. likewise, with music, our region is ready well known for. a great opportunity to take fabulous musician educators in one of these large we connected institutions like the cleveland institute of music for example, and be in an interactive way with kids around the region. those are a couple quick examples. next question. >> good afternoon. scot, you segue to my question around sort of the human capital component. we live in northeast ohio which is traditionally a blue-collar working class community. and i guess what i'm seeing having worked in this broadband

space is around a value proposition. so in other words, people who are underserved when we talk about the masses and trading critical masses, you said, blair. so what you spee-2 driving policy and advocacy comes from the masses being educated, becoming aware and the value proposition around having the application, the application, the service, the connectivity. so if you can try to speak to that because we touch on sort of the infrastructure, the policy and how, the human side of among the masses sort of dry policy so we can -- of course we have an election in 2012 coming up so that's all coming up. >> let me just take that and toss this to blair to reflect on one of the things taught is getting to is even though you don't consider yourself a technologist, the people who read the plan think you are a chief technologist. my children do not. [laughter] >> they are all much better at this than i am. >> the question i took was, how

do we change what seems like impenetrable deep thinking around infrastructure entities enter into compelling stories into things that are meaningful to regular folks, that they're both understanding the opportunities, the adoption curve. let me tell that to you and perhaps then i will also ask bethany. >> i want to answer with two different groups in my. one is a group that is real important, not doctor. it's about 100 million americans who do not have broadband in homes. some of the people don't want it and that's fine. when you have a situation where 80% of kids identify the internet as -- k-12 kids, middle school and high school kids identify the internet as the primary way to do the homework, despite weakness in the does have in the home. you've got a big problem. they are following -- falling

further behind. to be digitally literate, saying in this economy is being literate. it's a skill set that we have to. here's my point. we spend billions every year connecting bill gates' second home, which is somewhat of a crime in my view. i like bill. is a nice guy but i don't think he needs the help. we spend almost nothing at the national level on digital literacy. we have to shift our priority. phone, pretty simple. hit some buttons, .info. universal service with broadband, you have to learn how to use a mouse, you have to know how to search, different skill sets we have to do that. the second point is how do we sell the whole thing? and i have to say publicly, i'm very, very proud of the work that the team did in creating the plan.

i have debated it all of the country and i think it holds up very well. i think the problem with our single chris air that i've been able to discern so far, is and we did not celebrate. i think it's exactly the thing. i think it goes not to the network and not to the speeds and not to all of that. it's how do people use it. that's what we've got to focus on, and i think the government really has to transform the way it thinks about how it delivers something. and this goes to the textbook example is one that i started using after the point. i wished we used it more earlier on because every group that i have focus, if i say to you, you know, wouldn't it be great if what your kids do with homework with an e-book, you know whether your kid do that homework that night. more importantly perhaps, they teach in those other 30 kids in the third grade, third period math, how many kids do the

homework? what problems have a problem with, what problems did not have a problem with? it helps them get better the next day but it also helps the pair. everywhere i've gone, and i talk about that, parents are very grateful for that possibility. so i i think we have have concrete examples, that really good people a sense of power of the opportunity. and we haven't done as much about that. >> on the storytelling peace of the challenge. >> i come back to what i call relevant to the digital divide, the primary reason for the digital divide by the is people don't know that they can benefit from it or why they should participate. the same audience often has a low-income household, is looking for a job quite often, and yet we just eclipsed the point where most of the jobs are available online only. so in cleveland, more than 50% of the community does not have internet in the home. most of the jobs are only available online to apply online. >> that's just one illustrative

example. so we're working on the connector community team over there which is actually some great talent, multiple stage. we are all participate in a. we're treading through the thousand households on how to use the internet and improve health, education and use government services. so we are tackling this challenge but the relevance is the key for us to get our folks to counter classes and get free training and computer support. but it comes down to relevance. why is this relevant to me. it's even in about even in the enterprise market, there's rural hospitals are not missing the fact that they don't have broadband and are doing robotic surgery and are not sharing electronic medical records and sing everybody in helicopters to the big turbans would have specialist. so it's a big problem and i guess my favorite henry ford quote was if i asked the customers what they want, if they want a faster horse, so we're in this awkward moment when the technology is kind of a

ride. they don't know what they want, with a missing disruptive technology. so i don't know that there's an answer yet. what we do is buy some anecdotal stuff, get some testimonials, our daemon is actually really just proving the naysayers, but so what guys. that's what we live and how do we combat the so what and prove that this vote and people adapt it. >> just look at that point. this connects your community initiative was paid for with stimulus dollars. we know there are no more stimulus dollars. and there are not investment plans. and i would suggest that this may be one of the best ways to create the educational connection to the folks who most need it. i know our experience is one part of that, our first group, 210 people it through this training program. five weeks later 181 of them showed up to get their certificate, and to get their

refurbished computer and to understand what the next steps were. i would take that retention rates in any one of our educational programs, and it says to me that the interest is there. if we had a little steam is funds to provide a connection to those folks that are least able to afford to connect to the broadband service. >> another question over here. >> henry butler. it's good to be here this afternoon. you're paying a particular attention to k-12. i can appreciate that, but there's another segment of the population if you could speak to that i would appreciate it. pardon my voice. that's the senior population. you talk to the baby boomers who are going to have a this community, said in a people are going to be 65 and older in the next 30 years. and i think that this is an opportunity to connect them to have a series of urgency to this. it could provide an educational and a conductivity opportunity

bashing at my -- i apologize. a conductivity opportunity with that k-12, and civilization historically respected, the elder. and i think that today that's not as necessary to as it could be anything it's an opportunity to do that. >> i want to share, see if i can get perhaps blair to start a conversation. this morning were able to share some of the work that is going on the connection so which is a very older than project, collaboration between the university and onecommunity. while we type in the students in tucson who engage in an intergenerational school project. peter white house within tucson and will share with us the goal of thinking the generation come and little did he use broadband as an opportunity only for the grandfather to actually keep in touch with grandson halfway around the country, around the

world there but also to actually engage in learning. one of blair's key point is develop a platform to support constant feedback loops. i thought that was pretty interesting example of something in our communities. perhaps blair you would like to speak to the senior issue and then perhaps i don't know if bethany if you'd also like to cover what that means in your neighborhood as well. >> first of all thank you for the question. we look at a bunch of different demographic groups. one of the interesting things about adoption is it's not one problem. is a series of different problems. be it has been a committee where english is not the first language as one problem, letters is a problem. seniors are definitely an issue though that is self-correcting. is the fastest growing group, and i don't know this for certain but i'm pretty sure it's because seniors want to see pictures of the grandkids on facebook. we are really killing the crew of facebook.

[laughter] that so many grandmothers are now getting on it. so that's an issue. i think that if they miss opportunities for all kinds of innovation, and it would be great if innovation -- let me mention one phrase that you have never heard of called ambient assisted living. this is one of the largest users of the internet. i can't believe, something called up the camps. this is a video of your puppy that you can watch while at work and just making sure your puppy is okay. more bandwidth is devoted to puppy cams and espn. i cannot believe that. a true factor anyway, but here's the point. the puppy cam is a nice thing but it is not a necessary thing for society. ambient assisted living which was going to be desperately needing as we have this aging population is going to be really

critical to health care. and it is going to be -- people are not really going to wander out of their homes and this is a way to keep it out of their homes as opposed to moving them -- another way of assisted living, a very much mixed blessing. so i think that's common is a huge economic opportunity for our country. this is a frustrating part of the plan for me is that we have the best technology. with the best medical expertise and we have the best ability in the world to make things easy. las..

so i think it is critical that in addition to the hardware we will put in the training please send a place. >> the only thing before you go to our next question come another piece to add here that in addition to creating applications where seniors can keep in touch, the connect part of it, there is an enormous amount of innovation opportunity for actually creating a kind of smart home environment that provides for sensors, for both continuous monitoring as well as even intervention worked to keep people at home longer, rather than to engage in much more expensive clinical base care and again that is some of of the

innovation and experimentation that we are working on with some of the faculties of school of medicine. talk about entrepreneurship. yet another entrepreneur in our our -- these introduce yourself. >> the conversation relative to training, teaching people how to use the mouse and the digital life we all know is a valuable mode to our society, getting on the grid and improving our innovation, but you know, and i know we talked about this a lot when cleveland was starting to be founded it is all about the application so it's up to hear the conversation about the conversation. we are at one of the sputnik moment now that i don't think is being glossed over more than it should be and where you did mention it, that today's computing environment rests in my hands. it is not plugged into a wall, so when we talk about connectivity, and we know we can can't afford to put broadband into every home. we do a little bit on hesperus

st. but the capital required to put it into every home and to get activity -- access to that kind of broadband and time warner is not interested in me having a. they are just didn't make using less of it because they are capital constrained. so the question is from a policy perspective on the public side as well as you know efforts, you know from our community's perspective on where we are putting the dollars how are we migrating to a broadband wireless policy? where's the wimax? where is the television spectrum that mr. furnas has access to that five years ago should have been diverted toward the wireless medium instead of a plug-in medium? >> a perfect collection for blair because we have been chatting about that all morning and i will let you take a bite bite out of. >> the first thing it is interesting to me and it is interesting to come back for second run at the fcc. very quickly because i know our time is running out. probably the single most important thing we did when i was at the fcc the first time was time-limited digital television transition. we all just got new tvs and digital and high-definition but

we also got this huge spectrum benefit of recapturing spectrum. we didn't know at the time that the purpose of that was 4g, fourth-generation wireless. that is what you are all going to be using in two or three years and it will be much better it back in 1996 when they did that. >> a look inside the white house briefing room where we go or a briefing with press secretary jay carney. >> is this your first appearance? >> okay. for so i want to apologize. i noticed a late briefing and a delay briefing, but they're a couple of reasons for that. it do so they sleep in a busy day. a lot going on in the middle east had a lot going on at the white house and i wanted to hold the briefing so that i could gather as much information as i could. and be in a situation to give you as much information as i could. at this briefing which i am now and, so i have a few things i

want to tell you about libya, before a take your questions. the state department has extended the operations in libya all embassy employees from aaa. it very with approximately 200 u.s. citizens left this morning. a charter plane recently took off for istanbul turkey with remaining embassy personnel and american citizens who had requested evacuation. further to what i started with, that obviously was very reasoned and one of the reasons why i wanted to delay the briefing was to make sure that plane had taken off. consistent with the presence tasking with the government to prepare options to hold the libyan government accountable for its violation of human rights, we have decided to move forward with unilateral sanctions, which we are in the process of finalizing. coordinated sanctions with our european allies and multilateral efforts to hold the libyan government accountable through the united nations. the president spoke today with prime minister heir to one of

