got a republican and they knew that was going to be the reper klican strated in. and once they took oorsice in 2009, they could have changed the fili he but they didn't do it. anyway, 200 bills that died in the house were the democratic agenda that never got passed. host: and this congress, no changes in the filibuster rule. guest: right. and the rules demhiorats and republicans must feel about tclibusters, you may have the republicans frustrated but the thing is the upon crest of

unlimited debate is it's part of the senate. part of the fabric of the senate part of the historal s and while the rules may be adjusted here and there and should be changed to a certain extent, the filibuster is never going to go awaal s s the part of what that institution is all about. but to say the demhioratic pas may, its downfall is becaus of the filibusters, the 2006-2008 elections were horrific for republicans and in 2006 the tpwhar iraq was at its to -- it did mark a rock-bottom low point for the republican party, which a dio means a higd point for the democratic party. and once it gets past that, you're g cyng to have the two parties coming back towards the equi li

and. yeah. in if -- now we're kind of moving the librium. host: we talked about two democratic states where two republicans seeking re-election. what's the challenge for these two in a year that might be good for republicans but these two states soven go democratic. guest: two months ago there were no signs. it was kind of like revpiiution in tunisia or egypt. there was no sign it could happen but then you could really tell wow, something is going on here testibut irepubli

have a reper klican senator in massachusetts is just extraordinary. and i think a lot of fpiiks on the tea party side are very frustrated with brobui, because he is moving to the middle. but if scott brown has any chance of bbusng re-electebut a he's got to find that center point in massachusetts which is a center point that's a lot far thur to the -- the folks on the reper klican and demhiorati side have to understand. i heard one tell a group in his long, deep, southern drawl, i know you may mind to hard to understanbut a but i couldn't g itrepublica- get elected in ver so scott brown's got -- he's

fot a lot of positioning to do to get himself in a place where he can run for ro thelection. nevada is ateaery,teaery swing state. harry reid had a really tough race and was able to win. but he had extremely weak republican opposition. j, jn ennisen with his scandal problems. i'm not going to say the guy's unelecti but it sure as heck looks that general direction. my hunch is there will be a different republican nominee and it's g cyng to be ateaery, he but i kind of doubt if you'll see j, jn e oneisen on the ball nf st year. host: good morning. caller: i'd lan gentleman what he thinks of sara steelman.

i've actually met her. she's ateaery good candidate. she's actually running for the hoenate seat against claire mccassical. i'd just like to see what the gentleman thinks about him. guest: inine never met sarah steelman. she's not necessarily a cookie cutter republican. i know, for example, she's had houppos ma from trial lawyers which is not usually normal for a republican. but i don't know whether she's foing to be the republican nominee or not. whie's certainly the best knobu republican running and jim talented indicated he's not going to run for that seat. so we've got to wait and see and let the reper klican eny jination sort itself ou but she stepped aside previously, and that might give her sy je moral high ground, if

you will, towards getting the republican ny jination this time. but we've got to let it sort itself out. but that's likely to be one of the premiere senate races in the countral s because missouri is a classic swing state and a state that sooked lan trend back towards democrats but leaning back toward republicans recentlal s it was one of the closest states in the election. the 2008 presidential election. but i think you'll see a first-classyer.s. senate race that mccassical is going to have. it's g cyng to be a tough race. host: we're talking to charlie cook and discussing the gal hup polls. you can log on to gallup.com. looking at some of the states that are looking spiiid for the president, hawaii. a drop, the website is

fal hup.coar frank? good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling to check with mr. cook to see if he was in the navy before. fuest: no. inine got a son that was in the army and a dad that was in the aessy air corps. but no. no navy connections. host: randy, reper klican line. caller: hi, mr. cook. how are you doing? inine got is to say that while don't always agree with you, i always respect your insights and opinions. ler cy jment is that i feel tha i see a skizzm in the republican party between the old guard country republicans and the grassroots tea paray reper klicans. and in regards to 2012, the presidential ny jinations that

possi it by someone like mitt romney and ateaice presidential candidate like alan west or herman kane or if sarah palin were to get the ny jination, maybe they could balance the ticket with halfer barber or ti there's at least two if not thee or four factions in the -- there's a certain amount of ticket balancing that has to take place. when you look the senator mccain was behind in terms of polls and organization and behind in terdg of money. and you know, when he had to m ne his pick g cyng into the reper klican convention, it was sort of fourth and long yardage.

and what were they looking far? they wanted somebody who had no co oneection to the bush-chenfe administration and never worked in washington and not be considered as part of the insider beltway crowd. they had to be pro lt goe. that some of the fpiiks, that senator mccain would have loved to have picked. joe liebeessan, for example. tom ridge were pro choice or eny jinally pro choice, tha was told the republican delegates will burn the building down t go you he was almost 17-18 points bipt. among female voters, they could reallyyerse sy jt gody that somebody that's been to

washington beforeteaersus hoy jt gody whose onlyteaisited couple times. so it is a time to shos maenyer whiort comings in the whole running mate contest. host: 193 democrats in the house of representatives. 242 republicans. 2essa needed for a majority in the senate. as we talked about it. 53 demblirats, 47 reper klicans 51 seats needed for majority in the senate. and looking at the governor. all0 dembliratic g repu independent in maine and 29 republican g repubernors. guesuall0 actually you're showi a news article and we've got hoy je great scat graphs coming up where you have got the house of representatives ploing to ce every seat by which side young

and by how much in the presidentuntl race. hosuall0 and this is what the s looks like. sease go aheaeb fuest: thank you. thanks for the plug. yes. the chas ma is s sinieedcantly dt gor. crent than it was six months ago and will be ict gor. crent again sy jewhat this election. buts the all a dynamic thing and we all have to watch events unfold and watch how if pendulum swings back and forth. the pent gor hum is the magic o should be thinking about. t go it ghe hs too far that waas i think we're sort of headed towards a middle spot for a while. hosuall0 j cyningyers from lake charles, louisiana, your home hotate. food motheying. democrats line. caller: good morning. ler qphsstion is. what kind of plan did the republican bring? we alreasee i know what the demowashat brought. but the plan that the

republican so say they are bringing, you don't see anything. host: on what issphs in hopeicaeedc? >> well, method -- guest: i'm actually g cyng to b in st. charles d cyng a luncheo for an awards dinner for a joutheyalistidedevent there. the way i would look at it is look, for the last two years, demowashats had the presidency and the house and senate. so what republicans wanted to t l a reper klican ait inda wou have been largely eirrelevant. now we've got a slightly ict gor. crent situation. we have got a nominally testify t l you are stas maing to see m proposalsened with a budget

that you may or may not agree with. wenine seen again impartial power for less than two months enow, but youtoml stas ma s what the agenda is. as i said on the outset of the hohowin what you're g cyng to b seeing is democrats advocating budit it cuts of this level and republicans over here, and we're going to adopt -- end up with sy jething in between. that's how this is built. on the premise of cy jpry jise. and i think one things that somewhat refreshing is that i think spe ner bhe hhner is cy jmiing to ced to as much as possible doing open rules in the house. which means other members in a

previous which -- it's messy, and i think we have seen and tsill see speaker boehn black eye and a fat lexa losing a flike.teaotes on the floor th way. but it really is a more demowashatic process. and -- but we'll see both sides putting up plans on it. and youtoml see better now that you've got gra great -- host: you write that the cy jin eedght repuber the dt gt ceili will require the legislative and preqitical delicacy of brai surgery.

guest: yes. this fight over the resreqution it's gw ng to happen. in all likelihood -- hosuall0 no g repubernment shut guesuall0 well maybe but just a few hours or a day. yo e not gw ng to see air trafeedc controllers coming dow from the towers or those in beeghanistan t l if there's one i think most people will never noticemay- if the dt gt cs. isn't rrdssed, the u.s. government will default on its ict gt. and you waust can, y have that happen. the question is what cy jpry jises? tshat really painful co are people going to have to cy je up with?

you need 218 votes. my guess is there will be those in favor of rrdssing the dt gt ceiling and what does it take for these 109teaotes. conversely, y at demblirats h to say we couldn't let the f repuberh ent desetult. i know these are deeper cuts than i would want to do and you es.uld want to do but we had to going t it's going to require an enormous amount of delicacy. >> host: we're talkinge withli. charlie cook. lynn is joining from apacherom junction arizona. welcome the conversation. >> caller: good morning. i have a couple of comments and a couple of questions. number one, for w c-span i lovey see you do a show asking people if they were president for a day

how they would fix jobs. my employee owned company grouping together people with a 5,000-dollar loan however it would work, and then maybe build a solar panel. and then for mr. cook, is this not total class warfare that the republicans were allowed through supreme court and all kinds ofm of money and the crank call wast proved so completely in thee ria money in body and the votes of the rich against the poor, and also one more quick thing, dos. you feel that what is being set ll the newspapers and on theuled news is fulfilling prophecy? one days the oil will go to $100 i'venext day, and i've seen this several times, we lost to john trucking company that way.g number two, they talk to way. khaddafi or they talk about him and say we are worried he might

learn his oilfield the very next day. you hear, he's doing something to sali -- said theor tashi oilfield. >> host: thank you for the question on a future program. > guest: getting on another suggestion, if you could advisee the president to talk to one or two or three people and listen to them who would it be?ho you know, who with a lot of the president to sit down from any president to sit down and have lunch with and have a conversation with and pick their brains? i think there would be annd adjunct to that. me terms of the supreme court se decision and, you know, the bige issue is about the food party ie independent groups, independent of the parties, party officials apparatus cutting the the coming and spending and the caller isr. right in 2010 there was an enormous amount of money comings in on behalf of the republicans and conservative candidates to

