with regard to the citizenship thing so that people avoid -- avoid creating negative situations for ordinary people as a result of the formation of two states, so hopefully we have the necessary responsibility will be done to create the possibility for the two states to draft the citizenship legislation which will then define who is a citizen and enable people to decide to choose as to where they want to belong. ..

>> southern and the north go home. then i take their car and house or whatever to avoid. then, when it got to the second question which was about libya, fortunately, we have not dealt with these two issues. they are -- i'm saying unfortunately because it is

complicated and difficult. other people have had to deal with them. no, we haven't discussed these things as a parliament. and i understand that the chair, the chairperson of the commission of the african union is in washington. >> he'll be here tomorrow. >> he'll be in this building tomorrow. that will be the opinion to ask this question. let him answer. okay. >> [laughter] >> it's the same. as i say, we are a partner with sudan. the -- in december, you remember the elections in da -- it was in the second of november. immediately more or less after that problem arose, so the

african union and the chair of the commission of the african union will be here tomorrow. you can ask him about that also. he asked me to go to and look at the situation and make a recommendation to the african union as to what to do. so i went, talked to all of that leadership, and became back, wrote a report to the african union. they said i think this is what you need to do to resolve the problem. so i asked john ping tomorrow what happened. >> i think we'll leave -- >> no, no, i'm saying these are the questions that you should put to the chair of the african union commission tomorrow. thanks. >> other questions? yes. we'll get the microphone for you.

>> it's on. it's on. no. use the microphone please. >> is it on? >> yes. >> joel, csis. president mbeki, you spoke of the leadership in the north and south. i would like to know the panels thinking or discussion in the respect to the political will, holding particularly in the north in case the leadership is not sustained there. >> in case? in case? >> the leadership is not sustained there. in other words, political will has to be sustained over the long term over successive governments. >> are there questions? >> yes. [inaudible comment]

>> i'm a graduate student at duke university studying environmental security. my question is about the nile basin, and given once the south becomes independent, it will be in control of the white nile. i was wonder in water has come up in any of your discussions? if so, how do you think -- or what -- how do you plan on dealing with the issue? >> we'll take one more. and then we'll -- >> can we suggest there's a bit of a bad echo in the hall. once you are far from the mike, it's difficult for us to understand what we are saying. could we please give back the mike and speak closer to the mike, i'm sure they will hear you better. >> my question was on water and the nile basin and given that

south is going to be in control, once it becomes independent, i was wondering if the issue has come up in any of your discussions and how you plan on dealing with that if it has. >> we'll take one more in the back there. >> yes. it's on. >> lawrence freeman from executive intelligence review, the african desk. in terms of two viables states for sudan, i've been a supporter and working on sudan for almost 20 years. it seems to me that there has to be a positive vision to go for sudan to move forward which i have not seen anywhere in washington to articulate the vision which would be north and south sudan uniting together for the benefit of all of the people in sudan. this seems to be around the question of production of food, especially to help our brothers in southern sudan, but food for

northern sudan, where poverty exists, electrical power, rail transportation, this idea of two countries working together in the self-interest and benefit of each other for a positive program that goes beyond simple debt relief, this is not discussed in washington. and i wanted to know if the three expresidents have thought about these ideas for the future of sudan? [laughter] >> yes, sir? the -- i think that with regard to the first question, i think part of what all of us need to

appreciate is the fact that, you know, for 40 years, for 40 years of its independence as i think all of us will recall, sudan has been at war between the two -- between the north and the south. which ultimately resulted in the conclusion of the cpa. and i think our own experience is that the sudanese generally, both north and south, have understood very, very well the cost that attaches to war. and, there are, a very familiar of the view that the war is not going to solve their problems. and that any matter that's outstanding between the two of

them needs to be solved by peaceful means. because there were very direct experience of what the opposite of that has meant. so i'm saying that as a sense. there doesn't mean there's no tensions and so on. of course, there are tensions. indeed they might still be some people who might think that attending to war would produce some result. i'm saying that generally, the majority in the leadership of sudan, both north and south, it seems to answer there's a very clean understanding. that they should contend to war. 40 years of fighting have taught everybody that lesson. and so i do not believe if there were to be a change in the personalities, change in the personalities in terms of the political leadership in the

north and i thought this would change the fundamental understanding among the population in the north. so, therefore, the will to proceed in the way that is two sudan's north and south, the way that they are proceeding now, the political will to sustain that, i think would remain. even if you had a change among some of the personalities in terms of the people who are in the government in the north, you have unlikely to get anybody there to say reverse for the processes. we reintegrate south sudan with the north by force. anything like this. or indeed take a position contrary to the notion of two

viable states. so i think that the matter of the political will to which president has sent, i think the political will would be sustained irregardless of whatever particular changes might happen in the north with regard to some of the political players. on the matter of the viable states development, agriculture, infrastructure, all of that, this has been part of again as president was indicating we are one the principal reasons that we came to washington this time was at the invitation of the imf and the world bank. in particular to deal with this issue of debt as you were saying. this debt relief, debt of about $38 billion. that's external debt of sudan.

which clearly they can't pay. and which has to be forgiven. if it isn't forgiven, as the president was saying, it will impact directly on the matter of the viability. of the viability of the north given the decision that north would inherit this debt. we came therefore to discuss an element, an element of the issue that has been raised. to challenge of development. the second meeting that we are to have was meeting organized by the bank. it was a round table in sudan to discuss more broadly the challenges of development for both the south and the north. and the challenge of development. i think the point that has been raised is correct.

that it's in addition as i understood it to point that was being made was that in addition to looking at this political arrangements, independents of the south and formation of the government and so on that's just fine. what happens to the north and his politics is fine. the point that was being made, there is a related and important issue which is the development question. and therefore issues of agriculture development become important issues of infrastructure, and develop and become important and in all of that. that the rest of the international community not just look at the political issues. but also look at the development issues. and indeed, this is part of the, as i was saying, this was part of the discussion in the round table which was convened by the world bank and african bank. hopefully the people who are

here, his sense that washington is in insufficiently sensitive to these development challenges and perhaps too exclusive as i had -- too exclusive to focus on the politics of this, which is correct. but what about the other matter? so maybe it might very well be our common duty to send the ties to washington and i suppose by washington is meant the government. and congress and so on. they are on the development it was indeed they are very important. they were indeed very important. there is a working group on the issue of water. as the working group that's working on the issue of water. and with all of this working

groups again as president mentioned on the economy questions, on security matters, et cetera, we -- our panel convened all of the groups. who work with them on the agenda and timetables. the interesting thing about the water, working group, in that they say to us we don't need you. they are actually making very good progress, and making very good progress and the interaction and understanding between the two parties is very good, and then quite confident that they will be able to sort out a proper agreement on this bearing in mind which has point which they both recognize that normally, historically, presidentwise, it does take time to sort out all of the war time

agreements. but they are perfectly confident, both sides, they that are proceeding well. and didn't actually need our facilitation. but together ourselves, today it's being attended. thanks. >> yeses. i would like to ask something on the issue of the political will and the stability of leadership. i think here this issue is not particular to sudan. now we are in the word of constant change of leadership throed the democratic process then i think the similarity in

sudan, and in this country, and elsewhere. and sudanese have to agree or no -- on some principals, and it has to mean these were permitted by the current leadership. this is one issue. the other question concerning about the positive cooperation between the two. if you see the old sudanese said to main principal. one is that the principal of two viability of the states. the second is the principal of cooperation for mutual benefit. not on a short term or midterm, it's for a long term.

for example, in the framework of the negotiation on currency, the two-party has decided to come to a trade treaty. it is a long term agreement. when it was with oil, they want to come to a treaty in the oil area. how they are going to cooperate in the long term in the oil area. when they are negotiating both issues, they have introduced these notion of self. allows freedom of movement for the people for the goods between the two state.

i wanted to say that it's behind the negotiation a long term vision of cooperation within two of the mutual benefits. thank you. >> yes, we have two questions right here. >> hello, can you hear me? i'm maria, i'm with the united nations now here in washington. i just wanted to hear your views on how you see postjuly 9th, the roles of the african union and the united nations in sudan. what will happen to the hybrid operation in darfur? is sudan going to tonight to ask a u.n. to play a role? one mission, two missions? just your views on that would be very interesting for us. thank you. >> more or less, the same question. does the panel have a mandate

postjuly? and if so, until when? and for what? and will the assessment and evaluation commission carry on in any form? >> everybody over here. questions back here. >> okay. alan. >> alan, from the wilson center. we have the impression that there maybe some disconnect on darfur between your panels approach and that of the doha mediators. with your team favoring some piece from within policy, adopted now by the government in khartoum, and mr. buyoya and his team giving priority to the mediation talks.