turkey to coordinate our efforts to respond to the developments in libya and assure appropriate accountability. in his call with press the president and his separate calls with president sarkozy of france, prime minister rather cameron of the united kingdom and prime minister earl estonia to italy yesterday. the president explain the's plan the unilateral measures of the united states in implementing and noted his desire to coronate on measures that our allies are considering. he will continue these consultations to build consensus for strong measures in the days to come. earlier today the financial crimes enforcement network issued an advisory to take reasonable risk-based steps to the potential increased movement of assets that may be related to the situation in libya. during this period of uncertainty, fincen is reminding u.s. financial institutions of their requirement to apply enhanced

scrutiny for private banking accounts held by or on behalf of senior foreign political figures and to monitor transactions that could potentially represent misappropriated or diverted state assets, proceed to bribery or other illegal payments or other public corruption proceeds. additionally, the united states has suspended the very limited military cooperation it has with libya. the u.s. military began to cautiously reengage with libya as you know in 2009 following libya's decision to hault its weapons of mass destruction program and compensate victims of terrorism. prior to the recent unrest, prior to the recent unrest sales of military parts are pending. they have been frozen. bilateral military events that were in the planning phases have also been frozen. the united nations human rights council held an emergency session today in geneva were adopted by consensus a resolution that condemns the

gross and systematic human rights abuses now being committed by the government of libya, establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate these abuses, and recommended accountable -- accountability measures for those responsible and also recommended the u.n. general assembly suspend libya's membership on the council. the united states strongly supports these efforts and is already closely working with our international partners to carry out this suspension which will be acted on by the general assembly early next week. in addition as the president announced earlier this week secretary clinton will travel to geneva on monday to speak at the human rights council to discuss with their international counterparts further measures on libya as well as offense in the broader middle east. on monday the president will meet with u.n. security, u.n. secretary-general ban ki-moon in washington and will discuss the galactic legal and other actions needed to put a stop to violence against civilians in libya. he will also discuss the range

of activities the u.n. agencies and the international community can undertake to address the significant humanitarian needs created by this crisis. the united states is involved in ongoing negotiations today at the u.n., the u.n. security council on a resolution that could include a weapons embargo individual sanctions against key libyan officials and an asset freeze. finally, the united states is utilizing the full extent of its intelligence capabilities to monitor the qaddafi regime's actions and we are particularly vigilant or evidence of further violence or atrocities committed against the libyan people. with that i would like to take your questions. >> thanks jay. obviously a lot there. let me go back to the top you said you lateral and multilateral sanctions. can you describe a bit more what are we talking about here? >> ben we are finalizing the sanctions that we will pursue.

rather than enumerate them, i can tell you that they will be finalized in and you will know specifically what we are going to do. i think the universe effect of sanctionis pretty well-known. the kinds of things we are considering, so you know a lot of that has been discussed but i don't want to specify which ones now because we are still finalizing those and we will get them to use and. >> finalizing today or in the coming days? >> in the near future. >> can you explain what gives the united states confidence the sanctions work against someone like qaddafi and his regime? >> we are initiating a series of steps at the unilateral level and the multilateral level to pressure the regime in libya to stop killing its own people. this is a first step, and obviously we continue to review our options going forward and

the steps that we take in the near future are not the only steps we are prepared to take if other steps are necessary. speak about the today or in the last few hours was calling on his followers to continue fighting the protesters, the militias that were loyal to him were still gunning down protesters. so i guess i'm wondering, how is it that sanctions you see will directly affect that kind of inciting of the people to continue to kill? >> sanctions, targeted sanctions that affect the senior political leadership of a regime like libya have been shown to have an effect. we are also as a mentioned, pursuing actions that will ensure that the perpetrators of violations of human rights are held accountable and there is

certainly a history of those kinds of perpetrators being held accountable in the international community. and again, we will take these substantial actions and leave other potential actions on the table and evaluate as we go. >> at the top you mentioned the u.s. embassy in tripoli. has it been evacuated? >> it has been shuttered. >> okay. the sanctions is pretty weak. what other steps could you be taken how quickly could become or what the steps have to wait for the geneva -- [inaudible] >> let me just say that there is never been a time when this much has been done this quickly.

the united states has acted in concert with our international partners and with great liberation and haste. i know that in the past few days sometimes it has been frustrating when you have been able to question american officials about what we are doing. and maybe haven't gotten all the answers you want. i discussed this with the president just a few hours ago, or an hour ago. the focus that he has his on our obligation to the security of american citizens and also getting the policy right and i can assure you that has been -- this those have been the guiding principles that we have proceeded with over the course of the last week. >> there've been reports that gadhafi is taking control of some parts of tripoli. what is your sense that -- and you believe qaddafi is getting control of the capital?

>> well, i don't want to be in a position of getting a play-by-play commentary on a very dramatic event happening quite a long way away that we are all watching on television. what i can say is it is clear that colonel qaddafi has lost the confidence of his people. he is overseeing the brutal treatment of his people, the fatal violence against his own people and his legitimacy has been reduced to zero in the eyes of his people. so, that is what i will say about him. >> does the president agree with french president sarkozy that gadhafi must leave? >> we have always said that is a matter for the people of libya to decide.

i would repeat what i just said, and because it is a matter for the people of libya to decide it is also clear that the people of libya have expressed that his continued use of deadly violencs of human rights are totally unacceptable. anywhere in the world. and the status quo is simply not neither tenable nor acceptable. the libyan people deserve a government now that protects the safety of its citizens, is responsive to their aspirations and is broadly representative. yes, jay. >> colonel qaddafi does not seem all that tethered to reality right now. he has been -- experts on

qaddafi say he actually believes that the protesters in the streets are -- have been given hallucinogens. how does the united states deal with -- this is the heir typical dictator losing power. this is a man who by many accounts seems to be legitimately unstable and perhaps willing to burn the house down with him. how does that affect the policies that you go forward with? >> well, jake, we make our policy decisions based on key principles, as you note that i've enunciated in the president has enunciated and others and we evaluate circumstances in this case libya. it is not about personalities. it is about the expression of, the peaceful expression of the

dissatisfaction of the people of libya with their leadership and we support them in their aspirations, but the actions we are taking i think in many ways to answer your question, we are acting unilaterally in multilaterally in a way that we believe needs to be done to put pressure on the regime to cease this a retrospective of the. >> i understand the decisions about the future of the government -- at what is the endgame here? how d.c. the sending? in the best case scenario? 's be the best case scenario for any state in the region of the world is a government that treats its people well, that is responsive to the aspirations of

its people, that includes its people in the political process and a democratic way. and that is a peaceful responsible neighbor in its region of the world and in the international community. >> how about in this action? >> i'm not going to plan out or predict for you the day by day progression towards that goal which is i believe the goal that the libyan people hold. as do we. this is obviously still a very, a very fluid and dangerous situation in libya and a very fluid situation in the region. but the goal is very clear. >> you mentioned that the american intelligence was going to be working on it. can you elaborate at all on that? >> no i can elaborate but what i can say is that the united states is committed to utilizing the full extent of its

capabilities to monitor the qaddafi regime's behavior to ensure that evidence is gathered of further violence or atrocities against, committed against the libyan people. >> now i know that the administration and the president particular has been hesitant to mentioned gadhafi's name. there are a lot of concerns about americans on the ground potentially being held hostage that now it appears most of americans who wanted to get out have got now gotten out in weeks and -- expects stronger language now from the presidents perhaps calling them out by name? >> i don't want to put words in the president's mouth for the next time he speaks but you have heard me use pretty strong language against colonel qaddafi. >> i asked about the president himself.

>> i express it when i came out here that there has been a clear reason for the way we have handled ourselves this week. the airplane that carried american citizens, the remaining american citizens we want to get evacuated from libya was wheeled up less than an hour ago. so i would just say that your analysis of the situation is fairly accurate, and it has been all of the half an hour or so since the american citizens were in-flight towards istanbul. >> so much has been on the radio about the leader who is really unpredictable in terms of what he is going to do. it is there really this uncertainty? you can do all that you have just talked about, the sanctiond so forth but again, this is in egypt. this isn't any other dictator

that the u.s. has been dealing with. is it really just -- here? >> i have said and others that have said that each situation that we have encountered in the region in the past number of weeks have been different, and libya is fairly distinct and a number of ways. what we can do, guided by the principles we have discussed, is pursue a policy that protects the american citizens, reflects our fundamental belief that the people of libya deserve a government that treats them well and doesn't kill them and discriminately, that is responsive to their needs and reflects their aspirations and allows them to participate in a

democratic trust us. we can also take action some of which i have discussed from here and the specifics, we will get to some of the specifics of which you will hear later that we believe can put more pressure on the libyan regime and hold it accountable, can isolate it, in order to get it to change its behavior. >> jay, do we expect to hear from the president at some point? >> i don't have any announcements about the next time the president will address those. >> what in fact is he doing? is he going to be making more calls? what is his role in the coming days? >> well, i -- i think i read out to you a series of calls to foreign leader specifically on this issue that he has made. i'm sure there will be more going forward.

he is obviously constantly being briefed by his national security team, tom donnell and the national security adviser. there is a principle committee meeting that lasted two hours or so in the situation room earlier today that ended not that long ago. again one of the reasons why i wanted to wait to -- for that to end before i came out here. so, his participation is robust. >> not only to feel the effect that also -- what is the timeline here for these sanctions to actually go into effect? >> the mechanics of the sanctions which actually haven't been finalized, i will leave to others to describe once they have been finalized, but understand that as we review the options available to us, we had a great interest in pursuing

those that could be implemented quickly and again without putting specific timelines on implementation some of the things we are considering doing are the things that we can move most quickly on. >> very quickly and i know you can't get into a specific timeline but are we talking days or are we talking weeks? >> again there a range of things we are able to do, specifics you'll be hearing about in the near future and there are timelines about in terms of how things are implemented that i can't characterize. >> when you save near future, do you mean next week sometime? >> center than that, chip. >> over the weekend? [laughter] can i ask you one last question? [inaudible] how about before friday friday at 8:30? >> when there were discussions going on back there about being careful to say things while there were still americans who wanted to get out on the ground,

were there discussions up fears of what happened 30 years ago in iran where their specific discussions about the iranian hostage crisis and things? >> not that i'm aware of it at all, chip. there aren't historical references that i'm aware of. i want to be clear about this, that the president, in order to focus on his priorities at getting the policy right, protecting american citizens, the obligation that we all have here and that he has is certainly willing to take a few days of consternation in the press in order to get it right, and i'm not saying that -- this is still a fluid situation. obviously the situation in libya remains dangerous and unresolved, as it does -- the

situation in the whole region remains unresolved in different ways, but you know, all i would say is i would encourage everyone to remember as these events unfold and we deal with them, that the goals we have our peaceful reactions to peaceful demonstrations. respect for the universal rights of the people of these countries where there are demonstrations and their aspirations. and perform. responsiveness from the governments that will lead to greater stability and greater prosperity we believe, and that is in the end very good for the people in the region, for the peoples of these countries and very good for the united states of america.