help them. now in the fairness there was a t more space and leftistira centered money on behalf of democratic candidates and 06 and 08 than republicans, so again pu this is the pendulum swinging back and forth, and you know, ie the republican and conservative0 party money is evil in 2010, then doesn't that mean that the democratic money on the othere side and 06 and 08 plus, too and, you know, there is a as i tendency people have that any money spent on behalf of a side i like is just people earnestly seeking democracy at fairness but on the other side it's evilr and, you know, third-party money o is either evo or it's not to be the think it's like fuel and an. it's just sort of used up. las i forgot the last part of the question or did i get it? host >> host: "the new york post" headline from this week, thet tg blue plunge in the states again this goes back to the map we've been showing from 2008 to 2010. donna has this question to readt you thinesk more states will ber turning red in the next voting

cycle? >> guest: i think that it depends on what we are talking i about. i can we are going to have a a pretty -- a very competitivetitt presidential race. i would not begin to predict it right now.omic but if the economic indicators coming and i notice the revision of the fourth quarter gdp is across the screen earlier came in at 2.8 instead of 3.2, which three is sort of the tipping point we start getting meaningful job creation. we had been seeing some slightlf improving economic numbers that looked a little better forb cref president obama. we will see, but i think in the senate it's a very strong chance of the senate going republican. guest: ithe house would have to change a whole lot and i think if you were going to put theoult odds on the presidential race i would probably give the .

president a little high yourf odds of getting reelected than not. n keep in mind that only one newly elected president who took over from the other party has lostd s the election in 100 years and as jimmy carter losing to ronaldrtr reagan. to the presidents tend to have a lot more resiliency or at least be elected presidents, the s people that come in and after the party has been in power. toa they tend to have a lot more lo resiliency than we give themhanw credit for. but the improvement numbers wil. become more meaningful at the end of this year. >> host: and the other party because of course of george herbert walker bush succeeded ralf mcginn -- >> guest: it's very interesting.he onl carter was the only newly he let the president took over the the site for 100 years.oble the pattern is when you come in from the other party, you get your lease renewed once, and carter is the one exception, carter and reagan is the one exception. after eight years you generally get ejected and the one exception to that is after eight years of ronald reagan, when george herbert walker bush waser but th republicans a third state term that is the only time,at ag

least giving back to the roosevelt truman but a party was parts able to e party of the white house a third straight time.that so that is the general pattern.n but we have a long way to go. >> host: our viewers, somebody to meeting, talk to michael mic more, mr. president. >> guest: the would be onepeon. person. just m >> host: stevan on theng republican line.ou know >> host: just make sure you know you're talking to and not a david coke.host >> host: do it face-to-face call: my quphone. stevan from baltimore, good morning. >> caller: my question is theoing on incidence going on over in the t, as far as obviously greece you've got libya, greece, to you see any of the type of over protesting that's going on overu there, do you see that trickling into the united states? d.c. what's happening in wisconsin right now? do you see a lot of the state's bad for space, moreover, ande cn maybe certain states that wererr

turning more towards republicana do you see a lot more protests in the individual states, and e youac see that swinging the next presidential election if enoughl states get together, and do you kind of see the light guess you could say the disorder going on in the other countries, do you o see that actually having ancoun effect on the next presidentialc election?n th >> guest: i don't know what the impact of the presidential , race but i think you raise an interesting point that we were not seeing demonstrations here w like you e were seeing in the u. with students riding the streets with the dramatic rise iner heition for colleges and t universities. you were not seen the protests that you are seeing in greece with some of the spending and budget cutbacks over there. w and the reason was we weren'teng doing anything. we were not doing anythingeason dramatic. and so nobody had any reason to protest because we weren't e king a lot of the action.ld b it would be very interesting to watch to the lives talking toy j some british government officials the other day and the

budget cutbacks that primm and mr. cameron has put into playut they don't really start kicking in until april and that's where the sort of pain from the cutbacks of the very aggressive moves to try to balance the budget start kicking in.taking i but as the budget cutbacks, juneau, severe cuts start going into place, yes, you are going g to have people start screaminghs bloodyta murder. that is what happens. but the fact is we were not trimming the budget so we were not having the protest. the protests are a logical ls il outcome when you start you administering tough medicine. st maybe the cutbacks go too far, maybe they don't go far enough. but that's taking the budgeteau cutbacks, spending cutbacks this results in pain and when there'. pain, people scream and that's the way it works relating to our going to see a lot more of it

and weather impacts on thetsn presidential race, don't know. >> host: we are talking with charlie cook, commentator and analyst on msnbc and writes for the national journal group including "congressdaily." he's a writer and contributor tr washington quarterly and the editing publisher of the cook of political report. we have a tweet saying obama mabey carter if unemployment remains high and gas is at $5 a gallon. how can he possibly be reelected with the hypothetical? how do you respond? o, f rep >> guest: first of all i am not an economist for an energy expert. my hunch is you're going to be seeing an energy price come down a good bit. n't think the situation in t libya is coming to remain wheret %t is within a week or two weeks tr a month. that is justha my hunch.ke we see the oil slicks that o economists will tell you we'll have to remain extraordinarily high for about a year before itt starts having a severe economic

impact. it wilel have a political impac, but before that, and in terms o unemployment, thmy general rulef thumb in the last report was 9%p the one before that was kind ofn squirrely, we have to see what that looks like.t the one before that was 98. but now it's sort of a 994. thik i think unemployment is about 98 going into the election and its went be hard for president obama to get reelected but if it drops 8wn to sort of around 8% roughly closer to 8% i think it will be very hard forreper klano republicans to debate. keep in mind unemployment had been at 10.8% at the time of 1982. the midterm election, ralfion an riggins's midterm election and dropped all the way down to 7-for and he won a landslide. this is going to drop to 7-forp and we aren't going to see 49 state obama landslide, but it is

8123i think this chance of thi3 getting reelected are very good, and if c it is 86 come 789%, tht is tough for him. t and i think specifically comment when it is the single -- if i whethe had predicted whether president obama is going to get free elective or not and if i had a choice of knowing who thewing wo republican nominee is going to be or what the unemployment rate is going to be i would rather know the on plan africa because it and ultimately it is more important, not to say that the republican nominee isn't important, but it is at' referendum on the president ande number two, people vote the pocketbooks. vote the p >> host: charlie cook as always we appreciate your time available at c-span.org and that cook political.com. have you back any time to read >> guest: thank you for the nice comments everyone.

coming up next on c-span2, a world economic forum discussion about economic growth. then at new ideas and financing health care and charlie cook of the cook political report gives an overview of the 2012 political landscape. [inaudible conversations]

>> 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, which i expect it will. we are 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 year less than a year ago.

we are very pleased we have got this arrangement with the ministries and officials in afghanistan. before i introduce the panel, let me welcome afghanistan's new ambassador to the united states. we are very pleased to have you here. ambassador, we hope he will be here regularly or at our new facility. thank you peery much for being here. and ambassador tony wayne is also here. welcome. very good to have you. we also have added minister at the national defense university. we are very pleased this morning to have two very distinguished ministers, very senior ministers, very experienced ministers from afghanistan. mr. wardak of defense has had experience which he can describe and i'm sure you have questions for him back to the time when he was fighting the soviets.

he remembers many of the battles, many of the locations that took place then and those that terrain and that battle. we were talking last night. he's also spend some time in the united states doing some infantry training. he has been an airborne ranger having been trained at fort benning. so we are very pleased that mr. wardak is here. he's joined by the minister of interior, the minister which as people know has the police under his command, and this is a challenge he has taken on with enthusiasm and to great reviews but his colleagues as well as the mentors that are in

afghanistan from the coalition forces. finally, we have retired general varno who spent time with the u.s. forces, and i see that he was succeeded by several people now in putting general petraeus and so they were all filling his shoes and joe barno is now of course with the center for new american security, and we are very pleased to have general barno here. what we hope to do is to invite the minister wardak to make some comments this morning followed by a minister mohammadi followed by general barno. we hope he will be able to get your questions in. we have people in another room right down the hall who may also have questions so if you see people handing me a little cards

i will be relating those questions in the overflow room. this is a time for afghanistan and the coalition forces supporting the afghan forces. we are looking at a transition. we are looking at a transition now over four years rather than a shorter transition people have 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 is both for the ministers and the forces that the command and for myself as it prepares to turn over the profits district by district responsibility for the security and these areas. so, this is a great time for us and we are pleased to able to host the two ministers and i'd like to invite minister wardak

to make informal remarks. we talked last night and he said he doesn't want to make a formal speech. i said please don't make a formal speech, but your comments and thoughts as you are looking for work in 2014. minister wardak. would you like to speak from here? debate >> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. it has been a privilege to participate in this panel that some of our dearest friends and to others such prominent audience in this prestigious institution. i would like to begin first once again i need to express profound gratitude and the deepest appreciation of the afghan government, the afghan people for all of the help, assistance and cooperation and the most genuine support which has been

provided by u.s. particularly, with nato and the nato partners to my wartorn country. they are definitely playing a vital role in shaping the destiny of my devastated nation. i'm sure you are aware that danger which we are encountering recognize no geographic boundaries accept the human civilization and it cannot be overcome a single nation regardless of however far. so therefore it is needed strategic global response and a coordinated concerted effort by the community of nations if we are going to defend of your collective freedom otherwise no

place will be safe whether it is located on the surface of this plan -- plan planet. we are at a juncture and the media is portraying a picture that has been the longest war and in nine years we have not made any progress. much progress is made. i think the answers are really simple. i think we have underestimated the enormity of the rebuilding a nation institution and its infrastructure which have gone through three decades of war and

destruction. also, we underestimated the threat that the afghan national security forces 70,000 army and 60,000 police were far below based on the task on any other historic example. the insufficiency of the forces have much negative impact on conducting the proper counterinsurgency operation. relaunching too much on counterterrorism operation and also air strikes have alienated some of the population.