can you take this opportunity to explain to us how you are coordinating with the doha mediators, what sequences of the process you envisage, and how you were all tackening the very difficult question of persuading all of the darfur movements to participate? >> okay. shall i speak? >> yes. >> with regard to the matter of the -- the discussion hasn't

quite started about the future of sudan. it's obvious that in terms of the mandate, which is to over see the cpa, et cetera, obviously, it's monodate with the night of july. matter has been raised as president buyoya has indicated, the matter has been raised of the need for some international corporation with regard to the security arrangements between the north and the south. so now what has happened is the two parties have asked our party to address this issue to come

back to them with some discussions as to how the matter might be dealt with. of the international participation in terms of the security arrangements between the two, between what will become two countries. so that's a matter that we are working on. it's obvious that in that context, the issue will arise, the issue will arise of the role both of the u.n. and the african union. and therefore to that extent, the role of [inaudible] >>the south, now i'm talking abt an arrangement that was relate to both north and south. that's the matter that's under consideration. i'm sure at the end of it, the

sudanese would probably then want to approach either the u.n. or eu, or both, depending on what the outcome is look, can you do whatever? the south has already approach the the u.n. with a further regard they might play in the south. that's a matter being discussed between the united states and the soft of south sudan. the matter, therefore, is not quite finalized. there are discussions also in new york as to some views as to what they think might happen. both with regard to the problem in the south as well as the problem that relates to the relations of the north and south this is a work in progress. of course, it won't affect

uniment. it will continue it's work in darfur. the aeu -- the aec, of course, and the discussion and matter of the aec as to what happens to it. but also it's own mandates, as it relates. in principal, it's mandate is to end when the cpa ends. but the -- i'm quite sure that the members of the aec will want to discuss that also. to the extent that there are might be some things which might require further looking at postjuly 9th, maybe they may december to continue this. but i really don't know what

sort of discussion is taking place. but i'm saying in principal, if the aec's mandate should end on the 9th of july. it doesn't guarantee what will happen. with regard to the doha and also, i wouldn't say that there's a disconnect. the african union decided on the policy in october 2009. that in order to agree to a durable peace in darfur, it would be important to involve the population of darfur in any negotiations that take place

that would define the future of darfur. the reason for that was because this is what the population in darfur itself had said. when again as president buyoya was saying, when we started off away from the constructions of the african union, as the panel on darfur, we spent a long time with the darfurians. a) you said to us, can you please advise the african union as what to we could do, what we should do next to help resolve the problem in darfur? we decided that we couldn't answer that question without asking the darfurians themselves what they think. which is what they did. what they said, population in the all of the various segments, the of -- of ewe dwis, and

administration, it is very important for peace to be achieved in darfur. it's important that we in the sudan is negotiating. part of the reason that the darfur agreement in 2006 failed was because it was negotiated by the april -- by the belligerents. they met, finished it, and then they came back to us, the uponlation of -- the population of darfur and said here is the agreement. we said it's your peace agreement. it has nothing to do with us. they said please don't repeat that. so we said fine. that went to the african union as the recommendation and the

african union adopted that policy. you get the panels this is a policy that you must pursue. this relates to this question of an intrusive negotiating process in darfur. in the meantime, of course, what had happened was that the negotiations in doha had started. so all of us agree accept the support for the negotiations in doha. and we're saying that the -- it's important those negotiations because the negotiations among the belligerents, they have to concentrate in particular on issues that relate to seize

fire, to a seize fire and other security arrangements. that's an important part of any peace agreement for darfur that gets the sensation of hostilities, which can only be negotiated by the people carrying guns. that's important that that doha must continue and produce that result. the problem, of course, with regard to this, is a matter that you've raised. of encouraging everybody to participate. and encouraging all of the rebel groups to participate. and the mediators found this thing very difficult. to get gem, to go to doha, they are in doha now. to go to doha, and engage in the negotiations, to get up and go there.

and now with a new developments to get many to go there. it's proved very difficult. for the mediators to attract the rebels to come. all of us have been talking to them. all of us talking to them, saying all of us the same thing. please go to doha, and because we all of us need, this is fire and so on. i'm quite sure that will continue to try to persuade them to engage that process which has to focus on the matter of the termination of house silties. now i don't think any one of us can guarantee the success with regard to this because the decision is not in the hands. it's not hands of the other groups, whether they want to come or don't want to come. but that we should encourage them. we are doing that since -- in

fact, i should have said this was one the messages from the darfur in 2009. and they said to us, please talk to the leaders of the armed groups to go to doha to talk piece. and indeed, we conveyed that message. now what doha has then also done in edition to discussing the issue of a seize fire and security arrangements, and discussed issues, the broader issues that have got to do with a piece of darfur. the power shedding, wealth shedding, justice and consolation, et cetera. which are the matters which i'm saying the population of darfur had said this, with regard to those issues, we have to be involved in their discussion. what we are then saying is the let doha proceed with that, and

what should then happen necessarily is that the outcomes of doha would then feed into this inclusive process, inclusive process in darfur, which would bring in the various constituencies in darfur. so there's no disconnect. what has been a challenging issue is the question of time. when we spoke earlier, for instance, we talked about the relevance of darfur. and the issue of darfur in terms of the constitutional review process of north sudan. which matter will immediately come on to the agenda as far as

the south secedes. and the north will have to decide how to governor itself. it cannot exclude darfur. darfur is very much part of the north. and indeed, it's a very important part of the north. so i'm -- that's why i'm raising the timing issue. there are that yes, indeed, we would want to see the outcome out of doha, which would then feed into the popular inclusive political process in darfur. but we need to move the processes forward faster. because if we don't do that fast enough, we are going to create another problem. which is stalling, stalling the process of the constitutional review in the north. which is going to create other complications. so -- and therefore, what

everybody is discussing in this regard is how to speed up those processes. so that, indeed, we get that kind of sequencing. now obviously if you can't get that sequencing right, baring in mind there's other pressures that i'm talking about. it is still possible to do parallel processes to allow the negotiations in doha to continue and at the same time, to convene at this inclusive process among the darfurians. and indeed, take one point in terms of that inclusive process in darfur, whatever might have agreed on or not agreed. whatever might have been drafted, i could still take that part. so it was saying it would be good if there was a way to take

into from doha into the broader inclusive process, the outcomes of doha. but the outcomes of doha are too dependent not on the mediators and so on, but one good solution. but too much on what the other groups decide. when they decide not to come, the mediators can't do anything about it. so in the event that this therefore a delay of that kind, let's go ahead and get that population in darfur, including the groups themselves, this is a darfurian, one more thing. inclusive process, but inclusive process that would also include the armed groups to run them parallel side by side. so i hope that answers the questions that i've put. thanks.

two questions here in the back. >> my name is ty, i'm a fellow at ref guy -- refugees international. >> you are going to have to speak up. >> i'm ty. i'm a fellow at refugees international. my question related to outstanding issue. in every mediation, by africa, there's always outstanding issues that are meant to be resolved time and again, maybe over a period of time. but experience has shown that these outstanding issues are never resolved. they are talked about. people get the independence, or back to the table. as soon as i sign the

agreements, independence is given fresh issues come out. we take a look at the resolve. but it gives. we also talk about the issue in my country, the outstanding issues that have been resolved two years from now. haven't you learned a lesson in trying to resolve this issue while you leave our spending issues? this instance is the issues of the borders. and you know the importance of the border to the court and the regions. you give your country independence without intermining. and you leave those issues unattended. you think they will resolve themselves over time. >> thank you. >> in the back there.

>> thank you very much. my name is david. i'm from the public international law and policy group. hi a question regarding the popular consultation in blue nile. in blue nile, the popular consultation has been conducted but not concluded. i was wondering if the panel could comment on the political and practical impediments to initialing the report and negotiating issues with khartoum. and second comment on how the negotiations will play out, given the anticipated political and constitutional changes in the north. thank you. >> thank you, jason glock with the u.s. institute of peace. you spoke about the need to make progress because of the implication of the problem with the broader constitutional

review in the north. similarly, i think it's become apparent that the popular consultation has constitutional implications. i was wondering if you might comment on your thoughts on whether or not these processes need to proceed in order to positively inform the constitution-making process, or whether or not sudan might not be better served by having a national constitution-making process try to at once solve these problems. >> thank you. >> we'll take one more over here. and then. >> i'm a diplomat in sudan embassy. i just would like to thank mr. thabo mbeki for achieving peace.

and i think a big issue is the most important issue among those positive issues. what do you think if you make an additional effort to resolve the abyei issue, because the rest of the issues can be negotiated even after the secession of the south of sudan. thank you. >> abyei again. [laughter] >> yeah. the outstanding issues, you have

a concern that are always outstanding issues. in sudan and elsewhere in africa, i think we could add a way in the world. and the unfortunately, it's not always possible to solve all of the problems at the same time. then you have outstanding issues. you have unresolved issues in many countries of the world. you have kashmir between india and pakistan. you have between turkey and greek. and in many other countries. >> palestine. >> palestine. we have a palestine. i think what we try to reach is

to solve all of those problems, possibly before nine of july. it won't be possible for all of them. and i think. you take, for example, the issue of the border, even in the other area of africa, the indication of the border has not necessarily tied to the time of the independence. it can be after. it can't be after. at what we are trying to do now is for those issues who can't be solved before 9th of july, to show the way maybe time limit where they have been -- they have to be solved.

i think it's the most important because otherwise it will be impossible to solve them. >> the issue of the constitutional review has much to do with popular consultation in the blue nile, in south sudan, and maybe also darfur political process. because they -- what means popular concertation. popular concertation is a way for the two areas, blue nile and south sudan to defy the relationship with the center.

with the center government. with khartoum. i think one of the issues in the negotiation in doha is the operation between darfur and the center. these issue of darfur being one region, or one region or many regions. then there is a very close tie between popular concertation and the constitutional review process. popular concertation in the blue nile has taken place. there is no negotiation yet between the state and the center of government. the government of blue nile is

the pretty similar to intervene. and to have press the center of government to start these negotiations. we permit to him that we indeed with this matter in the south sudan, as i said earlier, popular consultation has not stabbed it. but i think the end of the game is the same. once it's a completed, it will be a negotiation between the state and the center of government to try to see what kind of relationship. and i think the constitutional review is also tackled. these matter, for example, the governor of blue nile is saying clearly that he would like to see a kind of federal system in

the sudan where the state have turning for government, and financial autonomy. maybe those issues will be -- will come in the constitutional review process. it has to be seen. but finally we are convinced that maybe the exercise is the way to file the solution on these issue of popular concert ation. the abyei issue. everybody is saying like you that abyei issue is one of the most important and the most

difficult now. it's clear. but it doesn't mean that we have to put aside the other issue and work only on abyei. we have worked hard on abyei. and the parties have been trying everything to solve abyei with the help of many third parties. for example. i think it was in the september, october, the u.s. government tried very hard to help the parties to come to an agreement. and it didn't succeed. by the end of the year, the partner that we took over, we made some prosew al and -- some

proposals. and the proposals the party didn't agree. and they said to them, president bashar said we are going to try again to put the proto -- proposal. now we are hoping to do it hoping they can come to an agreement. everybody is the same now. let to the other issue so that maybe it can be what they call a holistic approach and to solve all of those outstanding issue, including abyei. then i think we are a way that takes a very important issue. we can see now it's a matter which can be real and complete

the whole process. but i think in the end, the parties will have to make a compromise. it's up to them to make compromises. we put on the table different possibilities and it will be up to them to solve the issue. >> take two final questions. one down here. going to come across the road to you.