and that is what we are focused on. that is what the president is focused on. >> does the u.s. have any contact with members of the libyan opposition? >> i am not aware of the discussions that we may be having with different folks and libya. >> earlier this week t.j. crowley stated that we had tried for a couple of days to get this this -- before the weather stuck at there for a while and it was unclear whether we have been unable to get it in because of chaos or whether the libyan government actually opposed or frustrated our thames to get it in. have we determined yet what the hold up was? >> the window, on the operation that was designed to evacuate american citizens and embassy personnel, i would refer you to the state department. i can say that the very

important thing is that that's that very did depart and as did the airplane that left a little later, not long ago. >> other countries were able to evacuate citizens earlier and i wondered whether this libyans actually frustrated our thames? >> i would refer you to the state department on that operation. >> on another matter, will the president in light of his 2007 comments of walking the picket line. >> what i said wendell yesterday holds true today which the president has a variety of ways to communicate his views on various matters including the rights of the america's working men and women and i would just say whatever shoe he is wearing he is always standing with

america's working men and women and america's middle-class. >> and on union rights, the public sector unions and private sector unions have different rights and responsibilities? >> i'm not sure what you are asking exactly. >> i'm asking because private sector unions ultimately are competing with, if you will, not competing with but negotiating with board members and the public sector unions are ultimately negotiating with the taxpayers. do they have different responsibilities and rights? >> what we have said and what the president has said is that with regard to what is happening in the states now, as the states address their fiscal situations, everybody needs to tighten their belts. everybody needs to sacrifice, and work together to bring state

budgets into balance, to bring stability to the fiscal situations in the state, but just we need to work together at the federal level. and that is our position. >> jake, first anything the congress has to pass on the sanctions? has he figured that out yet? >> not that i'm aware of. i believe that is true, but if it is not we will get back to you. [inaudible] not. >> second, given that the issue of american citizens being in libya sort of ties the hands of what you could say today versus what you said yesterday, and all of these things. have you learned some lessons from this? are you dealing differently in places like bahrain and yemen and jordan?

have any warnings been given here is -- we waited until february 20 was the first time even the suggestion was made for american citizens to start thinking about getting out. >> chuck what i would say again is that every country is different, as i've said before in the situations that we have seen in the countries where there have been unrest have been different. and we are always evaluating the actions we take, and if you will, doing after action analyses of the actions we take, but this is obviously ongoing. what i would say is that one of the lessons we have taken from this is that we need to focus on our core priorities, none of the understandable desire at different points along the way

to express how we feel in a way that could sometimes be counterproductive to our long-term bulls -- met goals in the policies we need to pursue. to the safety and american citizens. >> is a rare preview going on right now? >> not that i'm aware of right now. >> there is a situation where basically you guys couldn't announce these things today and tell you that airplane was --. >> again there are a variety of reasons why things are gone forward the way they have. i would also remind you of what i said before, that this has been a very rapid effort to work with our international partners to analyze and select the options that we want to take, and i know we live in a world where a great deal is happening all at once, and where much of

it is being with us live on to live on television and that creates an understandable demand for urgency but i can say again, if you look at the history of how these things are handled, there has been a great case in moving to the point where we are today. >> and going to the intelligence assets that you were saying and i know this is the -- eon cia so every part of the american intelligence community whether it is the defense, the air force intelligence and defense department, not just -- can you elaborate on what parts of the intelligence? >> the full extend. >> the full extent. is that observational? >> that is all i'm going to say about it. the point is we intend to participate with our international partners in an effort to hold accountable those who have committed atrocities

and human rights abuses. >> can i have a follow-up? >> how are you? >> i am fine, how are you jay? just the -- at either nature takes a long whether they are multilateral or bilateral. what sort of steps are you taking right now in the embassy that could influence colonel qaddafi? are their messages that we are relating to him? >> well, again, i think without getting ahead of these specifics, the announcement of the specific sanctions in the things that we are pursuing, timewise are different depending on the actions that are being taken. in terms of communicating to the regime, think that the expression of what we are doing, both as one country and collectively with our international partners is very clear and loud.

we are talking about the isolation of this regime and the isolating of this regime and the taking of measures to put as we hope, pressure on at the needs to be put to get it to stop behaving the way it has been behaving, which is delegitimized in the eyes of the libyan people in the world. so i think that message is i think being delivered and hurt. scott urgo. >> just to follow up, is the intention of the sanctions to punish this government for what it has already done or two helped push it from power? >> the intent of the sanctions, actually the answer is neither. the intent of the sanctions is to make it clear that the regime has to stop its abuses.

it has to stop the bloodshed. the determination about who should govern libya has to be made and will be made by the libyan people. as i have made clear from here, it is clear to us, and we believe to libyan people into the world at large that the qaddafi regime, colonel qaddafi himself has lost the confidence of his people, and it is for them to decide who should lead. >> it sounds like they have decided, right? the legitimacy of qaddafi's government is zero in their eyes. given that they are facing a well armed government with little conscience, isn't there more that the united states can do to support this aspiration? >> against god, i think i made clear that the actions we will be taking, we have taken already and we will take in the near

future, are not the endpoint for us. we will be constantly reviewing the options that we have that are available to us, and certainly leave open the possibility of taking further action as necessary. >> jay i was wondering just to clarify, do we know that all americans are now out? are there any left that you know of? >> i would refer you to the state department on that. i don't want to say with any sort of certitude something i don't have a specific answer for. i know that we spent a great deal of time ensuring that american personnel and americans who wanted to be evacuated were evacuated. >> you mentioned the situation a few hours ago. is there any contemplation that a u.s. military role let some

point. >> i think i would refer you to what i said which is we are not, the actions we are we are taking which i elaborated on in my reading time at the beginning of this briefing are pretty detailed and those are the things we are going to be doing in the near term but we are not removing options off the table at this point. >> has there have been an evolution in this administration's foreign-policy foreign-policy -- favoring meeting aspirations of human rights? from a book bucket book at what the president said at the u.n. last fall and what secretary of state clinton said at doha, regimes have -- has there have been a pro-democratic shift in the president's policy? >> peter, i would point to this piece of president made in cairy

about his view on the universal rights of the people of the world including the peoples in that region and the need for the countries in that region to listen to the aspirations of their people and to act accordingly in terms of ringing reforms about precisely because stability is important. not precisely because, but because the aspirations of people need to be heard and listened to and respected, but these are not conflicting goals. and, so i think there has been great consistently in his view. one thing we have made clear that he has made clear is that these movements that we have seen have been true grassroots movements where the voices of the people of these countries have been heard, and it is

important that be seen to be the case for their success, because it is important that the people of the country on the process, and that is one of the goals we have as we negotiate and navigate our way through these very historic times that we are in. let me get somebody that i haven't yet. no, i am sorry. >> given a isolation the isolation whether the regime -- would care about any measures whether or take weeks or even days because many people don't expect the qaddafi regime -- so any behavior will direct his behavior because it is a matter of life or death for him. >> again, i'm not going to speak

for what, how they predict how the regime will behave. i know that we are taking the kinds of actions that we can both unilaterally and with their our international partners to influence his behavior, the regime's behavior to isolate the regime and to hold it accountable. >> thank you jay. there was a statement applauding the algerians for lifting the emergency -- what does the president say to the leaders? is he trying to salvage their power or get their act together because they will be next? >> the president's message in these conversations, and the message that has been carried by other american officials and conversations, similar ones, has been the same and it goes back to the principles we have enunciated which is, reform is

necessary. responsiveness to the aspirations of the people is necessary, and so when steps are taken that are in that direction, we have acknowledged that as positive. but it is not in any case about picking the leaders are deciding who should be in power. that is up to the people in the region and of the country's. >> one more on -- you said you have got information and evidence about crimes against humanity and libya. with the united states support a proposal asking for human indictments against libyan officials for crimes against humanity? >> i think -- let me find it here. i mentioned at the top, we have a syringes and holding

accountable those who perpetrated human rights violations and atrocities and libya and -- sorry. i wanted to make sure i have the right name for this process. in any case, i am lost in paper here but the answer is without giving specifics about the procedures, the steps we are taking, the steps we support are clearly designed to work with the international community to make sure there is accountability. yes, i am sorry. >> you have made it clear that you don't believe it is appropriate for the u.s. government to dictate the outcome and to actually call for moammar qaddafi's removal from

office but let's say somehow he is able to hold on and the protesters stay. if you somebody the government could think about doing business with in the future? would you be willing to normalize relationships? >> mike, i want to make sure you heard what i said. it is very clear that colonel qaddafi has lost the confidence of the libyan people and we have always said it is up to the libyan people to decide who their leader should the. his continued use of deadly violence against his own people and clear violation of human rights are totally unacceptable anywhere in the world. the status quo is neither chemical -- tenable nor acceptable. and the libyan people deserve a government now that protects their safety, is responsive to their aspirations and broadly representative. again it is not about personalities for us. it is about principles ended and it is about respecting the

desires and aspirations of the people of libya and of the other countries that have been affected by this unrest. yes, i am sorry, with the glasses. >> thank you jay. the president's determination earlier in the week that classifications lead to heightened scrutiny led him to determine that -- was unconstitutional. in that letter that attorney general sent to speaker boehner, he said that pursuant to the president's instructions this would be applied in other cases which yesterday was applied to two cases in the second circuit. my question is, did the president give any instructions to the justice department regarding his view of the constitutionality of the status of "don't ask don't tell," the appeal of which in log cabin republicans is due today?