and also afghanistan was an economy of goods for many in 2007 and 2008 seeing some effort to build a credible afghan security force. and tonight we also have to admit there has been under performance and also the implementation of the aids programs with the overhead charges that have trained a lot of those forces and also weakened the afghan institutions so we have come a long way on the difficult journey but the announcement of the strategy we had was clear, and it wasn't a

strategy that was focused on the antiterror but on a comprehensive the bitter campaign which has the element to defeat the ideology and give us a lasting peace, and it had all elements of success which we have long since 2002. based on that strategy now our mission is unequivocal and clear for the elfgin population. we've all agreed explicitly that it is unacceptable, and all efforts have to be directed to assure the afghan government

authority and to reinforce the government's legitimacy. based on that to ensure we have all agreed to the growth of the nash gandy beagle afghan national security forces and improved government rule of law in the economic diplomat and strengthen our partnership with forces come afghan with operations including the transfer operation transfer of detention and also produce full support dhaka can lead peace and reconciliation and strive to achieve regional cooperation,

and finally, to optimize all elements of the afghan national. all these years i think you've been saying to secure afghanistan is to enable the young afghans themselves. poor it means to be able to defend the nation independently having isaf, nato and the united states is a strategic partner in support. and we do believe the afghan solution is cost effective and less complex and it will save lives for our friends.

now briefly i will touch the security situation. as you are all aware the enemy attacks have increased so the interest exclusive devices and respond to the number of casualties that have risen also. but some of it is because isaf and the afghan national security forces were operating for the first time in some areas which the of never won before coming in the meantime there was a high temperature operation for to isaf and afghan national security forces. so with that, i think the

violence had peaked during the the election, but after that with higher operation in isaf we were able to gain the initiative , 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 helmand and also in kandahar. we were able to establish control and some of the most difficult parts of the enemy territory, and the result is now the people are not oppressed any

more. the the right to choose what they are exercising and the perception of security in the government has improved immensely. and just to mention i think there are really good indications that there is a change in the tie on our table. if the key to success in operation is going to be support of the people, then in that case i think we are getting that support. and that can be illustrated that the number of ied which we help the people have been between 70 to 80% in the last two or five months it has been that high and

has been identified with the help if you compare to those of nine it was 163 and now for the last three months of 2010 it was over a thousand. and the reason this has gone much higher. what we've done during these operations we have focused conventional forces on protecting the population and directed our special operations forces to keep the enemy off balance and that is the result to have statistics the enemy has suffered and the fighters and

taliban have been the case is that in three times the government appointed eliminated captured or killed so there is improvement which is concerned and we are hopeful that we have the capability enough that though i think some of those are predicting that the coming year will be bloody and difficult but i hope that will not be the case in the enemy is using the fighter now and the suicide attacks will taken place recently. i think most of it is the firefighters and also that shows some sort of desperation that in actual combat operation they have lost their confidence to

have the news making sensational attacks the multiple suicide as combined with commanders. if i go to the afghan national army, the afghan army continues to be a success story. i'm not saying it's perfect. there is a lot of improvement. it's difficult to raise an army and fight at the same time, but it is actually and a symbol of reform and it is the new afghanistan illustrating a hour transformation to a nation which we would like to take once again in its own hand. we have with exhilarated growth, which was approved weaver

worried that the quality of the force might be in danger, but fortunately that has not happened. the quality has improved more than 50% in the quality of the first based on all the statistics which are available and the result is more focused on the lesson learned partnering in isaf has enabled to sleep and learn and fight together so it has been a 24 our constant training process and in the meantime the trainees from one have improved from one to 29. so that question of quality we do hope in the future we will be able to make further

improvements the other issue accelerated growth have enabled us to about number our forces in a major operation like in kandahar i think it was 60 to 40% of the isaf forces. and now i would like to say that how i see the future and what is ahead how we will go and proceed. so i think that our journey to the line and professionalism will continue but even bigger. so we will also improve performance through accountability and reinforcing our codes of conduct. with improved attention i think we will reach the 378,000 figure

ahead of schedule, ahead of october, 2012. we will also have positive improvement to self-sufficiency in combat, supporting combat service support units in our broad institution building. we will strive to lead more operations and also we will increase the proportion of the off the afghan national security forces in some of the future operations. we will try to change the winning of the war meant of perception which is - all along.

and as we become more comfortable to defend our territory we do hope the neighboring how worse will come to the conclusion and accept reality and then we will be able to establish a mutually beneficial relations which we have sought since 2002. with the help of friends and allies we will vigorously address the question of centuries. and we will apply all the lessons learned and the protection of the population and ensuring their participation, participation and government and rule of law security and economic development.

and based on our mutually agreed plan, i think we will commence transition which is of significance to the afghans and also to the international community. transition is the result of the already jointly agreed plan of the afghan ownership and afghan leadership. so all our fourth generation attempt operations will be conducted to work transition. and we have already agreed that it will be a process. it will not be just an event.

it will also not be touched from the realities on the ground. it will be also not and dictum -- victim and held hostage to the agenda for withdraw the commitment of the international community in the longer term. so we have all agreed that it will be meaningful, it will be conditions based, and eight

should become irreversible. so based on that, we are totally dedicated to the ways in which articulated by the president in his inaugural speech to take the lead of operations and the whole physical security responsibility in five years so we will not spare in the efforts of sacrifices to achieve that goal. it is in a prayer ready. it will be a priority for us. what security will be playing a major role in the process of the transition. and for that, i think we have to remind ourselves something that so far what we have built up in the national army it has been

totally centric it is a slight centric good for the counterinsurgency operation. and so for the transition to be irreversible, there is the requirement that had to gradually get all that we are now relying on isaf which they are now providing i hope these enablers will be providing as time passes and once this transition store to the full role of the isaf forces will come to supporting growth and that will also allow the gradual pulling out of the isaf forces. so for that, the forces which

are required for tiffin to italy analyzed by the institutions u.s. analysis center i think that should have been agreed. people have the question of sustainability, but i think what we're doing today in afghanistan the international community is spending 100 billion for sure for the u.s., and 20 or 30 million for the rest of the community that the money the afghan national security forces could be sustained for the year. so that is cost-effective. and the enablers are already

needed. we will need improvement in our firepower, our productive mobility but integrated firepower, and then some power ied capability, and most of it will depend on air transportation capability, the support of troops, ground troop by air and also in the aspects of the isaf forces fighting we should have the capability also to secure our airspace. in the meantime, i think that the cooperation would play a very decisive role, as far as all our joint efforts are concerned and even on afghanistan are closely linked to the development particularly

in the region. so in most cases the country where the terrorists or traffickers have located i think they can act better, can be law enforcement, intelligence operation or it can be a military operation or developing an educational system to counter the audiology of extremists. we do see a better prospect for coordination as a result of the two, three recent try apartheid's and other meetings with our neighbor and we hope since we now should be absolutely sure that we have a common enemy, a common threat so the cooperation, which between

the two countries should be reality and also inevitable. ..

rather in a greater context of regional and global security. we do hope that afghanistan approximatety and role in the region and there's a role between southeast asia and its projected mineral resources should be taken into account. it should be dealt with as relevant and rely on partner in the future for peace keeping operations and also relations of mutual interest. just one last comment, i think, and then i will stop. i think after many years of

struggle, our goals or insight, what matter is we are well -- the cards have been high and the stakes even higher. the good news is that the hope has been replaced by progress though it has been deadly doug. -- bought. the debt of gratitude we can never be able to pay. we pay tribute to all those who have given the ultimate price

for the struggle of stability and prosperity of afghanistan. no one knows more than our afghans the pain of losing a loved one. we pray for the families of the fallen and owl -- all the wounded. 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 requires. we are quite confident that you will stay with us in this last part of our journey which the

final destination is now weatherable, and i'm sure that we will prevail because of our causes that are just and our endeavor is a noble one. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> william -- >> can't hear you.