>> i'm here with the institute. i have two quick questions, the first about the -- >> speak up. >> the first is about the arrangements or negotiations. i'm seeing the progress met is mainly influenced by the u.s. goal and relationship with the tool parties, rather than the parties willingness to achieve peace in sudan. mainly it depends on what the government gets in khartoum. would you agree on that. my second about that, it's a follow up question. my second question on how we would have a peace process in darfur, knowing the situation is not right. what needs to have been in darfur between now and july in order for us to have credible in the process inside darfur.

do you have any agreements? >> can you repeat the first question? [inaudible question] >> final question. >> christina, from the university of cape town. i wanted to go back to the darfur issue. i understand that the khartoum government has recently announced a referendum for darfur, one, and secondly has also proposed introducing two and creates two new stakes in darfur.

i wondered if you could comment how i think that fits into the other processes related to peace in darfur. then secondly on the issue of blue nile, really again this is for comment rather than a question for you to comment on please. i'm sort of puzzled by the claims that's being made in the blue nile, particularly by the governor of blue nile. as i understand it, the current constitution of sudan, gives significant and striking the substantial powers to the states within the north. and i wonder how you understand the relationship between the current constitutional position and the claims that are being made at the moment. >> with regard to the last

question, the point -- the point that is -- was made by the governor of blue nile, was indeed exactly what you said. that in terms of the constitution, they have this promise which addresses the issue of autonomy and all of that. but i tend to practice, the thing is not working. if, for instance, an issue of giving success resources at the control of the state so that the state is able to take one of the decisions in the exercise of that autonomy. that is not happening. that's the issue that you are raising. therefore, in working out, indeed the point that was being made about these popular

consultations and indeed the darfur process would have to feed into a national constitutional process that in terms of that national constitutional process which what comes out of the popular consultations comes out of darfur and then so on, in that process, this issue would have to be agreed. yes, indeed, here, and the power in terms of the constitution, but what else needs to be done to translate this theoretic power into actual power. that's the issue that are you are raising. so you are quite correct in terms of the what the interim constitution say. but the issue that we are raising is that it's then theoretical. which needs to address. now the -- with regard to the referendum issue, one of the matters that has proved to be a big stumbling block in the doha

negotiations, even between the government and the ljm. it's the same issue that arose as the big question and stumbling block in 2006. this issue of darfur being one region, one state, it was a great that this matter would be -- it couldn't be resolved in the negotiations. but therefore the matter must be sent to the other people of darfur of the site. same thing now. in the same way, again, incapable, and the government has said, well, send me the referendum. that's how the referendum issues are raised.

and with regard to the two states, again, this is a matter that's been under discussion. this matter arose today in 2008 there was a very broad, inclusive sudanese negotiating process. we brought in everybody. the ruling parties, opposition parties, people from the regions, and so on. one the issues that arose was that question about should darfur be one region, one state, should it continue to be three states, or should it be more states? this relates to the way the

population of darfur is composed. the way it's constituted that population. so you get sections of that population saying terms of the way darfur is raised now in the three states, we such and such a group feel the empowerment. better that there was a state and the capacity to do whatever, whatever is agreed in terms of the state arises in that contest. now naturally what we would say is that you see all of this matter should be put on hold. they should be put on hold, they might very well be legitimate matters, but they should be put on hold. until the more global political solution of the matter is arrived at and it's in the context of that global that this matters would be discussed.

to come at them peace is not going to happen. to say let's have a referendum now because the matter is arising out of doha, and come back again to say this is part of the agenda of the inclusive negotiations obviously is not right. i'm seeing it from my own perspective. whatever the issues that are being raised, and they may very well be married who are saying nevertheless, they need to be resolved within the context of the bigger. the bigger set of negotiations. but that's a matter to discuss for the government. and if we indicate to them our own view about this. so that is how you respond in matter of both the referendum and the two additional states in darfur. now the question raised the rate

about the credible process in darfur. we -- again as president buyoya said in the beginning, we started life as, you know, as the partner on darfur. and had to say the population in darfur to get a sense to them as to what they thought and how they thought it might be resolved. that required a very extensive popular consultation. actually, the popular consultation was no different from the consultations that were taking place now in blue nile. and we'll take place. in that context, we had to say to the government of sudan, we

need to conduct a process which will -- we have to be satisfied. that is a result of the this -- the process we have had the true and authentic and free voice of the people of darfur. therefore, it's important that the population feels free. :

that's how my experience. so, we've spoken out of the government to say we must have this inclusive process and after a lot of resistance on the part of the government they said okay you go ahead with it. i must say with regards to the false story that's put out that at this for political process we are talking about is part of the government policy. the government of sudan what they would prefer is an

agreement that would be negotiated between them and the rebel leaders. it's a much simpler process. this one gets such and such a post and so on and what they knew. that population is saying you can't just talk to those leaders. they must be involved and get the population involved. it took a long time before the government said okay we will accept. in any case we are saying to them it's not just our fuel. so in the context of that, the government therefore must have the political process to say to them we want to repeat that if necessary to create the

conditions again which enable us to conduct the popular consultation in 2009. the context of which the matter was raised when we address this issue on the state of the matters in darfur so the government is agreed and so they will also lift that state as part of this. so, and we as a partner have no doubt that it is indeed possible so to organize this political process in darfur, so to organize it that indeed it has conducted in a manner which will ensure that it is credible because it is important that the

true voice, and i am saying that but also in our own experience this has been done. with regard to the issue of the negotiations, i doubt darfur would agree the negotiations between the north and the south have been driven by considerations of the united states, by the united states. the negotiations have been driven by the two parties are saying what is -- again, but we go back. let's agree we want to create to

viable states. we also agree we should design a system of cooperation that will produce mutual benefit, not in the short term but in the longer term so what they have been asking themselves, they've been asking themselves the question therefore with regard to the arrangement what is it that we need to decide which would address the matter of the state's. with regard to the issue of security which must address the challenge of the viable states. the negotiations haven't been driven by what they must does decide which would please the united states. it either hasn't been in the consideration. it has been and continues to be what is good so the negotiations

haven't been driven by the considerations of pleasing the united states. that having been said, it is clear that it's important that certain decisions are taken here for instance the president was indicating that if you have the issue in sudan everybody agrees we spoke to a lot of creditors in washington apart from the imf and the world bank the people that are owed the billions, and we say to all of them it is perfectly obvious that the sudanese cannot repay this money so the debt has got to be forgiven and all of the credit spoken to and all of them agreed

and they said no now let's see what to do. there is a particular challenge as you know that faces the united states, which is that the sanctions relating to this matter of this debt, the sanctions were imposed on the issue of darfur. it will be impossible for the u.s. administration to move on this matter and the u.s. is one of the major creditors. it will be possible for the u.s. administration to move this matter unless the u.s. congress move this. so it is relevant to the process these that are taking place and this is part of the challenge.

so the u.s. legislation that impact on the issue was in post because of darfur. so naturally, the u.s. congress would say we want to see movement on darfur so that we can then move on the legislation now the cruelty of the situation is that you then have the government of sudan which sits in doha every day ready to negotiate an agreement and the rebel does not come. therefore the u.s. congress cannot take the decision and therefore it must be sustained and it isn't the fault of the government of sudan. it's the rebels.

so i'm saying the u.s. it is important in this regard. so, this is of course as you would expect a matter we would be discussing with the u.s. administration, and i think we need to say with regard to this we have been working with the study now continuously for the last five months. to abandon everything just to focus on this. and it's very clear to us that the sudanese both know themself have a very clear understanding of their own history, have a

very clear understanding of their own challenges, and indeed as we kept saying the decisions about what happens to sudan are decisions that must be taken by the sudanese, the only people competent to do this. and the thing at the beginning, it's perfectly obvious that the sudanese are saying no more, we must have peace. there's a very serious problem challenge which is what led to the war and sudan between the north and south, between the center and the darfur and the center and the east which is the issue of the management of diversity in sudan. they would separate the north

will remain as diverse as it was before they separated. the issue is not going to go away. within the self the south is also faced with this issue of diversity and the experience of this that you mismanage that diversity that leads to conflict now i'm sure my colleagues are very clever people. thank you very much for acknowledging this. [laughter] but i'm absolutely certain the sudanese don't actually need their advice about where do we take sudan? the reason i'm saying all of this is because there are people

who think that any particular sets of sanctions to oblige the sudanese to understand where their true interests lie and that's wrong. the sudanese don't need anybody to impose sanctions on them to understand they must make peace. but people come with that frame of mind. they don't quite know what is good for them. therefore i must impose and sustain the sanctions so the do what i know is good for them. the u.s. is important to the issues and in particular we have to find a way of addressing the sanctions matter. the sanctions necessarily are

planning a positive role in terms of encouraging the movement forward isn't necessarily correct. it is assumed to be so but isn't necessarily so. >> thank you. [applause] >> i'm sure you agree this has been an extraordinary presentation of the issues and the complications and with some hopeful signs of a way forward and we are grateful to our president for the presentations. before closing i just want to mention john is going to be here tomorrow. we have a full house but may be able to squeeze a few more people in tomorrow afternoon. then on april 28 u. already been introduced to the chair of the southern sudan referendum