>> as you mentioned the appeal is due today. it on half a way for that final brief. >> but did the president give any instruction? >> not that i'm aware of. as you know, we are very supportive of and glad that the congress repeal "don't ask don't tell," and we are monitoring and glad that the process is proceeding smoothly and efficiently, the process of repeal but on the brief and the president's instructions i don't have anything for you. >> you had said regarding the doma brief that the president set the deadline had forced the administration's hand. has the administration in in any way reacted to today's deadline? >> well i think as you said the department of justice is going to file a final brief, and you know, we will see what that says

but we expect a brief the brief to say the following, number one rear draping that the court should not decide the case of the constitutional question due to the pending of repeal, which should be effective in a matter of months. as i said the repeal is proceeding smoothly and efficiently. our goal was to have her repeal. has been repealed and that process of the repeal is now proceeding efficiently and smoothly which is a good thing. >> president has not set --. >> not that i know of, no. yes, maam. >> victoria. there are violent demonstrations in iraq. how is the u.s. government coordination with the iraqi government to respond to those demonstrations and what is the level of concern if these demonstrations are ongoing but that could affect u.s. troop levels?

>> the approach we have taken with regard to iraq is the same that we have taken with regard to the region which is that the governments in the region need to be responsive and listen to the voices of their people. and to respond to demonstrations in a peaceful manner. we remain very much on track, as regard to our policy in drawing down our forces. and certainly i see no reason with regard to your question for that policy to be in any way affected. >> is there anyway and the response to the demonstrations? >> in what way? we obviously have an embassy there that works with and consults with the government and we have military presence there that now serves and an assist posture, and advise-and-assist posture, but there is nothing exceptional that i am aware of.

>> prior to the -- on close sanctions did the administration reach out to regions like jordan before that? [inaudible] >> i don't have anything for you on conversations like that. i think we have read out the president's calls, but yes. >> to follow-up on follow up on my own question. the president spoke with allies and the prime minister and berlusconi. was there any discussion of a unified collateral approach to these emerging governments that are coming out week by week in terms of an overall aspect? >> emerging governments? >> well, egypt and bahrain. in terms of how they would approach these new entities

basically? >> not that i know of in that regard. the discussion has been focused on -- creditably, yes, the phonecalls that i mentioned at the top have been focused on. >> the british sent a warship to cumberland to help with the evacuation of citizens from libya. the united states has a very -- kearsarge and the red sea. is there any thought right now and moving u.s. naval assets to the coast of libya and if not, why not, to show the flag in that way? >> i would refer you to the defense department for how we deployed our forces and i think when you talk about this -- when you talk about the british ship, i believe you said to evacuate

his people, we have evacuated americans and i am not sure what the question is getting at. >> the question is why has the united states not used military assets to show the flag and to show possible support for the rebellion in libya? >> jonathan, i would just point to the steps we are we are taking into the fact that we are not taking any options off the table in the future and i will leave it at that. >> the united states, does the united states called the north american council meeting? >> i don't know. thank you, guys. >> on the cr. >> i will take one question. >> republicans in the house and house and democrats in the

senate said it would be two to four weeks which include cuts to the president proposed for his fy2011 budget. would he accept either of those cr's. the shortfall would be about $4 billion in cuts. >> we are glad that the leaders of congress are working on this issue. we have said that the process is on capitol hill, the house needs to pass something in the senate needs to pass something. we continue to believe that all of us agree that a government shutdown would be bad for the economy. it would create a great deal of uncertainty and potential instability and might have a negative impact on the economy as well as specific impacts that wouldn't be good and we believe compromise can be reached but i'm not going to speculate on a position, what position we may

or may not hold down the road. i am not again, i'm not going to comment on specific proposals that are i.d. is that are being thrown out there. we will let the process -- i am not going to comment on concepts either. thank you very much. do you want me to read the week ahead? i can or we can e-mail it, but for the sake of everyone, we will do this quickly if i can find it. yes, okay the week ahead. on sunday the president first lady will love them the national governors association to the white house for the 2011 governors dinner. the vice president dr. biden will also attend. the evening will feature performances by the marine corps band and basic legend gladys knight. on monday the president the vice

president -- [laughter] [inaudible] i will ask about the pips. on monday the president vice president will host a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors at the white house. the first lady and dr. biden will also speak at this meeting. later on monday the president will meet with the u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon at the white house and we'll discuss the humanitarian diplomatic legal and other actions needed to put a stop to violence against civilians and to ensure that u.n. agencies and u.n. members mobilized to provide humanitarian assistance to libya's people. this is the nga. >> do we know which countries are participating? >> we will have to see if we can get that. i don't know we have that. on tuesday the president will attend meetings at the white

house. on wednesday the president will award the 2010 national medal of arts and national humanities in a ceremony at the white house. the first lady will also attend. on thursday the president will meet with his national security team for his monthly meeting on afghanistan and pakistan are collated a president will welcome present calderon of mexico to the white house to discuss our important bilateral relationship and key global issues. on friday the president will travel to miami, florida to discuss his plan for winning the future while in miami the present will also attend a dscc fund-raiser. and that is the week ahead. thanks, guys. [inaudible conversations] that was press secretary jay carney taking last-minute questions on the federal budget. he also announced the u.s. will

start sanctions against libya and he briefed reporters who had a number of questions about the situation there. the leader of libya, colonel moammar qaddafi addressed supporters today in tripoli square where he told the crowd to fight against antigovernment protesters and defend the nation. about 1000 of his supporters demonstrated in green square and here are some of his remarks by colonel qaddafi from the al-jazeera news network. >> translator: reply to the liars. reply to the mass media. the mass media, the mass lies. this is the great people of egypt. you are the fruit of the revolution. you are the end to see us take views of the revolution. you see pride and dignity in the revolution. you see history and lori and the

revolution. it is the jihad of the hills. it is the revolution that gave birth to -- it is the revolution that we set up memorials. i am among the public. we will continue to fight. we will defeat them. we will die here on the the dear soil of libya. we will defeat any foreign attempt, as we defeated the former italian imperialism. this is a formidable force, in principle force of youth. life without dignity is

worthless. life without green banners hoisted is useless. it is the life of pride and dignity and victory. the green flag flying and hoisted. you, the youth, be comfortable at anyplace in the square. dance, sing, stay up all night, lived a life of dignity with high morals. dance and sing.

>> we will be taking you soon here too the state department briefing room. we expect under secretary of state for management, patrick kennedy, to touch on some of what is going on in libya, including the suspension of u.s. embassy operations there. also the white house just finish up the briefing announcing sanctions against libya with details to come out as they are worked out. the united nations human rights council held a special meeting in geneva today where members unanimously condemned libya ordering a probe into possible crimes against humanity. libya is one of the countries on the u.n. human rights council and members called for the country suspension from the council after a daylong emergency session. this is a short portion of some of those meetings. [inaudible conversations]

mr. president, distinguished members of the human rights council, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, i commend the initiative is this council to hold a special session on the situation of human rights in the socialist people's libyan arab area. the gravity of the situation and the violence, repression of the uprising in that country, demand such urgent attention. as the secretary general of the united nations noted, the reported nature and scale of the attacks on civilians are egregious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. he condemn them without qualification and stated that those responsible for brutally shedding the blood of innocents must be punished. let me remind this council that

at their 2005 summit, world leaders unanimously greed that each individual state has a responsibility to protect its population from crimes against humanity and other international crimes. this responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. ..

>> they have appealed to the united nations, and to the international community for protection. we owe them our solitary and protection from violence. we must heed their aspirations for freedom, dignity and responsible government. far from being manipulated by external forces, their protest is a display of people's power, an exercise of direct democracy that deserves and demands international respect and support. the international community has

repeatedly urged moammar gadhafi to resist from violence. despite international condemnation and appeals for restraint, the libyan leader chose to form it conflict. he called on his supporters to get out of their home, fill the streets against the protesters and attack them. although reports are still patchy and hard to verify, one thing is painfully clear. in brazen and continuing breach of international law, the crackdown in libya of peaceful demonstrations is escalating alarmingly with reported mass killings, arrests, detention and torture of protesters. tanks, helicopters and military aircraft have reportedly been used indiscriminately to attack the protesters. according to some sources, thousands may have been killed

or injured. let me reiterate, that the states have an obligation to protect the rights to life, liberty and security of people under their jurisdiction. a protection of civilians should always be the paramount consideration in maintaining order and the rule of law. the libyan leader must stop the violence now. libya is a member of the human rights council, and pledged to respect human rights. libya is also a state party to various international human rights treaties, including the international covenant on civil and political rights. it has the obligation to protect and implement rights and freedoms as enshrined in international human rights treaties. let me also recall that under international law, any official at any level ordering or carrying out atrocities and

attacks can be held criminally accountable, and that widespread and systematic attacks against civilian population may amount to crimes against humanity. witnesses in and out of libya consistently describe horrifying scenes. libyan forces are firing at protesters and bystanders, sealing off neighborhoods, and shooting from rooftops. they also blocked ambulances so that the injured and dead are left on the street. reports from hospitals indicate that most of the victims have been shot in the head, chest or neck. suggesting arbitrarily and summarily executions. doctors relate that they are struggling to cope, and are running out of blood supplies and medicines to treat the wounded. images of unverifiable origin after to portray the digging of

mass graves in tripoli. according to several accounts, killings have also been carried out by foreign fighters who were and reportedly continue to be brought into the country and equipped with small arms and light weapons by the government to suppress the protests. in this connection, my office has received reports that some libyans are turning on refugees and migrants from other african countries suspecting them of being mercenaries fighting for the libyan government. at the same time, there are reports that the authorities have suggested that certain foreign nationals have been primarily responsible for initiating the unrest, thereby encouraging attacks on foreigners. it is important that the safety of all foreign nationals be insured, and that the freedom of movement of those wishing to leave the country be fully

respected and protected. libyan authorities must allow the safe passage of humanitarian and medical supplies and humanitarian workers into the country. they must also ensure that the legitimate demands of the protesters are addressed. and the fundamental human rights of the population are fully respected and promoted. excellencies, libya's neighbors have a particular responsibility to exert utmost vigilance to protect the vulnerable here i am concerned for the safety and well being of refugees crossing into neighboring countries, particularly geneva, egypt, and all the i urge libya's neighbors to open their borders and ensure that refugees fleeing the violence in libya are welcomed and treated humanely. libya's political partners and

allies are uniquely positioned to exercise their individual and collective influence for the protection of human rights in libya. in this context i welcome the initial steps taken by some governments and regional organization, but more needs to be done. i encourage all international actors to take necessary measures to stop the bloodshed. i have also called for an indie pendant and impartial investigation to investigate the violence of oppression of protests in the country. but let us be clear. that today's shocking and brutal situation is the direct outcome of a careless disregard for the rights and freedoms of libyans that has marked the almost four decade-long grip on power by the current ruler. justice for ongoing as those abuses must be attained in order

to be meaningful for all the victims. there can be no doubt about the need for action by this council now. the human rights council and its mechanisms should step in vigorously to help end the violence in libya, and hold those perpetrated the atrocities accountable. the council should use all means available to compel the libyan government to respect human rights and heed the will of its people. the victims of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law deserve no less. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you. >> a look at a briefing room at the state department where we expect undersecretary of state for management patrick kennedy to appear shortly. he will address the situation in libya and possibly touch on the suspension of u.s. embassy operations there.

the white house earlier announced it will use sanctions against libya, and details of the sanctions according to press secretary jay carney are still being worked out. while we wait for the update here at the state department, let's take a look at how the unrest in the middle east is affecting oil prices. from today's "washington journal." " continues. host: john felmy is from the american petroleum institute. let me share two headlines. host: the situation in libya is impacting the oil we get from the middle east and having a direct impact on the concerns of the u.s. economy. where is this heading. there are two factors. the general market that we have experienced for the past year because of demand growth we have

had movement toward a record demand in 2010 and this year. you have an underlying demand increase, and this instability adds to that. host: if you look at the amount of oil we get from libya, it really is inconsequential. guest: on a world market, when you lose any supplies, you tend to have been accentuated impact. the other thing is the futures market is responding to this in many different ways far beyond libya. host: this headline from "the financial times." how much will they boosted, and what will the impact be? guest: they have excess capacity. they could increase production. we do not know what type of oil they >> we live is not for live update from the state department.