>> translator: in the name of god, most gracious and merciful. we gather today, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and thank you all for being here. i would like to express my gratitude to all of you for your presence here in the united states institute for peace. i would like to also express my gratitude to the excellency, minister of defense general wardif talking about the affairs, and i'd like to concentrate my talks with you on the afghan national police that

i've been heading for the last seven months for minister of interior. i am very grateful to have had the occasion to be here in washington and be here with you today. it has also been an occasion to have fundamental talks and conversations with our friends and ally here in washington, d.c. about the strategy for afghanistan and its future stability. most of all, 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. i am well aware that the cost of

the united states has been quite high, and it has cost the lives of many of your young men and women who have selfless sacrificed their lives. you remain committed to this assistance. the debt of gratitude we owe to your country can cannot be repaid, but it can earn the infinite gratitude and appreciation of the afghan nation. i serve as chief of general minister in afghanistan. i came to the interior at a time bh the afghan national police was facing severe challenges,

but during the eight months, also were results of growth, collaboration with my colleagues in the minister of interior as well as the support of the international community, we have made tangible progress. training and education has been the core at our list of priorities and during the last eight months, the capacity of our training centers has in connection withed from 950 -- increased from 9500 to over 12,000. one the main challenges also in the afghan national police has been the undereducation or illiteracy rate among peacemakers, as i'm here speaking with you, more than 20,000 officers are enrolled and receiving training and education in literacy courses and

education and other courses. leadership development has been our second highest priority. having committed professional leadership -- without having committed professional leadership, all of our efforts would be fruitless. on this path and towards this objective, over 66 general officers in over 2,000 police officers have been removed from their position due to erroneous conduct, and this will continue this process started from the top, and it will continue to the lower ranks. corruption is another high priority that we're focused upon during the last eight to nine months. we have taken many tangible and fundamental steps and actions, and we have made significant

changes in the leadership structure, the hiring and retention based on proliferation, accountability, transparency in contracting, and also filtering out those who have potential ethically questionable backgrounds. we have improved the criminal investigative division as well as the prosecution of those who were involved in corruption at any level. in order to increase the transparency and accountability, new commanding officers have been sent to all of the zones and provinces of the nation in order to vividly and tangibly verify the possibilities and the equipment and the supplies that each unit has available and with

which they operate. in order to increase the capability of a 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 permly verify -- personally verified the capability gaps and attempting seriously to decrease those capability gaps. the level of attrition has increased 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 results of joint nato and

afghan security forces 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 put a severe blow to the enemy. areas and provinces that were traditional safe havens for the enemy have been cleared of their presence. joint and nighttime operation between special operation and afghan security forces have hunted taliban leaders successfully as well as terrorist organization leaders and notorious drug dealers. this goes to show that our mutual strategy, that our mutual

strategy is our fight against this enemy has been correct and we have been on a road towards mutual success. the secret to our recent successes has been earning the trust of our nation, of our people. we now keep our presence in the areas that from which we drive out of enemy, maintain security, and we bring fundamental help to improve the daily lives of the people of the local pop populous. the development of the police force. given the level of security threats, the area the nation ties, and the level of the current threat, we have established the level of 170,000

for the personnel of the afghan national police forces in order to be able to bring widespread security throughout the nation. on this path, i would like to express my gratitude to the international community, in particular to the united states for having brought us vital assistance in the development and expansion of the afghan national police. the development of the afghan national police has been done with a great deal of concentration with the fact it is primarily a law enforcement agency. one of the priorityies -- one of the priorities of the afghan national police during expansion and development has been to separate the authority and responsibility between what is the afghan national police's and what falls on the shoulders of

the afghan national army. the transfer of responsibility, the transition. transition entered a sensitive phase, and it requires a logical and serious way of dealing with this phase as the afghan national police will shoulder the bulk of this burden because maintaining internal and domestic security is the primary role of the police. during the transfer, we must pay particular attention to the following points. increasing the capacity of the afghan security forces vis-a-vis their weaknesses as well as their equipment.

increasing the -- i apologize, decreasing their capability gaps by providing better equipment. the transfer must be done according to the realities of afghanistan as they are today. it must not be a political decision. we must ensure that the transition is indeed irreversible. it must ensure -- it must bring particular focus on the destruction of the safe havens in training camps of the enemy and the terrorist on the other side of our border. the sincere collaboration 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 pay the road to success in this transition. distinguished friends, we do believe that in our mutual fight against terrorism and the taliban ensuring the stability and security with the 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 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 nations, the people, and the police of afghanistan, i would like to again reiterate my gratitude for all of your country's assistance and sacrifices, and i do hope this state of assistance in training and developing our capabilities will continue during this upcoming phase. god bless you all. [applause] >> thank you minister mohammadi. >> i know the audience is really here to ask questions of our two distinguished guests -- >> three.

>> not including this one of course, and i'll be brief in my remarks here this morning. i'd be remiss if i didn't point out a late aifl, deputy secretary of defense who works the defense department's policy for afghanistan and pakistan and central asia and to my knowledge may be the most senior u.s. government official who's been working nonstop on this region devotedly since at least 2002 when i met him without any breaks, and he probably has a deeper knowledge of that in this room of people who are not afghans. it's great, senior david, and i hope we get some questions from you, and if not, i'm sure you will when we adjourn. i just came back from a trip in pakistan in late january. that was intriguing in light of conversation we've had so far this afternoon. i expect to get out to

afghanistan a little later this year and tromp around on the ground there a little bit. as bill noted, i'm a senior fellow at the center for new american security, and we just published a report that a coauthored called reasonable transition that tells what the five-plus years should look like in afghanistan. i'll draw on the research and the writing on that in light of the remarks of the two ministers here this afternoon. i clearly, if you're not aware, i'm not part of the u.s. government, and what i'm giving you is not the usip position. it's informed by having a deep family commitment in the afghanistan enterprise, not only spending time there myself, but two sons who are army captains, one already sent a year out there as a scout helicopter

pilot, and another is leaving in april in a military brigade. i get feedback whether i like it or not as to what's working in the captain level and i find that to be informative. i had the opportunity to listen to a former senior official of the afghan government who was coming through town talking to various groups, and at the end of his heckture, he -- lecture, he concluded by saying 30,000 taliban are not going to dictate the future for 30 million afghans. i raised my hand and say yes they are. 30,000 taliban have every prospect to takeover, unless the 3 million take prospect to war against the 30,000. clearly, this has been the tremendous extent to which the afghan national army which is

growing from a very tiny force when i was there of under 15,000, and the afghan national police have grown and developed and gotten into this fight in the last several years. that's a huge change that has gone somewhat unremarked here in the united states, and it's going to be more important than simply the status of where we are there today. it's 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. advisers and u.s. capability, but the large contingents of americans and nato forces that today are fighting that population center counterinsurgency campaign will be replaced by this growing number of afghan solders and -- soldiers and police, and they

won't be standing out there alone like in the past, but advised and mentored by nato forces and american forces, and that in many ways is their key to success. in the paper we wrote in december, we postulated a long term, post-2014 footprint with the united states and afghanistan along with selected alies with 25,000-35,000 troops focused on two primary missions. one, continue to put relentless pressure on al-qaeda and terrorists that can threaten the united states and the region, and secondly to advise, assist, and mentor the afghan forces to counter the battle against the taliban and their movement. that's an extremely long term dimension. my trip to pakistan was very

notable in connection with this dynamic in that for the first time i found the pakistanis beginning to believe that the u.s. is staying and not 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 can continue to enable and to advise and mentor the afghan security forces are a part of that commitment. clearly some ct, counterterrorist is part of that too. this has the potential to be a specific 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, afghans, as the taliban even, what will this look like the day after the americans are gone. if now the calculus begins to shift to how does this position,

our interest for the day that the americans are staying for the upcoming years we're we have to interact with the americans, that's a different calculus. our long term commitment to afghanistan going back to something minister wardak said is saying something about the region and not just afghanistan, and our presence there perhaps beyond 2014 with a modest sized force, and yet that has to be decided by the u.s. or the afghans, but i think that the confidence in the u.s. staying power is a strategic multiplier for us. where that confidence exists and where we can grow and nurture there, where we can convince the friend in the region that that's part of the plan to stay engaged, then we have a strategic leg up on the adversaries. where we continue to erode or contribute beliefs that we are looking to move for the exits and looking to the view in many of that world, abandon that

role. i look forward to that and entertaining a few of your questions. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you to all three. excellent presentations to get us started. the time is it's time for you to ask questions of any of the three. if i can get you to raise your hand when ryan comes from the mic, we can start here with the person here and please stand, state your name and quick question for them. >> yeah, sure. i'm jessica stone, a correspondent with cc english television. my question is for the minister of interior about the dangers of infiltration. we saw recent reporting that there's a new plan to be unvailed next month to prevent that. i'd like to hear more about that

and specific experience in afghanistan reporting on this issue, and it's only gotten worse over time. >> thank you. minister? >> translator: as you mentioned, one the enduring tactics remains to infill rate the ana and the security forces as a whole. unfortunately, as i'm sure painfully aware as we are, they have succeeded on these objectives many times.

>> translator: 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 somewhat foggy or not completely mental anguished or whose background may even be slightly yesble. indeed, that is decreasing the dangers of infiltration.

>> bob in the back. >> i'm bob, security director of usip. i have a question for the minister of interior. there are two new entities that are responsible of your ministry, one is the afghan local police and the other is the afghan protection force. can you give us a status report on the forces and answer the question raised as to whether or not these new forces are a distraction from the main work which is to focus on the afghan police. >> sorry, can you repeat that last part? i wasn't able to keep up. >> whether or not creating two new forces at the time you're working so hard on with the national afghan police is a distractions?

>> translator: i do believe that the creation of the afghan local police over the short term is much needed ingredient towards achieving the objective of security across the region in afghanistan. . .