commission and deputy chairman and general secretary. they will be here on april 28 at 10:00 to make a presentation on their work so why potentially us for that. but thank you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

earlier today defense undersecretary ashton carter said that the era of ever increasing defense budgets is over. he also laid out areas where the pentagon can save money and become more efficient. undersecretary carter is in charge of acquisitions technology of logistics and has been charged with cutting costs of the pentagon by president obama and secretary gates. this is about an hour. >> welcome to the heritage foundation and to our louis lerman auditorium. pleased to welcome of course to

join on the heritage of our website on each occasion. we would ask everyone in house to make that courtesy check that the cell phones have been turned off as i continue the preliminary announcements. our internet viewers are welcome to send their comments through e-mail at any time simply addressing them to speaker@hertiage.org it will post within 24 hours for everyone's future reference. hosting the discussion this morning is mackenzie, the research fellow for national security studies, part of our douglas and sarah allyson center for foreign policy studies. prior to joining heritage she was the principal defense adviser for senator susan collins of mean and also served for two years of the pentagon as a presidential management fellow in the office of the secretary defense. prior to her fellowship, she was a national security analyst. at the association of the united states army institute of land warfare. she's been a guest lecturer at

several locations participated in defense panels and several universities and received her master's degree in the national security studies for georgetown university. please join me in welcoming my colleague mackenzie. [applause] >> thank you. it's always good to have a congressional research now and then to get them out of town and get the real work done but also so we can't enjoy the great turnout. as the secretary defense for acquisition technology and logistics at the department of defense dr. carter has been working to implement numerous initiatives to save money during the time of what we all know are falling budgets. he's led a series of acquisition reforms, industry and overseen the cancellation of over 15 major weapons programs as part of the 2010 defense budget.

the positions of the great prestige. he served as the assistant secretary of defense for international security policies under president clinton and a member of the defense science and policy word. he also served as the chairman of harvard's international global affairs faculty at the kennedy school of government. he received many awards among them the department of defense distinguished service medal and defense intelligence medal. dr. carter talked in the past about the massive 700 billion-dollar portfolio that he helped oversee of which 400 billion is contracted out on goods and services. we've asked him to come here today to go into more detail about half of that 400 billion spent on services. as dr. carter said in the past as we look for a better use of the taxpayers' money we can't just look at programs because the procurement programs are only 100 billion out of the 700 billion-dollar defense budget. we have to look at the entire budget when we do that so we need to look at the service

accounts, not goods, tanks, planes, ships but surfaces. we need to look there for better bodying power. it's our pleasure to have him here today to discuss the efficiencies outlined by secretary gates and the challenges of the acquisitions and all of his work to date. please join me in welcoming. [applause] >> thank you, mackenzie, for that kind introduction, and let me begin by saluting you for the work that you have done and do for the national security which is always very insightful and makes a big contribution. one of the biggest problems with having a talented person introduce you is kind of giving away the punch line when you're going to say before you said it. and mackenzie did but i will be elaborating on exactly what she said. i want to also think the heritage foundation as a whole for the opportunity to speak here today and for being eight

regarded, the murder of provocative - focused on solving a wide range of public policy problems, but especially on how to maintain a strong defense at the defense budget inters the new era. in particular in addition to mackenzie, i thank dr. james, baker spring and others here and i commend your attention on the defense budget i had time to read which were both timely and insightful so thank you for allowing me to be here today. the main thing i want to do with you today is share with you some of the things we are doing managerial elite to provide the military capability of the needs for the defense budget that they can afford. and that is it in one sentence. and let me begin the story with fiscal year 11 and just remind you of where we've been in the recent weeks. we avoided a government shut

down, though just barely, and while there was a good thing, you may not have had the opportunity to appreciate how damaging was the impact and always is the impact of the continuing resolution on the managers in the department. i've called it not just in efficiency but and high efficiency. each and every program manager in the department has upset carefully calibrated plans, stop or slow activities and i will need to restart them leader, before the commencement of important new programs and so forth, and the result of this is not only delay, it's in efficiency come it is an on economical way to proceed this fashion though all of our programs procurements and activities. i don't know how much this has cost us, and billions, to operate in this way.

it adds a dollop of cost overhead to everything we are doing like a hidden tax. secretary gates called it a crisis on the doorstep and i think every program manager in the department experience that in his or her program. so we are glad it's over but the continuing resolutions make no mistake our managerial the disruptive and and economical. second, the final budget for the fiscal year 11 came in $18 billion below the president obama requested for the department of defense. looking to fiscal year 12 now, i will remind you that we have asked for an increase in the base budget in fiscal year 12 relative to the request president obama made for fiscal year 11, which as i said we didn't get all of it. so for the base budget we asked

for an increase in fiscal year 12 relative to fiscal year 11. the overall defense budget as you know will go down in 12th relative to 11 because the overseas contingency operations super budget will go down in the association with the drawdown in iraq and seven overall defense budget which was, it's about $671 billion or 690 and 11 although we asked for 708. we are asking for what 671 and that doesn't represent a decrease in the base budget but it is a decrease in the overall defense budget because of the production and spending so that's where we are. looking for to fiscal year 14

and beyond. president obama's plans are robust and strong and will stay so. we are after all involved in the conflict sent several smaller ones in the world's dangerous. but president obama in the congress have already made it clear that the national security part of the budget which includes the defense budget and totals about 20%, about a fifth of the total federal budget but the national security part of the budget must be included in the overall deficit reduction equation over the next dozen years so we cannot be exempt to bring the federal budget under control. as we assess how to accomplish the task the president has laid out, we will need to undertake a comprehensive review of the impact of the budget reductions in fiscal year 13 and beyond and well for stricter and capability and ultimately the choices about

missions and america's role in the world. but at this point, two things are already absolutely clear to those of us charged with managing the defense enterprise. first, we are certainly not going to have the ever-increasing budget of the post 9/11 decade. whatever the budget levels are, this will feel very different to a group of government and industry managers and congressional overseers who have grown accustomed to a circumstance in which they could always reach for more money when they encountered a managerial or technical problem were difficult choice. those days are gone. the president come security fence and the taxpayer are going to expect us to make every dollar we do get count. in short, they want a better value for the defense dollar.

getting that for the fighter and the taxpayer as the subject of my remarks today that is what the country should suspect a matter what size the defense budget is. it was in fact may have last year well beyond the current budget debate got under way the secretary defense gave the speech of the eisenhower library began to signal loudly that we are entering the new era in defense. he launched something that he called the efficiency initiative at that time to ensure the department whose managing the budget in a manner that was as he put it respectful of the taxpayer at time of economic and fiscal distress. as one of the parts of this efficiency initiative, he test me as the acquisition executive for the department to devise a plan for the 400 billion out of the approximately 700 billion in the defense budget, that is base

plus that is contracted out. in other words, $300 billion of the 700 billion-dollar defense budget is spent on people, uniformed and civilian. their pay, benefits and so forth. the other 400 billion is spent on contract and goods and services. that's how the math works. i will set aside the $300 billion spent on people that can't be set aside in the larger discussions compensation and health care and size and so forth are going to be part of the question. let me focus on the 400 billion-dollar par to which led to better buying power introduced by segregates and september 4th. it takes the form of guidance for me to our acquisition and

logistics work force in the department on how we can get as i put it more without more. with me give you the logic of this and some context for it. as you know and as mackenzie mentioned, over the last couple of years, we can slip many acquisition programs that were either not performing or whose time had passed or where we had enough of the capability they represented altogether for $300 billion worth. the presidential helicopter for example the airborne laser which we turned into an airborne laser test bed the future combat systems john keating the 81,000 from seven to three ships, transformational satellite systems, the c-17, the f-22 and so forth and the expeditionary

fighting vehicle and there will undoubtedly be more cancellations of that kind. but we are getting to the point that most of the programs we now have under way or which are getting under way our military capabilities we do need and do want. ..

>> most of the money is spent on sustaining weapon systems that were procured in the past rather than on acquisition programs per se. we can't leave that much money out of the better buying power equation. about $75 billion, about three quarters that is spent on acquisition is spent on research and development, and so we have to look at that and ask ourselves when we can get better value for that part of our spending. $200 billion is spent on lo logistics, $100 billion on maintenance, mentioned that earlier, may maintenance of equipment, $70 billion on supply

ranging from fuel to spare parts, $20 billion on lift, sea lift, air lift, and so forth, and finally, and very importantly, and i'll have more to say about this later, and, again, something that mckensey mentioned, $200 billion on services, everything from lawn moeing to dental services to prepare of things to acquisitional services, $200 billion. my point is we need to take a comprehensive look at our spended including but not limited to acquisition spending, and that's exactly what better buying power does. better buying power is summarized in a chart that i think they're prepared to project for you. you've probably seen it before. there's 23 points that were di

vised with input from the dod work force and partners in industry. these are the points that secretary gates and i introduced last september, and we're now introducing each and every one of them. these points cover the way in which government can improve its own performance and incentivize better performance in industry. i don't have time to talk about all of them, but i'll pick a few out for examples so you get the idea of how we are trying to apply these. figure is targeting affordability and cost growth. we're going to start programs that we need. we're not going to start anything that we can't finish. we're not going to start anything we can't prove to ourselves will be football in the time -- affordable in the time frame that we need it.