>> if we delay this further it could be happy hour. in malta it's definitely happy hour. we will wait one moment. good afternoon and welcome to department of state. as was just announced in the white house press briefing, given current security conditions in libya, coupled with our inability to guarantee fully the safety and security of our diplomatic personnel in the country, the department of state has temporarily withdrawn embassy personnel from tripoli and suspended all embassy operations effective today. the safety of the american community remains paramount. the department we will continue to provide assistance to the

greatest extent possible through other missions. and today we are gratified that the ferry was able to deport libya and has arrived in malta as well as the departure from tripoli of one last charter that carried our remaining diplomatic personnel from the mission as was other american citizens, and third country nationals. but two of the hardest working people through the last several days, actually by the last several weeks, our under secretary for management pat kennedy, deputy assistant secretary janet sanderson from mark nea do. we thought we'd bring them down just to kind of review what it means now to have our operations in libya suspended. we still have diplomatic relations with libya and we will

continue to discuss ongoing events with the libyan leadership, but to go through a few of the mechanics of how we got to that point, obviously pat has been central in terms of the logistics of moving american citizens out of harm's way. janet has been involved in all of the interagency meetings and conversing every day with our dcm who has done a brilliant job in tripoli. but pat, janet, thanks for coming down. >> thank you. as you may be aware, one of the major responsibilities of the state department is to ensure assistance to american citizens. since the 15th of february we've issued over 10 warning notices of various kinds to american citizens, and starting on the 20th, we announced to

the community that we had authorized the departure of a family member, and then on the 21st we increased that by ordering the departure of all family members and nonemergency personnel. a number of american citizens have departed the commercial means or via charters arranged by their companies, or if the assistance, mutual assistance so to speak provided by other governments. even though flights are operating, the airport was somewhat chaotic with the large numbers of people there, and, therefore, the u.s. moved and put a charter ferryboat with 600 person capacity into the court on wednesday morning. during the course of the day on wednesday, we loaded about 250,

270 people, about half american, half third country nationals. we had planned to sail from the port that evening. they were 15 to 18-foot waves which made sailing unsafe, and so we held the ferry over into yesterday, and the ways it did not abate, and we loaded about another dozen or so individuals on the ferry yesterday. and again could not sail last night. finally, after long consultations with u.s. armed forces, weather experts, we knew the weather would break probably this morning. and so again, loaded another few people onto the ferry who presented themselves this morning. and the ferry departed. at the same time, we also announced yesterday to the american community that we would be making a charter aircraft available today. we brought the charter aircraft

in, loaded the remaining official american employees on it, and about another dozen or so american citizens and a number of third country nationals as well. and that aircraft has now departed. and has tj has said, we are now suspended operations to the embassy again as p.j. has said that does not mean to diplomatic relations are broken. we continue to carry on work with the government. janet can attest that in more detail but essentially we have moved to get out as many american citizens as we could and to present himself to the embassy. we will continue to work to assist american citizens. they are bureau of consular affairs has a seven by 24 hour by three her city by day a week capability. if any additional american citizens are indeed -- in need of assistance they can contact their family members or others can contact the state department and we will see what we can do, what we have put in as i said

the last charter flight that we intend to at this time. and we do know that the airport, in spite of it being overcrowded, still is moving some commercial planes in and out. janet? >> thank you, pat. in addition to the responsibilities we have to the american community and to all mission on the ground, obviously one of the things the department has been doing in the last week to 10 days is a full-court press in terms of trying to develop a set of options for the president and his decision-makers with regard to the continuing and, indeed, intensifying violence on the ground, violence against the leading people and what seems to us to be increasing problems with the regime and the way it has handled. you've seen of course the secretary of state has made a number of calls to her counterparts around the world in the last couple of days here she is consulted with african

foreign ministers, european foreign ministers and others who are interested in the fate of libya. secretary has acted with the president has said, we are shocked and appalled by what we've seen on the ground in libya. the whole the libyan government accountable for its actions and the actions of its military and other security forces as atrocities are being perpetrated we're deeply concerned about the fate of the libyan people and we are looking at a variety of options, a toolkit if you will, in addition to sanctions. unilateral, the ones we announced this morning or this afternoon rather by the white house. but in conjunction with our friends and like-minded allies in the area. we are looking at other options, and, of course, there is a multilateral track. i don't have a lot of details for you right now. we are having those consultations. they are ongoing but i think the important thing to take away is that the international committee is speaking with one voice about what's happening in libya.

we're all concerned, shocked, and we're looking at ways to try and not only change the behavior of the government, but also hold it accountable for what is happening on the ground. secretary will go through the human rights council meeting in geneva on sunday i think she is to depart. the meeting is on monday. the present dispatch under secretary for political to europe. he is now they are for with some of our closest european allies about what is next. obviously, let me say something about the state of diplomatic relations between the united states and libya. let me underscore what pat has said. our embassy is not close. we have suspended operations. we still continue to reach out to the libyans where appropriate, both directly and through third parties. libyan embassy here is up and running. we have not been informed of any changes of the status of the ambassador. i will be meeting with representatives of the libyan

embassy shortly after this meeting to convey our decision about the suspension of diplomatic activity in libya but the relationship remains that we can have channels of communication directly to the libyan government about the very great concern we have about the evolving situation on the ground. thank you. >> a couple things logistically. one, in terms of the embassy being temporally close, does that mean big fly within the last about or is it still up and running? >> the flag is still flying. the embassy is not close operations are suspended. the relations are not broken. >> how many americans were on that play, the last one out of? >> nineteen official americans on the flight. >> and about a dozen private use of? >> a dozen private american citizens and nine foreign nationals. 13. >> and the last thing, who is the protecting -- who has agreed

to be the protector of? >> that is still being worked out. [inaudible] >> there is no protecting power yet has been named. >> who have you approached? >> that's a matter for diplomatic discussions. we will be back to you on that one. >> what country are you aware of that is him either having embassies open in a fluid situation? >> in a fluid situation we will give you an answer when we have one. >> right now, americans are still in libya is no way you can tell to go to? >> they can contact the state department, e-mail, state department via phone and bureau of consular affairs will do what it can to assist them. >> thank you. >> why are you not sending relations, diplomatic relations with libya. >> as i think the secretary of the president said, we're

looking at a range of options as we try to figure out a way to do with this situation. obviously, everything is on the table as the president said. so said. so don't want to prejudge what's going to happen down the road. but at this point we don't most appropriate to suspend operations. >> what was the main concern to push the department to evacuate all the officers? >> i think the situation, the chaos in the streets, the gunfire at night beginning the last couple days of days, even gunfire during the day. we will be -- we will execute always due prudence when we engage in diplomatic activities. we are there to represent the united states. we are there to advance our economic interest. we are there to assist and protect american citizens. but when the situation becomes significantly insecure, it is at

that point prudent to continue our diplomatic activities with a country via other means. >> is there anybody left at the embassy, security personnel are acting like that? also, whether any notification to provide to libya prior to leaving the country? >> yes, we have our locally engaged staff is still on duty at our compound. >> non-diplomatic? >> our libyan employees are still, we did not break diplomatic relations. our libyan employees are still on the payroll and are still out, working. >> and on any sort of, any americans security personal? >> no. all american official employees were withdrawn today spent and on the notification question, was there anything done yesterday? >> under secretary burns had a

conversation with the libyan foreign minister this morning where mr. burns shared this information with them. and as i said i'm going to be meeting with representatives of the libyan embassy this afternoon to formally give them the diplomatic note. >> the libyan employees that are still working, are any of them security? >> yes. i mean, we have both local, national security guards and employees, libyan employees who work in other sections of the embassy. >> are you aware of any american citizens that are still in libya trying to get out? at this point, are you saying that you've got not all of the americans who were there that need help getting out of? >> no. we can never say that. as you know, or maybe you don't know, there is no requirement that an american citizen register at an embassy when he or she travels. it's free travel. we certainly encourage american citizens to register at the embassy, and the multiple

warning notices that we put out since the 15th of february have encouraged individuals to register, but many of those individuals may have left on commercial flights. they may have left on flights, we know at least one who left on a dutch flight. a number of other americans left on a british warship. out of benghazi. sold since we don't have that kind of crowd control on american citizens, i can't say we start with x., and these many left and these many, therefore, are remained behind. but as we said earlier, if american citizens are in need of assistance, there is material how they can reach us both via telephone and on the website. >> given how difficult it was, i know it was larger whether, but how difficult was to get americans out of libya come in retrospect would you have ordered a departure earlier than you did than the 21st? >> no. no. i don't believe so.