[speaking native tongue] [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 their responsibility we are committed to executing the will of our president, which is to bring and encompass all of

the responsibility under the umbrella of the administration of the interior. we are working hard on executing the wishes of our president, and we are studying the best mechanism in which to do that. we have worked days and hours on end with his excellence excelled ambassador wayne. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: we are also certain that the temporary temp- 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. coming. >> i'm from voice of america. i work for a service that broadcasts in afghanistan. my question is for mr. wardak, withdrawal 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 is so bad. is there any guarantee that after the foreign forces withdrawal, afghanistan will not be the safe haven of militants again? >> actually, i think -- i have already explained that there's

drawdown of information forces will be very gradual. and it will happen as the way they have -- i will quote you the exact sentence that isaf will pin out as the afghan capacity increases and the threat level diminishes. so with that i think in the future, three or four years, i think there will be considerable progress and the capability and capacity of the afghan national security forces. but moreover what is really important that because of our location and 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 communities are committed for that. that's why we are already discussing the nature of our security relations with the international community and particularly the u.s. and i think general barlow has already explained, so i think we should not be worried that something like after 1989 and '90s will happen again in afghanistan. >> mr. wardak, let me follow that up. >> please. >> 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 allebundy, the "u.s. times," and "washington post" says they will

begin withdrawing from the bush she valley. do you think it will encourage tribes to seek a safe haven? >> i think i was the one that was interviewed by the "washington post," and actually, as we mentioned earlier, that are realignment of the u.s. forces based on this strategy of taxing the population is taking place all over. but as far as the kunar and providence is concerned, it is one the most difficult area in afghanistan. it is difficult. the area is not highly populated, but it's on root to three or four other valleys which are directly having access on the road to jalalabad from

kunar. i tried it myself. to cut it off in the old days. so it -- kunar providence has most important strategic significance than most of the providences in afghanistan. that is why the afghan jihads have initiated from kunar. before also, there were some -- against the government from the same providence because of the nature of the terrain. and then it's immediate proximity and accessibility to the other side of the boulder make it even more significant. so we have to make all of the proper arrangement for the afghan national security forces to be able to hold on to the

pech valley in absence. 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 air support, and fire support. if it was required. it will have a political implication also. if the pech valley results in the fall of the district, then i think it will have a lot of psychological impact and all is such the districts are falling. and moreover, whatever the importance that has been talk about insurgents coming from

pakistan. and going back and forth. we have this discussed with other pakistani neighbors which they are claimed that. so giving them this opportunity to come and have a safe haven essentially is what matters on the question of -- i mean this realignment of forces. so i will say in addition to it's military significance, and the nature of the terrain, there are other political and psychological imperatives which should make us to make the proper arrangement 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. >> thank you. joe barno, not speaking from isaf, but you have faced the same question about the cases of forces. any thoughts on the pech valley decision? >> we talked about this a bit before we came in the afternoon. i think the coalition, isaf is going to have to make difficult tradeoffs between where it can get the most affect out of the sources available. even with the surge that's brought 30,000 additional troops in this year, how they 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 route there. today in the pech you have small outpost that are remote and difficult to resupply. they are under a lot of pressure from the enemy, and they are not able to aggressively, and in

many cases get outside of the fence line to take the war forward. i think my assessment from the distance is that isaf has looked at positioning those forces elsewhere and controlling the terrain in a different way. that would could be in concert h afghan security forces. this is a change. and it's going to be, i think more common as begin to go through this transition starting later in the year. >> thank you. this is for radio of liberty. the concerns about pakistan in iran still remain in its place. because it is proved and confirmed by u.s. officials as well that taliban sanctuaries are in pakistan. and it's active inside pakistan,

and even the recent u.s. reports say that he was treated in the hospital by isi. according to these concerns, what do you think -- what should be -- what's the way how to deal with pakistan? and i want to hear on the same answer, and i want to have the same question from general barno as well. so what should be? how is 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 that have been a lot of attempted by the international community, the afghan government, and also the recent establishing the peace. 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 of these years, i think there are signs of improvement that we will have some cooperation that have been also recently some arrangement in the boulders that while there is an operation taking place on any side of the border, the other side will have to cooperate or making a blocking position or something like that. also, based on our experiences in the tribe par tide, and other engagements that we have, we 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 governments so the prospects of looking brighter. but still we have to work harder on the issue. and i think the entire international community is working on the subject as well as the afghan people and the afghan government. >> mr. mohammadi, you heard you in a conversation, when you are fighting the soviets, you used pakistani sanctuaries. so you know about the use of sanctuaries, as the taliban are now using them.

[speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i am sure that you do remember during the conversation that we previously had, i also pointed in no uncertain terms in order for this transition to go from this initial phase towards a successful conclusion in continuity 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 and and -- sine

and honest collaboration of our neighbors. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: yes, and also, indeeding i did point out that during our use, his excellency

and myself fought. during the years, i also said we used to take refugee in pakistan, launch attacks, and take refugee in pakistan again. at that time, the focus of the world was in backing our movement and our fight for freedom. this is why because we had refuge in pakistan and because there was a concerted worldwide effort, we were able to defeat one the two super powers of the world. and the same thing that i say to you is valid today. until the pakistan -- the taliban and al qaeda terrorists are not purged from their safe havens, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for the world community to ultimately and decisively bring them to their knees. >> general barno? >> i think i'll give a different

perspective. based on my recent vision. i've been to pakistan 12 or 14 times. this was the longest visit. i was there for a week. and i had access to senior people in the military and civil service and other elements of the government, intelligence agencies, academic students, governors, so i had a fairly wide cast of people that i talked to. i'm also very sensitive to hearing talking points. and this is the first visit outf 12 or more i didn't hear the same script. i was having unique conversations. one of my major takeaways from the trip, if i can aggregate perceptions is 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 worse-case outcome -- take this

for what it is -- the worse-case outcome for pakistan today is a taliban victory. the second worse case would be pakistan having to deal with the civil war in the aftermath of a very rapid u.s. withdrawal. so they are very concerned about the impact of the war next door. so you might ask why is it that pakistan has by many descriptions, perhaps most, had a hedging strategy in afghanistan over the last several years that many commentators have argued provide sanctuary for the taliban, provide resource, and perhaps 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. and i believe their hedging strategy was based upon ensures 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 block, stock, and barrel after the defeat of the 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. that's beginning to, i think, change their game plan as far as hedging through the taliban. you know, we are 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 are only beginning to do that though. >> sir? >> okay. here's a mike. there you go. >> 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 the pakistanis are unwilling or perhaps unable to close the sanctuaries? what do we do then? >> actually, we -- i think we

have not discussed here that we have launched the kind of effort in peace and reconciliation. i think that is a great potential in reintegration, because everybody is not a radical extremist. the one who are fighting us today. they have different grievouses. and the way the situation is evolving in this regard, i think we can deprive them from their foot soldiers and their mid level and low level commanders, and that will have the impact. but if we can solve the question of the sanctuary, then i think our our -- we will have a shorter -- shorter journey with less effort. and less loss of life and blood. that won't be the easier way to come and solve the problem. but even if that did not take

place, then the requirement will be to make arrangement that all afghan and pakistan turn, and that arrangement has to be deprive from them also. them, i mean through the reconciliation and reintegration to deprive them from having all of the foot soldiers. i think that is very much possible. and i do believe that in the coming year, we will see some significant reintegration events. >> thank you, minister. minister mohammadi, would you like to address that question about if? no. okay. good answer. good. very good. yes, sir? this -- mr. mohammadi has another meeting downtown. let's see how the question goes. it might be the last one. >> hi. my same is samhadi, i'm from

afghanistan tv, i'd like to ask my question in personal and if possible, please translate. >> i am. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> i wanted to ask his excellency, the minister, whether in the recent talks in washington, d.c., where you have come across the topic of permanent bases in afghanistan or not. if you have come across this topic, what result has it yielded -- has it given so far? >>[speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the second question is directed to his excellency the minister of interior howe howe -- mohammadi. there seems to be a mixed message, particularly when you earlier mentioned as successful, joint nighttime operations that have eliminated a lot of high command level and mid commander level capabilities from the

taliban and terrorists organization and yielded the apprehension, or elimination of high value targets in general. when we go back to his excellency karzai, he seemed to be against the 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? >> yeah, i'm not sure shall i talk in his language or mine -- english. >> english would be fine. >> yeah, actually on the invitation of secretary gates, not to -- on the subject of discussing the strategic partnership -- but actually i will tell you that this issue of

basis have been blown out of proportion in the media. this 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. that's about -- our purpose for this trip was not discussing the basis, but we did discuss the nature of our relations after 2014. which will be related to some sort of strategic partnership, and both sides have a lot of emphasize on the need of that, but the actual official talking and discussion on the issue is

going to take place later on some time in the future by u.s. government and also the designated members of the afghan government. so that is actually has been dealt as a separate issue. which will be worked out in the future. >> thank you, minister. [speaking in native tongue] [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, indeed, joint nighttime swift operations have dealt back breaking blows to the enemy, eliminating high value targets but high level and mid level commanders as far as high profile and active drug dealers. i will say this again and again because i am convinced of it. 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 that was anticipated. and there have been a very fundamental tool. i'd like to reiterate that again and again. there was a concern from president, not a difference in policy, or political views, or anything like that. >> mr. wardak, mr. mohammadi, mr. general barno, thank you very much. you've been frank and given us your opinion on all of these things. i also want to thank the people that asked questions and people that came out. very good questions, as always, from this crowd. please join me in thanking these three panelists. [applause] [applause] >> and we can allow mr. mohammadi to leave the building. >> are you going this way?