the ohio class replacement missile submarine is an example. it's a nuclear missile submarine built roughly between 2020 and 2030 and is now in the design phase. when that design was first made and brought to me, the projected unit cost for that design was about $7 billion per -- which were we to pay that would displace most navy shipbuilding or said differently, that's not happening. we're not going to start something that so obviously is not going to happen. what you do in that circumstance is you look at that design and what is driving cost in design, and you look at those aspects of the design. in this case, two diameter

degree of stealth and so forth that you can change without compromising critical military exalteds in the interest -- capabilities in the interest of getting a design that you can afford. we've done that and driven that projected cost down and will do so further to a goal of about 27% less than that initial design. we'll be doing the same thing with the new bomber for the air force, the family of systems for long range strategic strike, the army's ground combat vehicle, the presidential helicopter, the new presidential helicopter, and so forth. you see that philosophy reflected in the new tanker for which we completed the competition a short while ago. that tanker is now on contract for engineering and

development. it's a fixed price contract that means we, the government, are i understandlated against cost growth in the tanker program both in development and production, so we're sure that we will have an affordable tanker. for programs already underway, obviously, we can't start them all over again even if we wish we could, and those who are experiencing cost growth in midlife, and i'll mention global hawk and others, we have to manage some of the costs out of those programs. we're doing that very vigorously and both in the cases i mentioned, jsf, and global hawk, and i'll say also that it's note too early to begin thinking about sustainment for the joint strike fighter. most of the coast is in having

-- cost is in having them and not buying them. we have technical issues in the baseline review. we are trying to manage down some of the cost structures associated with production, and it's not too early to begin to look at sustainment because the projected bills there also have increased, and we need to get a sustained bill for the joint strike fighter like everything else that we can actually pay. affordability is the first theme in everything we do. second is productivity and innovation in industry. i'll give you an example. productivity to the economist and there's many here at the heritage foundation, is what you have when you go to best buy and buy a computer this year, and the computer on the shelf is better than last year's and

cheaper too, so why is it that i have to go to the hill with a tank, a plane, or a ship that is the same as last year's, but costs more. where is productivity in what we do? we need to reward cost reduction and innovation. we are doing that in several ways. one of those is through contract type in which the contract provides incentive to the work to reduce overall cost by offering what's called a share line where as if the cost goes down, the government and the producer of the work that reduced the cost get to share in the savings. that's an inducement to both sides to control coast. we will be starting something we call a superior supplier incentive program this year that rewards and recognizes superior

performers in the defense industry. making technology investments including through independent research and development to reward and incentivize innovation. this idea of incentives is very important bringing up another very important point i should make which is that what we're trying to reduce here in these ongoing activities, whether they be procurement of goods or services is cost. it's not about profit for those performing the work. that's not only wrong, it's sort of backwards. we use profit as an incentive to cut cost. the next item on there is promoting real competition. real competition is coming from secretary gates himself who always contrasts real competition with what he calls washington competition which is he says a competition in which everybody wins. real competition is the kind

that we had in tanker. it's the kind that we had in the combat ship. just to remind you of the history of lcs, we had not real competition. we got bids last summer which when we looked at them suggested that the two officers of the lcs figured that they were entitled to make those ships for us. the bids were too high and unaffordable, so we said timeout, go back, new bid, this time only one of you is going to make this ship, and when you come back in addition to having a new bid for ten ships, also as part of your bid, it must be the technical data package that will allow someone else to make the same ship according to the same

design because we're going to compete, even if you win this round of competition, we're going to compete down the road against other shipbuilders building the same design. there's two stages of competition. guess what happened? new bids came in, and they were substantially lower. so low that we bought from both this time. the deal was so good that we bought ten by each side which is well on the way to the 55lcs fleet ship objective. we can't always have head-to-head competition, but we're starting a strategy that is an explanation of how they are using competitive energy to reduce in their program. you can't always have head-to-head competition. we can't afford to buy two of everything. we made that point with respect to a second engine or extra

engine as the secretary says, for the joint strike fighter, but even in situations where you can't have head-to-head competition, but you can have competition for profit. there's lots of ways for competition. if you want an analogy, think of marathon runners. they are not racing against anyone else, but against the clock and thmses trying to do their personal best, and you can have that same situation. that's what the share line induce is, a race for cost savings which will be rewarded in profit, so there are other ways we can have competition beside head-to-head competition because that's our strongest lever in buying power. next on the chart is a big one. it is improving our trade craft

and service acquisition. i could go on all day about this. i'll just remind you it's $200 billion, unignorable amount of money and expenditure. up until recently, we didn't even have a standard tax onmy for talking about how we were spending this portion of our budget. we didn't have senior managers charged with overseeing this part of our spend and as part of better buying power, we've taken care of both of those problems. there's many ingredients that go into the improving trade craft in services, and they are frequency of recompete, market surveys, knowing how to specify requirements properly and so forth. there is a textbook of good trade craft and services acquisition, we just don't follow it.

if you look at how we acquire services around the department, everybody does it differently. not everybody can be right. most of our services acquires unlike our system weapons acquires are amateurs. that is, that's not what they do for a living. they do something else, and they buy the services to help them do that, so acquisition of services is a collateral duty for them. it's not surprising they are not very good at it. we can't -- and i do not intend to make them into experts at it. i intend to help them get better at it. i believe that mostly because we haven't done that yet that we will be ever to realize some great productivity in the acquisition of services. the last item is bureaucracy processes, and those of you who know me know we're ferocious on

that subject. it's not just the internal paper we impose on ourselves, but sometimes it's paperwork posed on us by the congress, and the secretary hows us putting how much the report costs on the cover of the report when we send it over now, but the real losses there are paperwork we impose on industry which has two costs. first is, of course, we impose paperwork industry, and they bill us for it so we end up paying for it. secondly, it is a barrier to entry for those who are not in defense work whom we want to do defense work, and we're cop standpointly trying -- constantly trying to renew and refresh the defense faces with new technology and people and so forth and it's important to have an open defense system that is attractive and is not so exotic to sell to that companies,

particularly small companies, can't do it. we don't have enough good people in government doing this kind of work. that's why secretary gates made this an exception to the general tightening up of hiring we're doing in the department. we oversteered in the 1990s, and these are not bureaucrats i'm talking about. these are people at the execution end who are contracting officers, pricers, system engineers, and auditors and so forth that are a necessary part of getting the business done, and we need those skill sets. that is better buying power, and by applying that, our people can deliver better value to the taxpayer. there's several reasons why i think we can succeed in doing this. the first is we have very clear

guidance, very clear goals, and i spend a lot of time communicating that to our people and to industry. second, we have a staunch support of the president, secretary of defense, and third, we have the simple fact that it's pretty clear that after a decade of budget growth, some unproductive cost has crept into our programs and activities. i think we can succeed, and i would also say to those who hesitate to go down this road that they should need to consider the al alternative, and the alternative is broken programs, canceled programs, budget turbulence, uncertainty, erosion of the taxpayers' confidence that their defense dollar is well-spent, and, of course, ultimately most damagingly, fore gone capability to the war fighter. we can do it. we have to do it, and we hear that message clearly from the president, the congress, and from the country, and i've given

you some indication of how we intend to do it. i want to close with just one other note which i never speak publicly without mentioning which is everything i've said so far is for me, job two. job one is support to current operations, and that is an area where efficiently somes in too, but effectiveness is most of the challenge, and i'll just touch on a few things here. i'll focus on afghanistan, although you can say the same thing about iraq, libya, the japanese effort, and so forth. in afghanistan, this is going to be a very important spring and summer for us. last summer was the summer of the uplift where we brought in a larger force of rotated the force that was there and brought

in a much richer set of enablers in what was a logistics miracle last summer so we achieved what the president wants us to achieve which was the accomplishment of the uplift by august. that force has now been there for several months and is by far and away the most capable force we've had in afghanistan in all of the years we've been there. it is a daily challenge for those of us to make sure that the needs of those war fighters are met very rapidly. that means understanding what they need, figuring out what to do about it, getting funding -- which is a struggle, and i thank those in congress who agreed recently just to reprogram some funds for us. we need that done. we need it done quickly, and

then we need to field and sustain the equipment we put there, and i'll just give you some examples. people think of me as a ship, plane, and tank buyer. i've already made a clear i'm a services buyer too, but we're buying now dogs too. we're buying lots of dogs for afghanistan. that's a whole different art for those of you who have not gotten into that. we knew we'd never have enough think predators and reapers, isr never, ever enough to satisfy the requests of units for overhead persistence surveillance, and that's why we began last year to introduce aerostats to afghanistan, and now if you go to afghanistan, maybe some of you do from time to time, i certainly do, you'll see there aerostats that allow the unit to look down the road

and see whether the market is open in town, whether anybody put an ied in the road, look around our perimeter, and short taft awareness of their own per sis tent isr. that made a huge difference. initially we put sort of standard traffic helicopter-type balls on them, and now we put wide sensors on them that take a large number of pixels at a wide angle. you can replay the tape. the m-wraps we built a summer a year ago, but not only built, but e quipped in charleston, shipped to afghanistan, and if you look at a globe, it's almost the most unfortunate conceivable place to be fighting a war,

shipped and fielded more than 7,000m-wrap alter rain vehicles for the afghan might, and you can go to the hospitals here in town on the weekend, and i do, and talk to soldiers who are alive because of that vehicle. i just mention all of that because that's a fast lane that is, you know, different from worrying about the fy1 budget and all the debates here about the outyears. i have to live in that world, but job one for me is to live in the world of the next few weeks and months and years, and that requires a fast lane that we don't have, and that we manage in an ad hoc fashion. that's something we need to fix, and we need a fast lane on the hill so that we can get funding in a year of execution and be the kind of edge military that's