the situation -- we measured the situation on the ground very, very carefully. we consider our ability to continue to operate fully. and then as the situation deteriorates, it is a multistage process. you first potentially go to an authorized departure for family members, and then you authorized the departure of nonemergency personnel. we jumped that step and went to the ordered departure of all family members and nonemergency personnel. so each situation is calibrated against the political environment, the security environment, and u.s. national interests. >> there has been some criticism because here we have this kind for that stuck there for a few days because of weather problems, and yet the british and some other countries a barely were able to evacuate

their citizens while our american citizens were trapped aboard that ferry. so, was this a case were we didn't have the assets in place that we needed? or were we caught short, what was the issue of? >> i don't think so. for example, a canadian aircraft went in today and left empty because of the chaos at the airport. we said that ferry and deliberately because we gauged, starting on tuesday, that the situation at the airport was become sufficiently chaotic that we were worried about moving people through the airport. therefore, we decided to use another means of transportation. having excluded overland transportation to the west, we thought because that ferry terminal is at a given location, it was a little bit easier to obtain space there. we had cooperation from the government of libya, in doing that. so we put, we put the ferry and with every intention of taking it out. the weather turned bad.

i wouldn't describe people as trapped on the ferry boat. this is not a ferry boat like the staten island ferry. it's a mediterranean ferry with -- closed cabins, food, shelter and restroom facilities. what i have liked to have been in a sale that first they? absolutely. when we sin and evacuation ship in can we send it in to get people out. at the determination was made that the weather was unsafe and so we decided to hold the ferry until the weather cleared. >> having grown up on staten island i will bypass the slander that you just submitted. [laughter] >> having lived in new york for four years, i have also traveled on the staten island ferry. >> by the raf got in and out. didn't take? >> the raf got in and out and the canadians got a plane in and

were not able to get anyone loaded. [inaudible] >> while they were stuck for how many ever hours. >> that's correct. >> all right. i just don't understand what the problem was. all right. can i -- >> without stepping on the pentagon's does, we also had, we also have the military assets over the horizon, that if the situation, you know, was concerning in any way we had options available. but as pat said, we get to cooperation from every element except for the weather. and we did not feel at any time that the people on the ferry would in any other danger than anyone who is currently in tripoli at the moment. >> can you say when your coordination with military, the united state military and those assets began? if we can set up crisis -- >> from the moment we that high

level meetings on the situation in libya, the military has been fully involved in this process. so, the coordination has been true of egypt, to of bahrain. ..

>> when was the decision made that once the triggers were pulled and going to be the triggers of the embassy that the suspension of the operation? >> that decision was made today based on the fact -- >> you had at some point beforehand, you had to tell your diplomats remaining in libya, get to the plane because -- >> this is something that is a daily conversation throughout, you know, throughout this -- >> when was the decision made for all those diplomats to show up at the airfield to get on this plane? >> today. >> that was made this morning? >> we put in plans in place before today, but we gave the decision to execute today. >> i understand that. are you telling me the decision to shut down the embassy was made when the white house announced it? >> no. >> when was it made? >> the decision to shut down was made when we were sure that we could get all official americans out and as many american

citizens as we were able to to assemble and transport. >> because if bill burns talked this morning to tell them, obviously, the decision was made before perhaps the plane was landed or perhaps the ferry left. when was the decision made? was it yesterday, last night, overnight, was it -- >> i don't want to par things. the decision was made yesterday should all the pieces fall into place, we would move today. >> okay, okay. >> if all the pieces hadn't fallen into place today, we might have moved tomorrow. >> okay, i understand. >> or if the situation reversed itself -- >> right, it would have never been made. >> right. i understand. >> yesterday, when you decided when all the pieces fell into place was that after kadafi's

speech? >> actually, i don't know that that was a factor. we looked at the totality of the situation and made the decision. >> and who made the decision? >> decisions like that are made by the secretary of state. >> who in a sense is doing the operations in the embassy? >> we would resume american operations at the embassy when the security situation permits it. >> can i ask about the remaining pockets of americans who may be a a pri -- try poly? give us a size of the pockets and how they plan on leaving? >> we've been in act, our task force, which has a heavy component from the bureau of

office affairs citizens and services. we're in contact with the oil company and other businesses, the bureau of diplomatic security has the overseas advisory counsel which is also part of the efforts. we are in contact with the american companies we know to be there and others we didn't know to be there are in contact with us, and many of them are making arrangements to reach those pockets of individuals, some of whom were brought in tripoli and others left and a number of them who left on a british naval vessel late yesterday. >> okay. just want to follow up. of the ones left, can you give me a sense of how many you are talking? >> perhaps if i could elaborate on that answer. we have a task force working closely with similar task forces and capitols around the world. between us and our friends, particularly in europe, we've

been able to sort of trade off for want of a better term. a number of people in the oil fields we've identified over the last 96 hours moved and got on the charter today or were evacuated by their companies who got flights in or by friendly nations who offered us seats. according to the last thing the task force told me, they believe that there are no suggest pockets of americans in the oil fields that we have identified. let me be honest, there may be others out there we have not been able to contact or for whatever reason, they are sheltering in places for the time being. to the best of our knowledge, the major groups of people we were working with three to four days ago have now moved on, but we're in the process of confirming that. >> how many were those? >> i don't remember how many. i think we heard, you know, six here, four there, five here, we

know two of the major oil companies got their own chatters in and did evacuations in the last 24-36 hours, so we'll have to get back to you on that. >> thanks. >> do you have a sense on how many americans have been evacuated? how many -- is there any way to count, you know, how many americans? >> i think we can say there were about 200 private american citizens taken out by our means, but many other american citizens left commercially and left on company charters or on via dutch or british means just as we, and sort of a mutual assistance pact brought out nationals of other nations as well both on the ferry and chartered aircraft today. >> a clarification about the security. you said there's no u.s.

security people in place. what measures are being taken to secure communications, documents, ect. inside the embassy? >> i'm not going into our processes on security, but i can asur you that there is nothing -- assure you there's nothing left behind that could be compromised. >> they are still working, like the guards are still there, but they are not authorized to do business of the government with the libbian government; correct? >> unless instructed by us. >> not issues visas? essentially the embassy is closed for business. >> operationing -- >> i realize you don't want to use the word closed. >> operations are suspended and those activities that only can be carried out by american personnel are suspended. >> white house used the word

"shuttered," would you agree? >> of course. [laughter] >> have to sign a document for this to take effect or issued verbally for order? >> she does not have to sign a document. >> has the libbian government said to you how to deal with the embassy now? have they given assurances it will remain in tact, untouched by them? >> under secretary burns with a brief conversation with the foreign minister this morning, and we didn't go into details on that. i'll take the opportunity of my meeting this afternoon with the libbian embassy to put down markers for the protection of our facilities. >> just on theming, you said -- them, you said you were not notified of change in the ambassador's status. >> that's correct. >> he seems to be doing his own notifying. [laughter] >> i don't want to -- >> is it your understanding that he represents the government of libya as led by -- >> we have nothing in the

country at this point. >> well, if it is, in fact, true he has resigned as he says he has, you can tell him all you want, that you want your embassy to be protected, but it's not going to do anything. >> that's true, but he hasn't informed us he resigned. until we have been told by him or the libbian government or otherwise. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> just to touch on a couple of things with libya, and then we can move on to other subjects. just some specific numbers. on the airplane today, there were 41, you know, passengers, the remaining 19 official party, 13 other american citizens, and 9 citizens of other countries,

and on a ferry, there were 338 passengers including 183 american citizens. that would include the 40 of, you know, official americans, of course, that might not be correct. it might be 39 # p. we took -- 39. we took one passenger. incoming the 39 -- including the 39 official party, we took one passenger off the ferry this morning, and she's been transported to italy via italian evacuation because she's 8 months pregnant. >> [inaudible] >> sorry? >> the 183 includes the 39? >> yes. >> what was the total for the international?

>> my math is correct, it would be 183, 155 equals 338. there were more international -- >> were there more international citizens than private? >> did you take any other official foreign? >> yes. i don't have a break of it, but yes, there were members of the official party of our embassies. >> what kind of plane was the charter? >> oh, i don't know. >> [inaudible] >> was it a military? >> took off from the military airfield. >> there are been unconfirmed reports that's fallen to the opposition; is that correct? >> no. as far as i know it didn't. those reports were not correct. >> military plane?

>> commercial charter. >> chartered in istanbul? >> in istanbul and is perhaps still in the air or had landed. i don't know. you know, just to kind of recap with the u.n. human rights counsel session today, it did adopt by consensus a resolution that condemned the gross and sismatic violations of human rights by the government of libya, established an independent international establishment of inquiry to violate the measures for those responsible, and recommended that the u.n. general assembly consider the suspension of libya's membership on the counsel given these violations. the actual suspension of libya's county membership will be considered next week, probably on tuesday, and we are already working with our partners regarding this issue. just to clarify, i know we had a

question of whether expulsion versus suspension was the correct term. it is, in fact, suspension. this would be the first time a counsel member has been suspended since the counsel was founded in 2006. >> that's really not that long. >> it's not that long. >> i thought maybe you could go back to the commission and that might be a little more revealing. >> just to touch on briefly, you know, deputy secretary jim steinberg held meetings today in toronto with prime minister and presidents and other senior officials, and he met with members of the tribe presidency and other political leaders where he heard parties to conclude formation of the government and during his previous two days, he had visit

to georgia where he met with the presidents of armenia, and president ali, and next week under secretary maria, otero will be in nigeria to talk about processes as nigeria works towards important elections in april. >> lack of a protecting power, it seems unusual that you would shut down or suspend the operations of the embassy without having a protecting power lined up. i know that in the two other cases where you have protecting powers, things were different. it took awhile to get on board in iran because things happened so quickly, but can you explain why the decision was made to go

ahead and suspend operations if you didn't have someone lined up? >> well, the situation on the ground, you know, was the reason for that, and i think pat hinted at it. we are still sorting with other countries -- >> who's going to stay? >> what their plans are as well. you know, we will be working to establish a protective power, but given the uncertainty of the situation, those conversations are ongoing. >> is the united states government in contact at all with any part of the opposition in libya? >> i can't say that we, the united states, have had any contact with the opposition at this point. we have had discussions with other leaders who have been in touch with opposition figures to

try to understand what is happening on the ground. >> what other leaders are those? >> you know, i'm not going to catalog. i mean, i can go back over the discussions that, you know, the secretary has had. today, she talked to foreign minister lawrence cannon of canada and also talked to tony blair, and yesterday she talked to au chairperson, you know, president ping -- pardon me? >> tony blair? >> why about libya? >> yes. >> are you suggesting that some of these individuals have had contact with the opposition? >> she talked yesterday with the chaddian president, and these are collectively figures who have, you know, far closer contacts and broader ties. let me reverse that. you know, closer ties and