: [no audio] >> coming up next on

c-span2, a world economic forum about economic growth, and then new ideas in financing health care, and charlie cook of the cook political report gives an overview of the 2012 political landscape.

>> at the world economic form up, ban ki-moon joined leaders from mexico and other countries on how stainability can lead to economic growth. they talked about the role of businesses and the advances made in technology and the environment. bill gates and mike duke, the ceo of wal-mart, debate the issues in this one hour event. >> welcome, everyone. our subject this morning is can the state of development drive growth? how? what are the strategies? what do we know that works?

what have we tried that hasn't worked? with me this morning to kick off this panel to have secretary general ban-ki-moon to address us on the subject here in a moment, then we'll go down the panel, and then open it up for discussion. secretary general? >> good morning, everyone. i thank the heads of state and government, the distinguished panelists, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, for most of the last century, economic growth was fueled by a certain force. the abundance of natural resources. we found our way to prosperity. we lived in consumption without

consequences. those days are gone. the 21st century surprise are running short and prize running high every day. climate change is also showing that the old model is more than obsolete. it has rendered it extremely dangerous. the model is a recipe for a natural disaster and a global suicide. what do we do in this current challenging situation? how can we create in this constrained environment? how do we live millions of people from poverty while protecting the ecosystems that support economic growth? how do we remain the balance?

all of this requires rethinking. sometimes out of box thinking. here, this meeting of the mighty and the powerful represented by some key countries of presidents, it may sound strange to speak of revolution, but that is what we need at this time. we need a revolution. revolutionary thinking, revolutionary action, free market revolution of market stability. it is used to work for sustainable development, but to make it happen, we have to be prepared to make major changes in our lifetimes, and we need models of social organization and our political life. we have to correct the dots

between private change and what i might quote here, wef, water, energy, and food. [applause] i have asked the president halonen and others to connect those dots as they lead our high level panel on global stainability. in fact, i have to tell you that the present halonen was here yesterday evening -- the president was here but because other situations, he had to leave this morning, and so he asked to convey his excuse and his regards to all of you. i have asked the panel members, high level panel members to tackle the tough questions. how do we organize ourselves economically? how do we manage scarce

resources? that triggers our discussions here. i have asked them, the high level panel members, to bring us the good visionary recommendations by the end of this december so that these recommendations can be fed into intergovernmental process until we have a summer meeting. as we begin our discussions, let me highlight the one resource that is scariest of all, the time. we are running out of time, time to tackle climate change, time to have sustainable green economies, green growth, time to generate a clean energy revolution. the sustainable development agenda is the fourth agenda for the 21st century.

to get there, we need your participation and your leadership. we need you to step up, spark innovation, leadly action. lead by action. invest in renewable energy for those who need them most, your future customers. create energy access in developing countries, your market of tomorrow. join the global compact, the largest corporate stainability initiative in the world. invest in those stainability principles into your strategies, your operations, your supply chain. for government leaders sitting here and around the world, send the right signals to build the green economy. together, let us tear down the

wars, the wars between the development agenda and the climate agenda between agencies, government, and civil society, between global security and global stainability. it is good politics and good for society. what we are really talking about is going back to the future. the asian saw no division between themselves and the natural world. they understood how to live in harmony with the world around them. it is time to recover the sense of living harmoniously with our economy and our societies. now to go -- not to go back to imagining the past, but to reap confidently into the future with cutting

edge technologies with the best of science and entrepreneurship to build a safer, cleaner, and greener more prosperous world. there is no time to wait, and thank you for your commitment. thank you. [applause] >> secretary general, thank you very much. you know, president of costa rica has a saying that i like which is there's no planet b, so plan a better work. [applause] president halonen, can you bring us up to date on how plan a might work? >> thank you. as secretary general ban ki-moon already mentioned, we took a risk on cochairing this panel where we have a couple members already with us in order to find a new model or find new ways to

have supportive development because we all know that we have this modern trinity that we need which is economic growth is welcomed, but it should be with social justice, and it should fit also in all the class range. mr. ban ki-moon talked much about what we are lacking or what scarce resources, but what i would say is we have the other resources we can use. activity, of course, but also many other things, you know, to make this world more harmonious. i think the growth program has been that years ago it was said that we need this kind of trinity or dimension, but the problem has been that through

the years we have noticed this, three different items in very separated ways. we have, of course, the millennium growth, i mentioned that. we have faced the economic uprisings, what we have tried after to do a little bit better, but the basic model is still something we can expect to cause more of this kind of a crisis. we have, of course, a commission concerning the social and globalization and we all agreed, all sides of the society that we need the fair globalization which would put more pressure upon jobs because luckily enough the people want their earnings with a decent job both in the south and in the north, and then, of course, we have become more and more realizing that there is really only one planet

and climate is a necessity for all of us. of course, food crisis, oil crisis, financial crisis, all these areas now and then awake us, but we now should find together the way how we can people these almosts of this modern trinity together. yes, good economic growth, but in this area of social justice and globalization frame. i would say that concerning energy, if we are keeping us in the traditional way of using the energy of the using of resources of energy, so, yes, we are letting them go in the future, and we also have to look at the side effects, but if we are more into other techniques, comprise renewable energy resources and find also other ways how to be

smarter in that, so we have a lot of possibilities. if we invest in people, i know coming from the country with the gas and oil and also have pretty hard winter, yes, so we know investing in people educates them is one of the good answers not only for the research and the quality of life, but it's also, you know, has some effect in birthrate and some aspects what i think, bill gates, he will speak about that, but then also i would say gender. if you look at this panel, you have to believe that mr. ban ki-moon has made a different kind of panel. this panel of stainability of the we have 50/50 concerning the women and men, and i think it would be one of the key answers. thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause]

>> you're coming from the private center, technology business, half the people here are carrying blackberries i'm sure. >> two-thirds. >> two-thirds? okay. one thing we know about pollution is it's waste. it's wasted money and resources. what can you tell us from the way you develop your products now that might be applicable and scalable for countries thinking about sustainable development? >> well, i mean, thank you very much, and i think there's a little we can learn, and, of course, you got to do sustainable practices and, you know, it's not only how you make the products and also what goes into it, but also how you consume the infrastructure that it works with, but, you know, i'd like to, you know, i think there are bigger questions at hand really, and so i think, you know, to start off, i think it's

remarkable that the forum tackled this issue early. i think the people here have done a remarkable number of things and obviously serve on the high level panel which is enably chaired with cochair president halonen, but i think we have to ask ourselves bigger questions than just business because if you look at the bruntland report, all the great things that business is doing in these sphrr good initiatives, and all the great things that the forum is doing, the problem is far worse than it was 20 years ago, and it gets worse at an increasing rate every year. though we do things, i don't want to come here as a keeper of false positivism, and because i don't think i'm doing any real service to the issue. i agree with the secretary

general and president halonen. i think we must be extraordinary ambitious here. i don't think we can be incremental. george and i announced the institute for new economic thinking in our funding into it yesterday. my view is we have to fundamentally rethink economics. you know, you've had waves of economics over the years. adam smith who kicked it all off, and keens at a time when institutions were messing up, and friedman when we were in crisis. i think now it's a crisis of confidence in economics. we didn't know how -- we thought we knew how the markets worked, but we didn't with the crisis so there's gaps in the understand of economics. there's gaps in the global institutional apparatus.

there's -- and also how do we bring in public goods? that's the thing where they are coming at this with an enormously difficult thing to do, and we don't know how to bring in public goods into economics. we also, i think, one of the things we have to ask ourselves here at the forum is what is the role of the forum in a problem that we know is getting worse at an increasing rate even though we are doing vir choose things? i think this is something, you know, do we redefine the role of fiduciary? my job is a private fiduciary, but should i have a public fiduciary role, and should public have a fiduciary role, so i think -- >> answer that question. >> well, i think we're in a pretty deep hole, and the measures we've been taking for

20 years have though they are virtuous and commendable, the problem gets far worse every year, and the only question is can you stop a run away train? you know, my personal thinking, absolutely. i think you should bring in the public fiduciary of the role. i think you have to rethink economics, and i think you have to be weary of both positive -- follows positivism and tech is an engine that plugs into the framework you give us. if it's a framework of global conflict, they make technology tools for conflict. if it's an era of enjoyment, they make consumer tools. if it's an era of dealing with scarcity and factoring better management of goods, technology innovates to that. don't think it's an answer into its anymore than markets are an

answer to themselves. that recursive thinking is a very, very dangerous one, but i think it's a time of tremendous opportunity. i think you not only have to rethink economics; rethink your institutions, your standards, transparency, measurement frameworks, and remember, we've hit times in this world before where there's been enormously radical thinking in economics, things like taking away slavery, eradicating smallpox, so we are beings capable of radical rethinking, and anybody who steps back and looks at this issue says, you know, we're not dealing with this particularly well, and, again, the one thing i'm going to say is to business, what is their role in this crisis when you know the very good things specific business is doing is virtuous, corporate responsible, and sustainable in its own element, and yet the problem get far, far worse every

year any way you look at the map. >> thank you. president yudhoyono, you're a steward of the world's greatest tropical forest and biodiversity. i know you've been personally involved with the issue for a long time. how do you balance indonesia's aspiration for economic development and stewardship to the incredible environment? >> yes, that's our basic policy. on the one hand, we have to increase the weather of the people by helping the economy grow. on the other hand, we have to prop up the environment including perfecting our rain forests. what we are doing now is, of course, we need to have a strong