necessary to have in a time of war. i just wanted to close with that little reminder that that's where my mind is, certainly where my heart is every day when i wake up even as we struggle with these other challenges. with that, i'm prepared to take questions. i thank you for your attention and i thank mckensey for her hospitality. [applause] >> great. we'll bring you the microphone and if you could state your name and affiliation. >> tony with bloomberg news. there's a reprogramming in television approved six months ago. when will those systems go on contract? >> many are already. we were primed and ready to go. this is as example -- by the way, tony, and this may be a

longer answer to your question than you want, but it's a very important point. because we have to wait some weeks and months for reprograms from congress, and you can't steal that time from the war fighter, we have to cash flow some of these activities, and so we started them even before we got the reprogramming. we're asking this year to have a fund to do that so that we can get started on fulfilling urgent war fighter needs before we've gone through the entire process of reprogramming. at the end of the day, the congress gets the last word on the budget. we recognize that. we'll fully accountable to them for every dollar we spend on this. we're only asking for that time. i mean, on all these activities, every one of the contracting and fielding activities, i'm on it all day. it's wednesday. why did this take until wednesday? what do you mean it's going to

take a week? you can't have that. it's april now in afghanistan. it's every day something sitting in some guy's inbox or an audit is not accomplished is a day stolen from the fight, and that is outrageous and unreasonable that we allow that to happen, and we just can't let it happen. >> on the $400 billion deficit, you mentioned america's role in the world. what's the imp my cation for the modernization program? there's more cancellations like meds and eme's? >> that's a piece of what i said. we will be scrutinizing our programs and activities for those not needed, but one the major points i was taking, tony, while that's an important part of seeking economies, it is only a piece of the defense budget, and so what i was trying to do is draw people's attention to

the other six-sevenths of the defense budgets other than that. it's easy to pick programs because they have a name and are discreet and easy to underidentify and scrutinize, but that's not where the money is. >> thank you. >> jewish institute for national security affairs. you spoke about erosion of taxpayer confidence. recently, we're seeing erosion of confidence among those of us who support a robust defense budget because of our lack of success in libya. could you comment on that? people are saying $700 billion defense budget, and we can't take down a dictator like gadhafi. are you getting blow back on that? >> i think a couple things to say about that. the performance of our forces given the task that they have

been assigned and the role that they play relative to the nato alliance has been entirely what we expected and we have not had any difficulties, logistical or otherwise, in accomplishing that part of our role, so i think our forces are performing extremely well. >> [inaudible] >> john donnelly with congressional quarterly. back to the $400 billion. are you drafting guidances to tell the services and defense agencies how they can begin to make suggestions along those lines like you did where you ask the services to come up with suggested cuts, and to what extent are you going to let them keep the savings, and why do you have to let them keep any of them? >> well, the secretary has indicated and the president has

indicated that we will be undertaking a comprehensive review going forward that has not begun yet, but will begin in the department and will cover all of those dimensions. for that part which is associated with efficiencies, what the secretary indicated this year, and which we were successful in doing, was in reallocating within each of the services, essentially funding from lower-value added activity to higher-value added activity, so the objective there was not just to -- was not in the first instance to reduce the budget, although we were able to give back, as you know, of the $178 billion to the treasury, but the principle purpose was to reinvest $100 billion of identified savings back into

capability, and the services that found that money within their own budget were allowed to reallocate it within their own budget, and rewarded them for finding it, and that's where we want to money to end up. we want to reinvest savings into military capability. that's what you want. that's what a defense budget is all about. >> when and how are you going to start this comprehensive review in i mean, surely you have an idea of how it's going to unfold. >> well, the secretary is deciding that right now, and i'm sure he'll make that clear when he's figured it out. >> can you talk about the superior supplier incentive program. i don't know if there's an acronym for it yet, but what you're going to try to accomplish, a pilot program, and where you apply it initially. any details in >> good

question. there's an acronym. it's ssip. superior supplier interior program. first is how do you get recognized as a good performer, and second what do you get? it's like the frequent flier. both of those are part of the design. the model we're using is one that the navy was about to begin , and i've decided to make department wide, and we do keep track through a certain data base of the performance of the suppliers, and that will be in the initial the metric we use to identify superior performers, and then what they get will be post award, this will not figure

in source selection. it will figure in the things like performance payments and other things that are real incentives and real rewards. in addition to the simple nonmaterial recognition that goes with having done a good job and recognized as having done a good job and by implication of those not on the list are not doing what we asked them to do. >> jim wolf, have you been given any indication of how much of the drn i'll start again. have you been given any indication of how much of the $400 billion that president obamaments to take out of the -- president obama wants to take out of national security related spending by 2023 fiscal year will be taken from the defense department budget strictly speaking? >> the only thing that the president made clear was that he was speaking of the national security part of the budget

which is predominantly but not exclusively to defense budget so obviously all parts are included. >> so you haven't been given a target within that -- >> no, just makes it clear that everything is on the table ring the entirety of the national security portion of the budget. >> okay, and the other thing is when you said there's undoubtedly more cancellations of the type you referred to when you mentioned esg, did you mean starting as soon as fiscal year 2013? >> yes, for sure as we prepare the fiscal year 2013 budget. i'm going to go back here to make the same point i made with tony which is, you know, it's easy for y'all to keep track of programs, and that's an important thing to do, and we do too, and that is one of the places where we seek better

buying power. i just going to say it one more time which is -- that is a very important portion of the budget, but it's only a portion of the budget, so if you're managing the defense budget, you have to look at the whole thing. i think you expect us to look at every dollar in the defense budget and ask whether it's being well spent, not just the dollars that are being spent on acquisition programs. >> over here. >> thank you, phil with dod buzz. i wanted to talk about the acquisition work force going forward and secretary gets exempted it from the general freeze on hiring additions and so forth. how much of that -- how much of making your processes better or more efficient is adding people and just restoring capacity, and how much will be restructuring and even changing the cultures of the way the services buy things? can you just hire your way to a better process or can you make better changes?

>> no, it's not principally about numbers. it's principally about skill sets. as i said, these are not overseers. these are the executors of the work, and it requires excellence on their part to have excellent outcomes. they are the managers of our programs, and we need good people. in certain skill sets, we just became very, very short, and that's where quantity matters, but overall, the focus has got to be on quality and that they're doing the right thing which is what is projected on the screen here. as far as quality is concerned, we're lucky in that we have in the new hires we've made been fortunate in getting lots of very good people, and unfortunately part of that is focused with part of the stay

economy, but it's a labor market is that a good one from our point of view, and the other thing is when you recruit people for these jobs is it's the mission that really gets people. they are being part of something that's bigger than themselves. it makes all the difference. >> i'm general mcknight. i run the community learning and information network which deals a lot with national guard. i'm wondering how you feel about all the rack going on today because they're moving around pieces of the network organizations, moving fort to ab er deen, and this is like changing the wings on an airplane in flight.

how does that appear to you? >> it appears awfully tough. i realize we're in pursuit of the promised land of a better footprint, but, boy, it's tough on people. my missile defense agency is moving to hunts vim. my defense contract management agency is moving from one place in virginia to another place in virginia. you're asking people who are part of the solution here and who we need, back to the previous question, to either relocate or you have to find somebody else to do that job. aberdeen is a beehive of new construction and projects moving down. i think it's true that a third of the department of the army is changing locations within a two year period, so it is really a very substantial and difficult migration. >> mr. secretary, frank here,

thank you for your comments. you mentioned about the continuing resolutions being antiefficiency. we see in the market place more and more companies whose programs are hung up, stopped, and restarted based on the inability to gain timely audits and reviews by dcaa. can you comment on that and the antiefficiencies coming from it? >> yeah. well, audit times are one of the things that we are -- i need to address and are addressing. the new director of the contract audit agency, pat fitzgerald, very attentive to those issues, and they affect not only, so to speak ordinary programs, programs of record, frank, but i want to say in particular the rapid acquisition where time means so much, and so we

understand -- i hasten to say the contract audit agency does not report to me because they don't let the auditors report to the buyer, a sensible thing. that said, i do have an interest in the improvement of their performance, as importantly does the comptroller who does the report who is very aware of it. part of that is more auditors, but that's not really the key. the key to improving audit performance is to not serially process every single audit and treat the big, the small, the urgent, and the nonurgent all as if they're the same thing. it's the taxpayer's money and so people want to be very careful, and we do too about making sure that audits are done properly. at the same time, when you

serially process everything as though it's equally important, you can't keep up which means that something is falling off the table without you really having any control over how important it is, so we have work to do to improve that, and i think we know that we do. >> mr. secretary, with the national journals daily. you mentioned the services would get to keep the savings, the efficiencies they found in the first go-around. pair know ya in dod, the concern is the new round of efficiencies would take that away. can you guarantee them they get to keep the reprogramming that they did? >> i think in the large, those who have -- when talking about efficiencies, in the large, those who find efficiencies in the activities will have an opportunity to get more capability as a result.

you know, it's going to be -- if it's pure efficiency, it's going to be spent somewhere on capability, and it's natural that it'll be in the immediate environment of where the savings are found. now, of course the department and the secretary of defense always has the privilege of reapportioning money from one place to another as times change and priorities change and so forth, but the general expectation would be as you described. >> what other issue -- state assets are one of the most expensive things the sfs do and -- services do and one that in many ways is saddled with the problems of the past. the commercial, you know, nasa is forced to go more towards commercial as their funding goes down, and the commercial industry provides your communication and also can possibly provide center packages with hosted payrolls and things like that.

will you look at the more use of commercial? >> yeah, absolutely, yes. a couple points about that. you spoke of hosted payloads in particular as an opportunity for us -- for those of you who don't know what that is, it means there's a commercial satellite operator who is planning on putting up satellites anyway and offering real estate basically on their satellites for some of our payloads that ovulates the need for us to have our own spacecraft. obviously, that's a opportunity we want to look at. more generally on space programs, we're paying too much, and you'll see us doing a lot with the management of space programs coming up because there's way too much cost structure built in to our space programs. you'll see that on aehf. we'll look aggressively at the cost structure in that program

including, but not limited to, and maybe not even centrally the responsibility -- possibility of blocked buys. like wise for the launch systems, eelv, eelv's performing well, but costing way too much, and so these are in the situation of the ssbnx that i started with. you can look into the future, and it's apparent that at the costs projected, these are not affordable. >> the very last question, john? >> i just want this to be clear because i'm still not clear on this. maybe i'm slower than everybody else. that's definitely a possibility. i ask simply as i can so i don't get a phone call. does dod get to keep any of its portion of the $400 billion?