broader contacts than we do, so we have been talking to a wide range of people trying our best to understand fully, you know, what is actually happening on the ground. >> should it be a source of concern we have no direct contact with the opposition in libya? >> this is still an unfolding, you know, situation, james, so i'm not going to rule out that at some point we may well reach out to other figures in libya society. in fact, i suspect that we will, but i can't tell you any direct discussions have occurred at this time. >> in the briefing, the u.s. is going to use full extended intelligence capabilities to monitor. clearly, the u.s. is already doing that, but it seemed to be a shot over the bow to kadafi that we're watching you. what is the u.s. -- >> obviously, in terms of our

pledge to hold he and his family, his regime solely accountable for what is happening on the ground. we will have to, you know, build a case. now, there has been a meeting in the u.n. today to assess, you know, what is actually known, so, you know, we will be watching very closely, intensively to see what's happening on the ground and as part of our efforts to not only understand and to the extent that we can shape future decisions, but also to, you know, hold the libbian government responsible for the actions that it has taken and will take. >> pg, you -- pj, to that point, i was looking at this statement speech by biden at the holocaust museum to which he referred to something you said awhile ago, when a state engages in atrocity, it

forces up its sovereignty. it is u.s. going to make a statement now because the atrocity that the libbian government forfeited its sovereignty and therefore action can be taken internationally? ? >> as jay said the legit maty of the -- legitimacy of the libbian government is basically gone in terms of turning weapons against its own people. now, you know, going forward, you know, we will look for ways to support the libbian people. we are looking, for example, at and studying the humanitarian situation on the ground, and that will be something that we'll be focused on in the coming days, but, you know, our broad message to libya today just as it has been, you know, throughout this period is to stop the violence, stop the

bloodshed, and we will continue to find ways to communicate that, you know, to the libbian officials. >> it sounds like a warning to officials they might find themselves before the icc or something of that nature? >> well, again, part of what the human rights counsel did today was to establish an independent international commission of inquiry. we will let -- we will do our best to cricket to, you know, gathering, you know, the enacts and evidence of what has happened in libya, and those facts will determine what the appropriate steps are. >> investigation that leads to an icc prosecution in >> again, let's not jump ahead. as you -- >> [inaudible] >> as you yourselves -- >> the icc, you are not a member of and have taken great pains to make clear you're not a member of. i'm wondering if are you looking

at, i mean, are you looking at having an ad hoc? >> well, again, as i was trying to say, you're leaping ahead of the process. we will be gathering facts as an international community about what happened in libya and the responsibility of the government, you know, for the violence and violations of human rights that have occurred. once we have, you know, a consensus on what has occurred and who is responsible, then, you know, the international community, you know, working through the u.n. will determine next steps. >> really, who should be on where you want to go -- [laughter] is it conceivable that, i mean, looking again hinting here that the international community, that the u.s. could be looking at the possibility with working with the international community to launch some type of

concerted, shall we say, military action to go into libya and protect those people in spite of kadafi because he gave up sovereignty. >> as we said, we have developed for the president and for the senior leaders of this government, a range of options. we are concerned about the humanitarian situation on the ground, and that will be, you know, one of a number of areas that we focus on in coming days. you know, as we've said, the military is a full participant in the policy development process that is going on, and we have not ruled out any options at this point. >> p.j., your comments reflect that the u.s. made a determination that the regime of libbian government has lost legitimacy as you put it. have you also made the

determination that the actual degree of control kadafi maintains over his territory? >> well, that is one of the reasons why highlighted we're devoting increasing attention and assets without getting into particular intelligence matters to fully understand what is going on. it is clear that he and the libbian government do not control, you know, major swaths of the country at this point. >> what about tripolely? >> you know, at this point, i believe that the situation in tripoli differs from the situation in other parts of the country. there is obviously a very fluid situation. i'm not sure i can do a play-by-by. >> does he appear to be in

control of the majority of the city? >> that's a hard judgment to make from here. >> if it's so different from the rest of the country, then -- >> the situation there today was described as relatively stable in the city itself. obviously, you know, we were able to get, you know, some citizens, you know, to the airfield to depart. we got some citizens to the dock to join others who were on board the ferry, so there is the ability to function, you know, in the city itself. can't speak for, you know, how far outside of the city does that situation change dramatically, but it's clear the government no longer has control of major population centers in the country. >> move on? >> sure. >> security concerns of the american personnel that are on

or were on post there. do you have as a rationale for the decision to evacuate a nod to the demonstrators to say essentially we can't also tolerate the indiscriminate shooting of civilians? >> well, i don't see those as being mutually exclusive. the decision to, you know, to suspend operations at the embassy as pat kennedy said was the concern about the security situation and the welfare of the american diplomats there. as far as we could tell, we had success in evacuating as many american social citizens that identified themselves to us. three, given the situation from a practical standpoint, what else could our embassy establish on the ground? we do maintain relations to continue to try to understand

what is going on and to the extent that we can working with others in the narnl community, you -- national community, you know, try to influence the future decisions by the libbian government, but that is something we can do, obviously, from outside the country, pakistan. >> libya -- i'm sorry. the one thing that no one said now that all the americans are out, the u.s. continues to condemn the violence, but no one is calling for him to step down yesterday. why is that? >> well, this is a situation that continues to unfold. you know, ultimately as we have said, you know, who leads libya in the future is not for the united states to determine. >> not asking you to determine it. >> i understand that. you know, but we are consulting broadly with others in the international community about how we assess the situation.

you know, on the ground, and, you know, but that is, that is an issue that we are continuing to analyze. >> just to be clear -- >> you say he's lost his legitimacy. that suggests that the united states -- >> again, u.ly, you -- ultimately, you know -- >> he cannot stay on. >> that will be determined inside libya, not outside from libya. >> yeah, but your determination? >> that's as far as i dare to go. >> do you still acknowledge him as the leader? >> i believe from a legal standpoint he's the head of state and head of government, but clearly, he has lost legitimacy in the eyes of his people, and that obviously influences our perceptions of him as well. >> he lost legitimacy in the united states of the united

states as well? >> yes. >> can you check to see if he actually is the head of government? he's got a bizarre title, i'm not sure that that's what it is. >> i'm shocked to hear that. >> move on? >> pakistan. >> sorry, one more. why did she call blair of libya? because of his dealings over the bomber? >> he has very important valuable contacts inside of libya. >> and use those contacts to assist the united states or to do -- >> again, i'm not -- i'm not tony blair's spoke person. he is an able spokesperson. >> do we know about the american obtained first of all, and then i want to ask you about the second american. aaron mark dehaven i believe.

>> i'm starring at a statement that came out of, pakistan today. we've seen reports that aaron mark dehaven was obtainedded by police and we're arranging access through the government of pakistan. >> dune anything more about him? >> that's all we know. >> what about the other american? >> i don't know that we have had access yet, so i don't think that we're questioning the report that there's an american in detention, but beyond that, it's hard for us to know exactly what the circumstances are. >> you have no reason to understand why he's been detained or whether it's connected to the other case of the detention? >> i would not suggest it's connected to the other case. >> and about the other case, what is your understanding of what happened today in court? >> well, mr. davis was in court

today. he -- my understanding is in court today he presented the court with a copy of a diplomatic note that affirms his full immunity from criminal prosecution. the court, you know, received that document and indicated that it would take the matter under consideration and i believe there is another hearing scheduled for march 3. >> being presented in court or going to let it go to the u.s.? >> he presented a copy of a diplomatic note from the government of pakistan -- [inaudible] >> like presenting a note from your mother that says, you know -- >> well, i -- >> pakistan, i mean, presenting the diplomatic note, how does that, i mean, that note has been presented to the pakistani government already. >> right, but we wanted to put that note before the court as well. >> and he declined the offer of an attorney; is that correct or

refused to hire an attorney? >> i can't comment, but he does have, you know, legal representation by pakistani, you know, lawyers. >> he does? >> i can't speak to, you know, their particular status. we had consul officials present at today's hearing. >> that note, that's the original note he had when he went into the country? >> my understanding it was a note that we provided to pakistan, the government earlier this month. >> earlier this month, so -- >> i have asked that question. it was not the original note from last year. >> wait, wait, wait. you said earlier months. it wasn't a new note? >> no. >> it was a copy? >> it was a copy of a note we presented to the government of pakistan, but we presented it not court. >> it's the one you presented on jan 20th; right?

>> thank you. have a nice weekend. [inaudible conversations] >> state department officials there addressing the situation in libya and clarifying the suspension of u.s. embassy operations there. earlier, the white house announced the u.s. will start sanctions. those details are still being worked out, but the treasury department is warning american banks to scrutinize private banking accounts held by or on behalf of the senior political figures. president obama is scheduled to meet with the u.n. secretary general in washington on monday to discuss libya, and nato is considering deploying ships and surveillance aircraft to the mediterranean. the u.n. human rights counsel holding a special meeting in geneva where members unanimously condemned libya and ordering a probe into possible crimes against humanity. according to cnn, 200 americans fled the country by ship. they arrived in malta, and the u.s. has a chartered flight with

american evacwees on its way to instan bull. -- istanbul. here's a look at the prime time lineup coming up. starting at 8, u.n. secretary general defending and discussing oh sustainable development can lead to economic growth. after that, groups representing doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies will look at how to resolve the problems of paying for health care.