balanced inclusive and of course sustainable economy growth. conventional wisdom says by having the investment, export, appropriate government spending, and also household consumption, but, of course, we need to realize that we should not destroy our environment when food is coming, the energy, and our natural resources, so what we are doing now, and it is also our government policy in terms of protecting our forests, protecting the animal environment, we are continuously conducting deforestations, the reasons for them, working hard to combat forest fires, we are

saving wetlands found in many places in indonesia. we are also conducting a national campaign to plant 1 billion trees annually with a strong belief that 25 years from now our environment's not only getting back to normal, but we could actually improve the overall situation in the environment, so i believe very strongly that we should not contrast between the necessity of achieving economy growth and the obligation to protect the environment, but it is good because the public is how to redefine sustainable development from the perspective of

developing country, i would like to suggest a few things. >> please. >> first, if we talk about sustainable development in wider meaning, it means we have to have continuous growth. it means we need stronger economy capacity over the years, that our aim of economic development in indonesia. two, we have to improve the weather of the people. that's why we are committed to the achievement. it means less poverty, and we have to ensure that the growth is inclusive. we need equity, growth with equity. that's why we continuously empower our people including introducing financial inclusiveness so the small and medium enterprises, households have good access to microcredit just to give the opportunity to have a better life and in times of crisis, we need to think

about building social. it means people need job security and also we have to think about human security, how to overcome diseases, for example, in developing countries and indonesia, how to manage disaster that happens many times in indonesia, how to combat terrorism, how to maintain our foot security across the country, and last but not least, how to have a good government and continue sly combat -- continuously combat corruption. two moral factors. i do believe in order for the development to be sustainable, we need technology innovation. we need to be productive in conducting business. if those happen, it means our

development will be self-generating, and all those factors must be connected to our miranda rule -- moral obligation to protect the environment. that's the cornerstone in my view to economic development. >> thank you very much. mike dune? [applause] >> wal-mart probably has an economy bigger than several countries in this meeting so it's not unfair to ask you what have you learned about how one can marry profitability and stainability? >> sure. well, thank you, tom for the opportunity, and i'm honored to be serving on this panel, on this very, very important topic, and pleased to answer the question. i would say first of all in particular related to emerging economying around the world, i think all of us would say that we are pleased that there would

be rising middle class and people all over the world that are living better and have a desire to live better over decades in the future. i'd also say though that all of us would share that with this will also come great challenges. we do know that energy cost, i would expect to rise continually over long period of time. i think we could all expect that food and the demand for food will more than double, and with that will come many, many challenges for populations all over the world, so the challenges are immense, and it will require business, government, and all involved to be very aggressive in new innovative ways to address these challenges so i think business does play a very, very critical role. business has a great responsibility, and business should not view this as a conflict between serving

shareholders because in my mind, there is not a debate or a conflict here of doing what's right for business and also doing what's right for the world and the future. the two will be necessarily should go hand in hand. i'd like to start a few things specific about wal-mart and probably focus on food. i think there's a number of areas we could spend time on, but even an example last week. we had an announcement in washington, d.c. with fist lady michelle obama related to health and wellness and specifically around food and what we seed in the united states in mature markets and emerging markets for the opportunity to create healthier foods for the customers and healthier foods that cost less. a customer should not have to decide to create their own decision about buying healthy

food versus what they can afford. affordability of good healthy food is a very important initiative that we're working on. there's a great deal of waste in the food supply chain. food from the farm that never makes it to the table. this is true in markets around the world. we see there's tremendous opportunity to reduce waste, create efficiency, and to have healthy food for families all over the world, and there are multiple approaches to doing this, and there should not have to be a conflict and should be able to help address the particular food issue. i'd say at wal-mart business leaders like myers and other -- myself and others in wal-mart have taken stainability very, very seriously. it's now a critical part of our dna, and i would say it's not just senior leaders. my desire, and i think we're on this journey is that every one of our associates worldwide would be engaged in helping to

participate in creating a more sustainable business and a more sustainable environment. we have over 2 million associates that work for our company all around the world in mature and emerging markets. we want every one of our associates to be engaged in this. real estate executives involved in stores should be very conscious of stainability in siting stores, designing more energy efficiency. our merchandising group works very closely with our suppliers to create sustainable products and to eliminate packaging and reduce the waste involved. our store operations, we have over 8,000 store locations, and in every location, we'd like our local management to be involved in recycling and involved in creating zero waste, but also in creating the most efficient delivery of products for their customers with many things like energy efficiencies so it should be a part of our dna.

the reason i believe it's so critical is because i think our customers are now going to have an expectation, a demand. one of the things that technology will bring is more transparency. i believe in the future, customers will want to know what's the stainability of every product, and we're working on with others in the industry what we call a stainability product index that a customer could have available and understand the footprint, the knowledge about the becket of any -- background of any product they purchase. knowledge creates that and creates sustainability for business, and i applaud that and it's welcomed and it will be a big, big step in that delopment, and business will play a critical role in the future. >> thank you very much. president calderon, i voted mexico city years ago, and it was incredibly dirty. i came back last year, and it

was amazingly improved. i know the effort and initiative your country put into this. please address this question from mexico's point of view. >> let me part of that -- let me start with that part of moment koa city in particular. what you do with a city of 2 # million people living there is establish a set of public policies in order to improve the conditions of air which is probably your concern, and that means to improve the massive transportation systems, change the quality of the gasoline, have subsidies, and to establish another kind of intent. for instance, carry out in new constructions in housing. however, let me address my point of view, the issue about sustainable development. the question is how to improve the conditions of the people, how to expand freedom and

capacities of the human being without jeopardizing freedom and capacity of the future generations, and as the president was saying, the key is to combine economic growth, equality, and, of course, protections, preservation, and even restoration of the natural resources or natural capitol. the problem is that we spend decades discussing some kind of dilemma between economic growth and preservations of the natural capital, but now we need to find out how to break this gridlock or how to understand there is a false dilemma and that it is possible to establish economic growth and at the same time improve the equality of the societies. it is possible to promote economic growth and at the same time to preserve the nature and

help environmentally friendly public policies, and the key issue what are those issues, what are those public policies that reach these goals at the same time? in my opinion, we have tremendous opportunity to do that through all those public policies or measures that could reach those goals at the same time. first, we want to promote all those measures that are able to improve energy efficiency. that implies protection of environment, but also profits for business, better income for consumers, so any kind of measure in an enterprise, it is able to improve the efficiencies of the company. for instance, if you are able to produce the same for even more

amounts of products using wind energy, you will save money and protect the planet. same with transportation. you can improve the quality and quantity of massive transportation system in the city, and also you can protect environment. the other sources to use, renewable energy sources which is another amazing business opportunity because it is possible to make profits in that society, to make profits in a company promoting renewable sources of energy, so in my opinion, we can reach these public policies or measures like in two or three parts. one is there are a lot of public policies and measures that actually they have positive net

worth and value. long term life, good business. i can give an example. for instance, substitution of appliances, refrigerators or air-conditioning equipment for a new one that implies saving money for consumer and saving carbon emissions for society. the other is establishing renewable sources of energy in all those countries that have immense potential in that. for example, in the case of mexico, we have one the fifth best places to produce wind energy. we have potential, and we can save a lot of money, and we can save a lot of emissions as well. there are other measures that probably have not met net and value, but very important measures in order to save money

and save emissions as well. for instance, all established in the instrument that we are improving since last december. it is possible to establish with public policy in order to promote the preservations of rain foreases and -- forests and woods. for example, in mexico, we establish a system of payment for environmental services, so today, we are paying to the poorest rural communities, indigenous communities in mexico, we are paying real income transfer under the conditions that they can preserve the rain forest and even increase the natural resources they have. in this way, we are preserving nature, and at the same time we are improving the condition of the people and fighting poverty. those -- let me tell you, even in several cases is not only a

measure of equality, it's not only an environmental measure, it's also a profitable business because if you promote, for instance, plantations in all those places, it is possible to get very good profits and at the same time to preserve the natural resources and at the same time to improve the income of the poorest people. we must implement an environmental level of public policy in order to combine these goals, economic growth, equality, and preservation of nature. in the environmental field, today, we have a new instrument which is the new improvement of the multilateral agreement in which we establish measures in order to provide health for adaptation to poorest country, to transfer capacity and building technology for them, to establish the climate green forum which is new, and it is possible to mobilize a lot of resources for those purposes.