>> the savings over the next 10-12 years that the president spoke of the other week are intended to be deficit reduction savings. that's what he was talking about. that is what the subject of the stray teemingic review -- strategic review is. some of those can be identified through efficiencies. some of them are going to be have identified in other ways, and that's where the secretary's comprehensive review comes in, john. >> on that note, sir, i want to thank you for being a gracious guest today and taking the time to answer the questions, volunteering to come over here, and speak to an audience of other important pieces of the budget that we care so much as well. we are grateful for your time. >> thank you very much.

[applause] >> thanks for joining us today. there are refreshments available in the lobby. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> tonight on c-span, a look of government transparency and the public as access to information. you'll hear from wikileaks founder, julian assange.

>> it is obvious that whistle whether or not blowers make the world a safer place. it doesn't mean everything in government should be exposed, but what it does mean is the system of breaking alleged laws is working and that must be kept going that way otherwise laws can want reflect the -- cannot reflect the reality we are in. >> watch this debate from the frontline club in london tonight at 8 eastern on c-span. tonight on c-span#, a discussion on what defines corruption. you'll hear from the professors and a high ranking law official and what the courts deem corrupt and whether the american public agrees. >> rangel would say he was not a crook and arguing that he had

not received any personal enrichment, no money, no actual dollars in his pocket which was his definition of corruption. redidn't actually get any money, but i think there's few regular americans who look at the host of conduct that mr. rangel was ultimately found to have engagedded in and think it's not corrupt. in that way i might defer from our keynote speaker to say it's not all about the money. sometimes it's about the prestige. >> watch this event from new york university law school tonight at 8 eastern on c-span2. >> secretary of state hillary clinton today discuss the this state department's decision to provide the libyan opposition with $25 million in nonleal aid. her remarks came during a joint news conference from the haitian president elect. this is about 20 minutes.

[inaudible conversations] >> well, good afternoon, everyone. it is a great pleasure and an honor for me to welcome the president-elect to the state department on behalf of the united states government and to formally congratulate president-elect martelly on his victory in the election. i'll also congratulate the people of haiti on the election. in october only affirmed and strengthened the foundations of haiti's democracy, but it also helped shine light on the work that has been done and the work that still has to be done to recover from the damage of the earthquake and firmly set haiti on a path to long-term stability and development, and perhaps most importantly, this election

offered the people of haiti an opportunity to give voice to their dreams for their country's future, and now, it will be up to mr. martelly and his government to do everything in their power to help achieve those dreams. this election comes at a critical moment. in the 15 months since the earthquake, there has been progress in important areas. 20% of the rubble, more than 2 million cubic meters has been cleared, and that was through a program that employed more than 350,000 people that the united states was proud to support. a new industrial park near cap haitien through a joint effort by the government of haiti, the united states, and the inter-american development bank has been created. it has its first tenant, the global textile firm sae-a which

alone is projected to create 20,000 permanent export-oriented jobs. we expect more companies to be drown -- drawn to haiti because of an important piece of legislation passed by congress last year called the help program which significantly increased u.s. trade preferences for exports of apparel from haiti. we also want to acknowledge the successful response by the haitian ministry of health and population and the international community to curtail the cholera epidemic. now, these are successes that deserve to be celebrated, but we also know that there is a lot that lies ahead for the new president, for the government, and the people of haiti. still, there's a lot of rubble to be cleared. there are still 650,000 people

living in camps. the hurricane season is once again approaching. we want to do everything we can do be a good partner for haiti as it takes steps that it must take, making it easier, for example, to transfer ownership of state-owned land for affordable housing, to streamline the process for registering new businesses, getting construction permits approved, attracting investment and encouraging growth. we also know that the prisons in haiti are overcrowded. 80% of those detained have net to face trial, updating criminal codes, processing the backlog of demands, and implementing other judicial reforms will go a long way toward creating a functioning and more humane justice system. we know this takes leadership

which we have seen mr. martelly exhibit in his very vigorous campaign. we know it takes political will, which we know he has, a transparency for good government and getting results for people. i am very encouraged by the campaign that mr. martelly ran, his emphasis on the people and the willingness to be very clear in what he hoped to achieve on their behalf, and now he has a chance too lead, and we are behind him. we have a great deal of enthusiasm. this is not only a goal of our foreign policy, but it is a personal priority for me, my husband, and many of us here in washington. now, system of you may know that mr. martelly's campaign slogan

was tet kale. now, i'm told the literal transligs of that slogan is bald head which doesn't need further explanation. [laughter] they have a long road ahead of them, but as they walk it, united states will be with you all the way. thank you, sir. [applause] >> translator: thank you very much, i want to thank especially secretary of state hillary clinton for hosting me and my team. in the the second time that we meet since your visit in haiti.

i would like to extend my thanks to the obama administration and to the president himself. one again, the elections of november and march demonstrated the fierce determination of the haitian people to build its own democracy. now it is up to me to transform my campaign promises into an action plan. clearly, i have huge challenges in front of me, but i intend to meet them.

in spite of the generous donations of the american citizens which have reached $1.2 billion received by 53ngo's and in spite of the donation by the government of the united states by $1.5 billion, we still have 1.7 million people who still live under tents after 15 long months of waiting. the cola epidemic, if it is not con taped, and if haitians are not vaccinated, this epidemic threatens to extend itself to the entire country during the upcoming rainy and hurricane

season. in addition, starting on june 1st, the country will have to confront up to 16 hurricanes scheduled an tas pated next summer -- anticipated next summerment the reconstruction process is december -- dispairingly slow. these were the complaints that were expressed by a desperate population thought my election campaign. this is why recovering and restarting the economy is a fundamental necessity for my government.

this is why i plan on working releaptless-- relentlessly and to develop the capabilities of government institutions and of civil society. mad p.m. secretary of state, i am truly counting on you to ensure that this restructuring of foreign aid be truly effective for haiti.

[speaking in native tongue] >> bilateral cooperation also involves fighting against drugs and corruption, respect for human rights, establishment for the rule of law, increased and necessary role of our diaspora community, dps, depore sees, good government, agriculture, in a moment where worldwide prices are increasing and an establishment of a climate saveable for potential investors. our discussions focused on the urgent need to ensure that the aid will be effective for our citizens and to avoid waste.

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: finally i skewed with the secretary of state with barak obama's offer to create a partnership with haiti. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: my new vision for my country is to engage in all of the useful and necessary reforms to ensure that haiti will be a full member of the modernity of the 21st century. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you, madam secretary, for your very warm welcome. [applause] >> we have time for just a couple questions. first one to jill from cnn. >> thank you. on libya, it was announced today that decided to recommend the

provision to the president recommend nonlethal aid for the opposition. why did you decide to do that and why now? isn't there a passive admission that right now the situation is a stale meat and you, in effect, must do this for an op -- opposition that is incapable of doing it itself. a quick one on syria, the emergency law lifts, the killings go on, where are we going with that? isn't the situation now going backwards? what just happened? >> well, jill, first with respect to libya, we are moving to authorize up to $25 million in nonlethal commodities and services to support the transitional national council and our efforts to protocol civilians and the civilian populated areas that are under threat of attack from their own government in libya.

.. mccaul supplies, uniform boots, attempts, personal protections, radio, this is not a blank check, but this action is consistent with the united

nations security council resolution 1973, which among other actions authorizes member states to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populated areas. the department of state and the department of defense are working closely together with other partner in order to coordinate on what kind of nonlethal assistance is most necessary and who among the international community cannot provide which goods and services. i think it's important to point out that this opposition which has held its own against a brutal assault by the forces was not an organized militia, it was

not a group that had been planning to oppose the rule of khaddafi for years. it was a spontaneous response within the context of the brough era spurring. either mostly business people, students, lawyers, doctors, professors who have very briefly moved to defend their communities and call for an end to the regime in libya, and we are going to continue to take action consistent with the u.n. authorization to try to fulfill the international commitment. now with respect to syria, we strongly condemn the ongoing violence committed against peaceful protesters by the syrian government.

we also condemn use of violence by protesters. we have been consistent ever since since the last month begun and have continued we are calling for an end to violence, calling for peaceful protests and political process that can respond to the legitimate needs interests and aspirations of the people of the region and we regret the loss of life and extend our condolences to the families and loved ones the fall of the victim's. we are concerned about the situation at home where multiple reports suggest violence and casualties among those civilians and government personnel. it is difficult to independently confirm these accounts because journalists are not being allowed free access to many of these areas, the syrian government must allow free

movement and free access, it must stop the arbitrator rest and torture of prisoners and must cease the violence and begin a serious political process through concrete actions that demonstrate its responsiveness to the legitimate issues that have been raised by the syrian people seeking substantial and lasting reform. >> thank you for taking the question one of the points of contention for the haitian government has been very interested in getting u.s. aid, direct aid to the haitian government and i was wondering if the most talked-about and also if there was any talk during your talk of the president-elect has suggested some sort of a haitian military group and if there was talk of

that. >> [speaking in native tongue [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> with respect to the first part, i would say that american aid has been coming to the country for decades now in various forms by the u.s. id and other structures and we talk about various projects that are under way and on the verge of completion, and i also talked about my parties, the priorities that i emphasized during my campaign which were education, relocation of the people who were living under the tent and of course restarting agriculture. so those are the priorities i emphasize during my campaign.