>> now former president clinton and others look back at the 1995 dayton peace aaccords that ended the war in bosnia and how the agreement changed diplomacy. you'll hear from former secretary of state, retired

general and a former u.s. ambassador to croatia. >> i want to introduce the person who paveed the way to -- paveed the way today ton and beyond. the war in bosnia was already raging. the images, snipers, sis systematic rape, prisoners, hordes in europe we thought had been banished forever, yet at home, there was not much appetite for just a war, and a broad european allies steadfastly resisted suffer measures that might put their humanitarian mission at risk. by mid-1995, bos kneian seshes

massacred thousands and took ung peacekeepers hostage. president clinton concluded that american leadership was the only hope for peace. that august, we began an all-out diplomatic initiative backed by the use of nato force to shift the balance of power. early weeks were scared by tragedy. first the death of three american diplomats, and then a brutal murder attack on. but air strikes with gains on the ground led the parties to a cease fire and at dayton where for 21 years -- 21 days our negotiating team led by the extraordinary ambassador, richard holbrooke pushed and

prodded and pressed and persuaded and finally prevailed. after nearly four years of bloodshed, 100,000 killed, 2 million displaced,ed leaders of bosnia and croatia turned the page towards peace. yet, president clinton, another battle was just beginning. the president decided to send 20,000 troops to help nato implement the agreement. most americans opposed the idea. many within the military were skeptical. much of congress was dubious at best. dick army declared winning the support of the house would be like pulling teeth from the back of your head. in fact, the house refused to take action in support of the mission, and yet the president moved forward because he knew it

was right. we had helped to end a terrible war, and now we would lead for peace. it has been said courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue as a testing point. to be sure, president clinton showed political courage in seizing the initiative to stop the bloodshed and in doing what needed to be done to enforce the peace that had been so hard to secure, but bosnia was also a reflection of his values at the testing point, his dividing belief that prosperity and progress must be rooted in unity, not division. he had a vision for europe and a thrans lantic alignment in times of historic transformation. it was a vision of a peaceful undivided europe as we neared the end of the century that seen

some of human kinds worst brutality. he knew such a europe couldn't be born with fire raging in its heart. with all that's happened in 15 years, it's hard to forget how bold that thinking was. there's many steps along that road. nothing was preordained, especially not the peace agreement we visited today. the president had a vision for u.s. leadership in the world, his belief in the power of our common humanity, and america's unique potential as an act of force or peace. it drove the administration's effort to the middle east to northern ireland to purr rue, ecuador, south asia, and south america, and now in his pote

presidency, he continues to champion a world where interdependence works to everyone's advantage, and those who are blessed with the benefits of today do more to spread the benefits to straight the burdens. the success of our work is measured by a single question. are people better off now than when we started? fifteen years after dayton, we know that the bosnia can answer that question as yes. ladies and gentlemen, i'm honored to introduce presidentwomen -- president william jefferson clinton. [applause] >> thank you very much. pleased to see you. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you, ladies and gentlemen. thank you and thank you sandy for the introduction.

i'd like to thank a number of people. first i want to thank the leaders from the region who have come here who will be represented on the second panel and i'll introduce later. i want to thank all those here who served in the administration during those early days some of whom will be on the panel shortly. i'd like to thank warn christopher and tony lake who played pivotal roles in the crisis who could not be here today, and i want to acknowledge those who are not here whom we miss. first, dick holbrooke who looked forward to dominating this whole proceeding today. [laughter] the three brave public servants we lost on august 19, 1995 on the road.

ron brown, chuck meisner, and all the people at the commerce department and business community who were lost on the plane in croatia, their families are here, and i hope that what we do today is a reminder of what could not have been done then without their loved ones. there are a lot of people for all the fits and starts of that policy who are alive today because of their service, and i am profoundly grateful. i'd like to thank john sexton, the president of nyu, and all the people here for hosting us again, and i'd like to welcome the students who are here. many of whom may be too young to remember what happened after the break up of the former soviet union. the conflicts between the seshes and the bosnia muslims, the

seshes and the cro asia. then, the killing in bosnia nominated the news much as the demonstrations in cairo and other cities in egypt are today. before i introduce the panel, i want to put into some context what all this means. i want to go just a little beyond what the film did. many people seem to think that the 1990s and after the cold war and after 9/11 were peaceful, uneventful interlude between the cold war and the down of the struggle -- dawn of the struggle against terrorism.

i think those of us who were there would beg to differ. first, in bosnia alone, it understates the sheer scale of the destruction and the killing. in a small nation, 250,000 people were killed and more than 2 million people became refugees. secondly, the resolve to act where we did was really the first test of what the world would do to order itself in the aftermath of the cold war. the cold war dominated the organization of american foreign policy until about two years

before i was inaugurated. the struggle between the united states and the soviet union credited a -- created a whole architecture of diplomacy. both during republican and democratic administrations, our policy was driven by what was generally called containment. containment, to me, meant two things. first of all, that we were trying to contain the threat of communism to the confines which existed at the time any given president took office, and secondly, we would try to contain the dimensions of the conflict so that the two nuclear superpowers did not ever use nuclear weapons.

it was a useful and often productive construct and we didn't have another nuclear waif. i suggest after that on the nuclear issue, it may be that each country's spies were the other's best public servants. they did their jobs well enough that we knew enough to avoid the war. on the ground, when it came to geographic containment, it often led to contortion of our values. when everything got pushed through a narrow funnel in terms of whether this or that or the other conflict would or would not advance the interest of the soviet union. it led the united states into supporting extremely repressive

regimes in central america and into the iran contra problem. it caused us to see the vietnam through the cold war struggle i think too much early on. there were all kind of other issues which we're not here to discuss today, but after it was over, there have -- there was a big issue. now, how would the world organize itself now that it was no longer bipolar, and what role would the united states play? how would we manage the outbreak of ethnic and racial and religious conflicts most vividly and bloodily represented by bosnia. what about russia? how we were going to relate to russia? they had historic ties to the seshes. is there any way they could be

involved in the resolutions with bosnia and later in kosovo? what did it mean for the europe to be united whole and free for the first time of history? what about nato, could nato have a non-cold war mission and should it have more members? how should the united states view its interest here? secretary jim baker whom i admire very much once said the europeans should handle it. it's their problem, and we don't have a dog in that hunt. how should we view africa and latin america since we were no longer twisted by the cold war

into supporting repressive regimes in central america, having problems like what happened in congo? all of these things had to be worked out and worked through. you could have all the theories in the world, but there had to be a specific example that informed us about what we could and couldn't do, so in the bulcans, there was an enormous humanitarian issue at stake, and one that was harder to escape. now you know when we see twitter and facebook and youtube and 24 hour cnn coverage of what's going on in egypt, it's hard to remember that bulcans may be the first conflict that was a long way away in a signal place where we actually new what the heck

was going on all the time. we didn't have anything like the level of interactive communication and instantaneous information that we have now. when i took the oath of office, there were only 50 sites on the entire internet, and the average cell phone weighed five pounds. [laughter] that's embarrassing every time i say that. it makes me feel ancient. [laughter] the things you take for granted now about how the world got swept up about what's going on in egypt, it was a new thing in the bulcans, and it meant that deniability was not an option or the united states and other great powers, and it's important to keep that in mind. well, i thought we did have a dog in the hunt here. number one because i thought in

the aftermath of the cold war, united states had to redefine its relationship with europe and with nato and that all of our tensions that the crumbling of communism would lead to a great burst of enlightened democracy i freedom, prosperity, and security would have looked like a fraud if the rest of the world did nothing to help there. i thought on its own merits because we knew, we had an obligation to reduce the slaughter, reduce the amount of people thrown out of their homeland, restore decent conditions, and again, recreate the possibility that europe could find its way to a prospered secure democratic unity. as you saw from the film, there were a lot of people who

disagreed with me on both sides of the aisle, and there were a lot of people that thought that by doing this, getting involved, united states was blowing a chance to claim the so-called long awaited peace dividends, that if we just could get past this conflict with the russians, we could dramatically reduce our defense expenditures, invest in long delayed infrastructure and other needs at home, deal with the problems of our cities, of our minorities, improve the performance of our schools, and, you know, getting involved here was just the beginning of a slippery slope that was, in the words of president eisenhower, giving into the imperatives of a military industrial complex. there were people who thought it would be another vietnam. there were a lot of people who believed that this whole thing was a fool's errand and that in

general it was foolish for us to be involved. you saw the film said 70% of the people were against our sending troops there even after the whole peace accord was completed, after dayton was signed, the opposition was 58%. the first thing i did as president was put together an aide package for russia because they couldn't even afford to bring their soldiers home, and 74% of the american people against that, 81% against aid to mexico, three quarters of the house of representatives voted against our early aggressive involvement in coz vow after -- kosovo after the agony of bosnia knee ya. this was a very interesting time. there's a lesson in that by the way which is for the politicians. people hire presidents to win for america, and in foreign

policy you have to put your other in the water to what you believe is in the best interest of our country, the values, and the world, and if you are right, it will all come out all right, and if you're not, it doesn't matter if what you did on day one was popular, and i'll never forget when people thought i lost my mind by helping mexico because 81% of the people were against it and we just lost the congress. i said, oh, yes. two years from now when there's another million or two immigrants and drugs flowing across the border and everybody in latin america hates our guts and people ask me why did you do that, i said, well, there was a poll in the paper today that said 81% of the people didn't want me to do it. i say that as a cautionary reminder to the young people here. again, we are dealing with a lot of complex situations where we have limited control of what some influence and a lot of variables. the president has to do what he

thinks is right. the people fundamentally expect us to do that, and i'm not saying you should ignore popular opinion, but if you know something most people don't and you can see around a corner or two, you have to do what is right for the nation and the world and the more interdependent we get, the more that becomes true. that is the context in which this occurred, and i shawled say one -- should say one other thing too. i was also roundly criticized by people who had more moral consideration on their side for not doing this sooner than i did. warn christopher went to europe early in 1993 trying to build support from the europeans for being more aggressive when there was a lot of diplomatic efforts

going on that the panelists can tell you about, and i kept working at this because the objective was both to stop the killing in bosnia and biff -- give them a chance to make it and maximize the chances of a united democratic europe. i did not believe we could do that if america acted unilaterally. just so you understand and i'm not criticizing other people and trying to paint this thing in a totally rosy scenario, there were a lot of people who hit me day in and day out because they said, you know, the longer you take to act, the more people die. the longer you take to act, the longer people become refugees. the only way to endure is if we did it with europe, with the nato allies, with the support of the united nations, but i think it's important to put that out

today that we were getting it in effect from both sides. . . are principled military negotiator and all the peace process with holbrooke who was on edmund rode that day when we lost those three fine people and was indispensable to this work. ambassador peter galbraith who

was ambassador to croatia in 1993 mediated the agreement in 1995 that ended the conflict in croatia and helps to and the muslim croatian conflict within bosnia. he has gone on to do a lot of other things including overseeing elections in iraq, but i wanted to say one thing because i encouraged peter to say this. he was also at the center of a big controversy about what would happen while the conflict was still raging before we could get the international community involved. in terms of whether the croatians and the bosnian muslims would be wiped out in bosnia because there was an international arms embargo which seemed to make sense although the world has an arms embargo to minimize conflict. the problem is it was a fraud as

the bosnian serbs were being supplied by serbia which had its own weapons manufacturing capacity and therefore the arms embargo operated only in effect against one side. and, the europeans were unwilling to lift the arms embargo so it looks like we were supporting an arms race that even greater carnage but we didn't want people -- we didn't want the battlefield to predetermine the outcome of negotiations, and as you will hear i am sure today, some serb reversals on the battlefield led to a balancing of interests which made the peace agreement possible. peter galbraith was at the center of all that in that included a million-dollar congressional investigation into whether we had done the right thing by not vigorously enforcing the arms embargo enough.