we established and improve in order to preserve forestry, and finally establish real commitment in sense of mitigation only to close and to say this, under careful protocol we got only a commitment of more or less 5% of reductions of emissions coming only from the mexico with the exception of the united states. under the copenhagen agreement, today, we have commitment for reductions of emissions of 14% coming from developed countries with the united states and china so there is a hope, there is a a very bold step in the right direction, but we need public policy in the countries, and we need more political action in political communities. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> bill, you got a chance to

look at this both from the business side and the foundation side, you know, working the field. gives us your -- give us your perspective. >> the word stainability can mislead us. there's nothing staying the same. world population is going to grow, and it's going to grow around a factor of 1.5. now, if we do the right things for children's health, if we get that vaccines out there, take care of babies in the first 30 days, we can have dramatic impact on the population, about 10%. any way you measure that whether it's the local areas where if you don't reduce the population growth, you won't have enough land to grow the food, you won't have stability, the environment will not be tanned there, or if you just look at the avoided co2 by 2100, those health

investments are for more economic than any other thing you could do having to do with the energy system or anything else, so in-- >> investments in family planning? >> reproduction health, vaccine, baby care which relative to other costs is quite small. that's another part that's very exciting because it serves so many purposes the health of the children, the low local conditions as well as the environment in the long run. the -- we want people to use more services. we don't want to sustain the current situation where the bottom two billion use very little energy. that is just the wrong thing, and there's going to be more energy use. every year for the next 100 years, more energy will get used, and so what you have to do is look at the innovation that says that the unit of damage or

problem per amount of energy used, that's where you have to have some mind blowing breakthrough. after all, that energy factor and even if you play with it by 20%, we're talking about a need for about a 90% reduction in the current impact there, and so you're just never going to get it by thinking about the amount of energy. somebody looks to the product and says, oh, it uses this much energy. the environmental footprint of that thing better be less in the future because of the innovation. now, innovation gets underfunded. you can't capture the benefits of innovation, and so it's very interesting. as people get together to talk about these challenges, the amount they talk about the population reduction issues and the amount they talk about facilitating innovation is very low, and yet those are the two dominant factors that determine

do we get to this thing in time? take innovation in foods, foods for the poorest, it's one of the most underfunded things. green revolution was funded by a few foundations and world banks. there's a chance for a green revolution two that can double productivity per acre. that's another one of the things where you don't use land you shouldn't use, help the local farmers, improve nutrition, so dramatic changes in innovation. i think we can be optimistic about innovation because if you had this panel in 1800 saying, you know, people are living 32 years on average, let's sustain that. if you had this panel in 1970 when people thought the population growth was out of control. why are people looking at -- why is the future today looking so much brighter if you look at

stainability any time previously? it's because of innovation, and yet we're not maximizing the cooperation, the investment, the tracking of the innovations particularly of those which would help the poorest which mainly come in health and agriculture things. i think we're slightly improving that. it is getting on the agenda of people who think about the food or climate issues, but i'm only optimistic because of that one element, not because it holds people back in terms of consumption or avoids all population growth. we can minimize that, but it's the impact per person where the opportunity is. >> you know, your point, bill, reminds me that i got several side conversations, one with a friend just walking in here, but with other business leaders that certainly one of the key engines of innovation is the american economy, and we have so failed

in the energy realm to put in place a clear framework to foster and nurture clean tech innovation. my question to you and all the panelists is this -- you know, this has been a bad year for climate as far as the united states is concerned. climate change became a four letter word in american politics this last year. it was not a part of the debate. one party openly mocked it. the other ran away from it. we have a boscoe energy climate team, and they have basically been in a witness approximate program for the -- protection program for the last 15 months. can we get where we need to go at the speed, scope, and scale here, and please don't be polite here, without a different approach by the united states of america? it is possible without politics

we will not have a clean energy bill by the year 2013 at the earliest. who would like to respond to that? secretary general? >> why we are discussing very important subject of sustainability environment. i think this sustainable growth shouldn't start from tiny change. i said jokingly wef, that this is not world economy forum, but water, energy, and food, but climate change should be the starting point, entry point of all stainability growth. without that, i don't think we will be able to meet all of this important pillars. in fact, during last four or five years, international

communities why we have not given enough is frustrating, but at the same time we have made programs. last year, we made good progress in reduction of emissions from forest and key countries made commitments and how to keep the red cross coming sustainable by providing some alternate sources for people who have to depend on life by cutting wood. we have to have certain moratoriumsment i think that was a good -- moratoriums. i think that was good progress. we made progress in financing. as you know, i have established the high level advisory group on

climate change of financing led by prime minister of norway and ethiopia. they have provided good workable recommendations, $100 billion a year by 2020 for the developing countries so that they can assess and mitigate these very serious consequences. we have gained the climate green funds which has been very passionately promoted and initiated. we have funding now so we have to make it operational. there is technology transports to developing countries. these are developing countries, they do not have capacity. it's making mostly realize countries starting from united

states and european countries. they have to provide this technology, support so that they can mitigate challenges. capacity building, all this five areas we have made progress. as we are discussing at this time on sustainable development, there is some questions rised. are we not taxing this climate change? no, we are tackling it. we are continue to tackle this climate change as a priority issue to make this a sustainable growth possible. that is one thing, and i fully agree with what the president halonen said. women empowerment is very much important. i'd like to add when i say wef, water and women. women empowerment. when women are empowered, then

you will have a much added value, much added productivity. the society of women has been largely wasted and ignored. that is why united nations have established from january of this year, we have established very ambitious support and major agencies dealing with women issues. now, women empowerment means everywhere, in health area, education area. when mothers have care and pay attention to their children, we have educated children and healthier children. these will be the foundation. therefore, let us look at all comprehensive ways, all the way, more comprehensive way starting from climate change, water, women, energy, and food. now, we are suffering from this rising food prices. energy, and i think the many

private companies, they have invested money on renewable energy, alternative energy sources, and this is quite encouraging. most of the countries now try to develop solar energy, bring the power energies. this is encouraging, but we have to do more on all comprehensive, but climate change is the entry point. thank you. >> it certainly is the entry point. by i want to go -- but i want to go back to my question. would we be entering that point at the speed, scope, and scale we need if the united states were more of a leader and not a lagger on this issue? >> we need not to be modest? if we want to be a little critical, i think this climate change campaign should be led, must be led by developed

countries. this hasn't started from industrial revolution and largely united states and european countries they have to be globally political responsible. united states has the largest economy and superpower. the superpower of the world should take political leadership and also investing in energy and other areas. president obama has taken this issue very seriously, but i know some difficulties in american domestic politics, but this congressional support and indigenous support to the administration, that will be key. of course, that should also be followed by china, india, russia, major emerging economies. it is not something in which

others wait for others to do something. you have to do your own homework before other people. there is a certain, you know, psychology gains between the united states and european countries and china, india. they ask you should do it first. i think all the proposals out on the table. we know each other's positions, and i think they should be responsible for the humanity. we have some responsibility to keep this world sustainable. about ten days ago i was in united arab emerites attending future of world energy summit. there i learned a very moving,

very powerful wording. what they said is that we have not inherited this planet earth from our ancestors. we have just borrowed temporarily this planet earth from our younger generations, following generations, but we have political and moral obligations to return this planet to our following generations in a more sustainable, hospitable environmental sustainable way. thank you. >> thank you. president halonen? >> this is not a provocation as clearly said. after the copenhagen summit when we were all so disappointed, i said come on, friends, with the previous administration in government, we couldn't agree whether it was climb warming or

not, and now we agreed in that. now we have had some difficulties to see which kind of a steps we can get taken. i completely agree everybody wants to be the girl in the class who does the homework and others continue their life the way they used to do it. we have only this one, and it's not enough if the u.s. and europe would do their work. i don't see any of these or need to repeat mistakes because it's not effective or ecological, and it's not even profitable in the future, so you can jump over that and you will be better. in that way, i have been also very happy that those countries which have a lot of resources in energy, gas, and oil, of course,

it's a benefit for them, imu they have been more and more now investing in the new forms of energy, renewable energy resources, and i also agree that consistency in energy is one of those that if we can be better there, so we do oh, that's good because it cause stress, causes less carbon, and as long as we need it, it's effective. more and more, and i would say i'm pretty optimistic in what's coming in the balance of political and economic. what i'm more worried is all these brush fires we have in economics so we have no time to make radical change. we know that for instance international financial infrastructure had these difficulties. we know that professors and many

others said already many, many years ago that we have this weaknesses, but before we are facing the issues and we are not willing to change. this is happening with everybody's individual welfare. you do it. you have to do it. in the day you face what has happened when you have not done this, beginning to make all these changes that is needed, and this is concerning our own planet too. i'm very happy for this discussion so far because we have taken already the individual level, the consumer's power, we have faken the -- taken enterprises and taken also the national, the importance of national states because we have to push them to do everything at the local and national level and also to be more open in the global discussion, so why not?

>> thank you. i'm going to open it to the floor to questions. we have a lot of people here, and i know they are burning with questions. if you stand up, identify yourself. we have a microphone coming and direct your question. the first row, lady in row. >> i'm from korea, chairperson of ms holdings. two suggestions for two solutions as so actionment one is ban ki-moon take on advantage for women and young generation. >> again, i didn't get that? >> niche nigh tar u.n. -- initiative for u.n. opening up to young children and women. they have the power to reshape the world. it's unbelievable. give the tool and the window to educate these consumers and also let them have current opinion

and companies or countries that listen or have to follow and to be superego, we should condemn them. women care for the future generations, and therefore if we can find solutions, initiatives for u.n. at the individual level. let's create the human web to really create like a million or even thousands of people to talk about the issues and reshape the future course in the work. therefore, i want to suggest and also a suggestion to business. the stainability of the economy can want be obtained without peace. if you look at the initiative which in my home country, north and south korea notice and it's powerful struggle over the island as our current history of 5,000 years have shown.

going over six parties talk, i feel fun le like i did -- funny like i did a joke, why not peace village with the north and south and educate for young kids from north and south come together, also, to create leaders. i like to suggest have a common peace treaty. >> thank you very much. that's helpful. another question? right here. >> i'm -- [inaudible] secretary ki-moon a change for lifestyle change.