as for the second part of the question i would say right now in the country in haiti it is playing an important role, it is safeguarding and maintaining peace in the country so when the time will come to consider rebuilding the renewed force people talk about those issues in the timely fashion. >> i would only add to the president-elect has said with the united states has pledged not on the partnership, but one where we look to assist him in achieving his priorities for the people of his country. we have also suggested that we can work with the large international ngo community together so that everyone is committed to pursuing in a transparent, open way the

priority the president-elect has determined will make the biggest difference in the lives of the haitians. he is committed to results. he wants to deliver for the haitian people and we are committed to helping him do so. thank you so much. >> it is obvious we make the world a safer place and try to e

look at the arguments it doesn't mean that everything in the government should be exposeduld that the system of breaking of the alleged walls is working and that must be kept going that way otherwise more cannot reflect the reality that we are in. >> argue that he wasn't corrupt, even on the last day about to be censured by the full house he was arguing that he hasn't

received any personal enrichment, no money, no actual dollars had gone into his pocket which was his definition of corruption. he didn't get any money but there's very little few regular americans who would look at the host of conduct if he was ultimately found to have engaged in and think that there was and corrupt. so in that way i might differ from our keynote speaker to say that it isn't all about the money sometimes it is also about the prestige united nations

humanitarian sheet of calgary and los briefed reporters on her trip to libya. she talked about her meetings and naturally and the coup this past week. her comments from about 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, everyone. we are very pleased to have with us this afternoon the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency the coordinator valerie amos reza recently visited libya at the start of this week. she's here to talk to you about that. she will have to be out of here by a quarter past one. >> ten past one. ms. amos, the floor is yours. >> thank you. i will make a short statement because i'm sure you have a number of questions to ask me. i just returned from a two day mission to libya during which i

was able to visit tripoli and speed. my purpose was to secure agreements to establish a humanitarian presence in tripoli and push for the cessation of prosperity so that both by conflict could leave and so that we could facilitate delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid. on also wanted to have an opportunity to look at coordination efforts on the ground in benghazi. in the benghazi at the representative for the humanitarian agencies, member states and relief committee by the transitional national council. while the tripoli i met with libya's government officials, ambassadors of member states and heads of the humanitarian community. in tripoli we signed an agreement with the government of libya ensuring the protection for humanitarian aid organization and granted access

for those in need especially in areas we are fighting taking place. specifically the government agrees to fasuba the assumption that the u.n. humanitarian presence in tripoli to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to provide the security guarantees necessary for the u.n. humanitarian presence under the control of the libyan government and to facilitate the entry and exit of humanitarian staff and the input of all material equipment necessary to support the u.n. humanitarian presence in libya. we need humanitarian teams on the ground so that we can get a sense of what is actually happening to assess the needs to enable us to plan and respond effectively. we plan to send a team into tripoli as early as we can. in addition to humanitarian staff already on the ground in a

speech to benghazi and egypt. the is acute and remains of utmost concern to the humanitarian community. the fighting continues in several locations inside libya. we have been unable to verify the number of the reports of the civilian injuries and the displacements. the situation also grows more serious every day and although the u.n. is unable to obtain the verifiable numbers clearly hundreds of people have been killed and wounded during the almost continuous fighting. in addition the reported use of cluster munitions is extremely worrying. some people in the city are short of food, water, medicine, electricity and other basic supplies. and although several thousand people have now been evacuated,

thousands more are still unable to leave and putting the third country natural refugees and libyans. our humanitarian efforts are focused on reaching these urgently need our help. i will stop there and i am happy to take questions. >> thank you very much. the first question -- [inaudible] >> thank you. the question would be to get us this stretch by the organization based in london that introduction of troops, the european union troops to support the united nations efforts should be taken as a last resort do you think the united nations or humanitarian efforts need troops to protect us and get help to the people?

>> not at the moment. we are able to get in using civilian means. you will have seen for example that the international organization for migration evacuated a number of people as of yesterday and a unicef ship is meant to dhaka today to deliver much-needed supply. so at the moment we have an agreement with the european force and with nato should we reach the point where the utilization of the civilian assets becomes impossible because of the security situation we, the u.n., would call on them, have the opportunity to call on them for support for military assets, but we are not at that point yet.

>> so you didn't find at that point you reached that point? >> no. we are still able utilizing the civilian assets to evacuate people and to get aid. it's difficult but we are able to do it. >> i have two questions when you are talking about now one of the concerns was if you do have troops protecting humanitarian aid that it blurs the line between the military and humanitarian. is that your concern also, and is it a concern that the u.k. has put military advisers and two benghazi two apparently advised the rebels or the opposition of humanitarian issues is that beginning to take a step towards blurring the line between the two as well? and then just can you explain how your agreement in tripoli what it means, does that mean that you can go and do when you need to do?

>> okay on the blurring of the lines between the humanitarian and military, you will know that every time we try to operate in a conflict context that we bump up against this reality where you have states that are party to a conflict in some way and who want to be involved in the humanitarian effort and our responsibility for the time is to make it clear. the aid we supply is on an impartial and mutual basis that the blurring of the lines means you very often put the security of humanitarian workers at risk by you also put every delivery of that aid at risk that the

case of libya you may have seemed there are reports that the libyan government has said absolutely clearly that it will stop any attempt to use humanitarian assistance or aid to support military efforts. so we have to be extremely careful about that and have to try as much as possible to ensure that those lines do not get blurred. on the issue of u.k. military advisers i am not aware and i haven't been party to the terms of reference of these advisers are. of course the u.k. government will have its own priorities. my priority is getting humanitarian aid in and making

sure that the line between the humanitarian and the military and north are blurred. on the misrata, basically the agreement -- the written agreement that we have is in relation to his publishing that humanitarian presence in tripoli. separately i raised the need for us to have access to misrata because part of it is controlled by the opposition and part by the government for libya. i received assurances from the government of libya about ensuring the the security of humanitarian workers to enable them to get to misrata so we can try to get to misrata by the road as well as trying to get in a by sea.

>> across the border the unicef ship docking to the and the assessment team going to tripoli over the weekend, beyond that, what can you say about the sort of plans in terms of getting more supply, what is in the pipeline, where are they going to come from, how much and where are they going to go? >> it entirely depends on the security situation, and secondly, it depends on our ability to do the need assessment. with we have 6,000 who cross just in what today period, so we have to try to get into misrata, but we have to try to get into some of these other cities as well. we have stocks on the border

into nisha, on the border in egypt and elsewhere and as soon as the security situation allows and as soon as we are able to do effective needs assessments, we will be able to move to wherever we need to. [inaudible] and how [inaudible] to allow the unicef ship. >> i went into tripoli on monday and then i went into benghazi on the following day. and i was basically involved in meeting. there was no issue in terms of where i went with respect to my trip to tripoli, the aid is

going obviously to by sea to an area which is controlled by the opposition. >> the wfp was able to negotiate. we are now at the point where we are able to negotiate that kind of access with the government of libya. i'm not able to second-guess their reasons for doing that. my concern is to get as much access as we can so that we can see what is going on, but also have an opportunity to help those in greatest need. we are getting lots of reporting, what we need to be able to verify that.

fisa logistics cluster report on april 19th that says insurance for the vessel reported increasing due to the security situation on the ground. is that your experience and for the issues of getting insurance to actually get these things and effecting it and also what is being done to ensure the refugees are people that want to leave the country from the sort of poor countries that may have been the workers are actually being processed in a somewhat equal weight with people from the affluent countries? >> the assurances are a concern. it's extremely costly and pushing up the cost of the evacuation's as you can imagine the country nationals many of them from the poor countries in sub-saharan africa and we have been raising money we have

really pressed the donors so that we can get enough money so that we can have these relations to get people out. >> what if nobody's got the insurance, can you still get it? >> of course if there was and insurance, then i think that the ship that we are currently using would not agree to go in. >> that position from misrata [inaudible] >> it partly depends on where it comes from, whether it comes in from the egyptian border, whether it comes from the tunisian border or by sea into the port. so, it is taking on average about a day for a ship to go

from benghazi to misrata. the sailing time is shorter than that but there are things depending with the securities situation allows to enable them to get in. >> [inaudible] >> by road, there are roadblocks so again, securities and major issue. not the status of the roads themselves, so it is really impossible to say. it is really only just over 100 kilometers for example from the border to tripoli as one example and from the egyptian border to benghazi, again, it isn't that far. but it entirely depends on the security situation and the state of emergency.

>> [inaudible] the security to be considered the council to understand what's happening here the libyan government is failing to protect its citizens so i understand you want to be there but referring to the libyan government that tripoli, the regime has still the legal entity of the government [inaudible] is a government of libya that still controls use of an opposition in libya that controls part of libya. that's the situation.

[inaudible] >> you can call it the regime if you like. >> last question, barbara. >> a clarification of what your saying before. >> you were not able to get the gestation that you want in order to do the humanitarian work but the government has promised to security to get in --. speed we to be traveling in with the government searches and protecting you or the humanitarian corridor that the average is that also with the government soldiers that we will protect him as it goes in, how does that work to view the security? >> obviously we have our own security people, but the government and libya has given

assurances they will also provide security to enable us for example to get the check points and to get as far as we can. i am very well aware that there may come a point for example the fighting is so fierce we can get no further. we absolutely recognize that, so we have to do this on the basis on the security that is operating at that particular moment in time. we have to take advice from our own security people know about the extent to which they feel they are able to make the trip at that point in time, and we also have to be paying if we are going into misrata by road on the assurances from the government of libya that they will ensure the security of the u.n. humanitarian team from that road where there are many