done to you if you can't recover and someone to sign the papers for you if you can want sign them yourself, and the people who criticize this, as far as i'm concerned, they are idiots. one who is not an idiot was the chairman of president bush's counsel on bioethics, president bush, the younger, he's opposed to living wills because he writes no one can possibly imagine what they would do in all future contingencies and no substitute for a loving partner. well, good for him. he's got a loving partner, a wife, but there's a lot of people, particularly women who won't have a loving partner even if they had a loving partner for most of their life, and while it's certainly true that you can want know what you would do in every circumstance, i can't know, you know, whether if my

knee gets worse i'm willing to go through knee replacement or hobble around the knee i tore up on a lettuce leaf 20 years ago, i don't know the answer to that, but i do know that if my brain, my higher brain functionings are done, that i do not want to be force fed to keep my body alive, that i do not want to be hooked up ton or artificial ventilator if i'm 85 years old and can't breathe on my own, but i can't answer what i would do in every situation doesn't mean that i can't know what i would do in the most common situations, and i think whatever anyone says about this, i do think that the objections to this are a particular kind of highly conservative religion or a religion -- i was raised a catholic. i'm an atheist, but i know they have no objection to saying, you know, you don't want to be on a

ventilator if you can't get better, that is not considered suicide. it's considered you don't have an obligation to have everything to keep your body alive as long as possible. ..it is an hour, 10 minutes.

>> we thought we would have this little gathering because secretary rumsfeld's book book is not thing getting very much

attention so we thought that we would make up for that by at least having one event. i know you are not doing anything else to make sure that the book gets the attention it deserves. it is appropriate we are doing this here in the national constitution center because one of the things the founders were serious about was, unlike the regimes in europe that they were starting this country to be unlike, they wanted to make sure that we had a record of our leaders, what they thought about what they did in office and also the hope that record would be open as soon as possible. >> i want to wait and get them to quiet down. >> and everyone here? i think there are some questions. >> there is so much noise over to the right. is that what it is? it is a big crowd of people trying to get upstairs which were for an author is news you would like to hear. we will just speak loudly.

in any case, they hope that we americans would have access to what our leaders thought and what they did they did as soon as possible so that we could learn from their successes and their shortcomings and as i was saying donald rumsfeld's book is very much in that tradition. i'm glad it is published and i think you are too. >> thank you. >> the book is on mr. rumsfeld's entire life but why don't we begin by talking about iraq and then work backwards. a great deal of the book is about iraq and i guess maybe the way to get into this is, here we are in the constitution center. we just passed by a statue of james madison in the other room. as you know madison gave a lot of thought to war and why the president should do and how often american should get into war. if he came back and just asked you to tell him why did we go to war in iraq, what would you say? >> the answer would in the

united states passed a resolution overwhelmingly favoring regime change in iraq in the 1990s by an overwhelming vote and was signed by president clinton. the united nations issued some 17 different resolutions, advising iraq that they should conform to the resolutions, the request of the united nations security council to allow the inspectors in to their country to provide the inspectors the information on their weapons of mass destruction, and the united nations had been repeatedly rebuffed. president george w. bush made a decision when he first came into office that he was concerned about the fact that iraq was firing regularly at the united

states and united kingdom aircraft that were supporting the united nations no-fly zone and patrolling in the northern and southern portion of iraq. those planes were being shot at almost every day. the only country in a world that was shooting at american and british aircraft. over 2000 times they were fired on. the joint chiefs of staff advised me in a president that they were concerned about the fact that eventually one of our planes, a british plane or airplanes will be shut down and the crews would be killed or taken hostage. third, the united states department of state had listed iraq as one of the countries on the terrorist list so there were a series of things like that by way of background. next, the united states intelligence agency spent a great deal of time and

determined that they were convinced that the iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction, had the confidence to continue developing weapons of mass destruction and had the capability to rapidly expand those capabilities in the event they decided to do so. you had a country in iraq that had used chemical weapons on its own people, the kurds, the country that had used chemical weapons against its neighbor in iran, and a behavior pattern that persuaded people that they not only have them but would use them. and we were at a point in our countries history where the lethality of weapons had arrived at a point that once you mix them with someone who was willing to proliferate those weapons and once you have given,

i love them too with somebody who has demonstrated a willingness to use them as well as proliferate them, the danger, the globe lethality was so great that president bush went to the congress and told the congress what they believe. >> was there ever thought a thought of the war declaration for a resolution? >> no, i don't know. that would have been something they department of state would have done with the president. >> we have not at day declaration of war since 1941, since world war ii. not in the korean war, not in the vietnam war, not in the incursions president clinton was about then. does the war declaration mckinney difference and would it have brought americans more into this? >> i doubt it. you never know. that is a row they didn't travel and i can't really say but i think the resolution passed by congress and then the resolutions by the united

nations provided and underpinning. the other thing i would add to the former president is that president bush and colin powell and condi rice and george tenet and the vice president, all of us discussed the hope that they would not be a conflict and that saddam hussein could be persuaded to leave the country and not require an invasion of the country, and there were messages passed and requests made, and they were rebuffed. i think that saddam hussein very like he was purposely trying to make the world believe he had large stockpiles. i think that he felt that he had friends in the united nations who might eat evil to stop the united kingdom, the united states and the various other countries that were supporting the coalition and prevent them from going in, and i also think

that, because president george w. bush's father had gone into iraq after iraq invaded kuwait and cause them to be removed from kuwait but did not change the regime is good evidence that saddam hussein believe that america would regime, that he would survive even though the united states might come in. so, there were a combination of things taking place that argued for it and there were a behavior -- there is a behavior pattern on the part of iraq misguided as it turned out and he refused to leave for this family which was offered and urged. war is the failure of diplomacy and. >> eshoo quote in the book. one thing people i think will be very surprised to read about is president bush never asked you for your advice on whether the country should go to war against

iraq. would that violate one of rumsfeld's rules? >> no, don't think so. i don't know that he asked colin powell or condi rice or the vice president. he was the president. he was elected by the american people. we had frequent meetings and discussed various aspects of the situation. they worked very hard with united nations to try to put additional pressure on saddam hussein so that he wouldn't continue to resist, and the president did what a president has to do. he made the decision and i assume that he assumed that everyone in that group would have argued vehemently if they disagreed which no one did. >> how do you think people in the future will look back on that decision in iraq? >> it is hard to know. the road not traveled is always

smoother and one looks at it and thinks what if and what if. i think a little known fact is that gadhafi, the head of libya at that point had a very aggressive nuclear program underway, and when the united states went in and change the regime in iraq, gadhafi who have been working very hard on a nuclear program, very high on the terrorist list, decided that he would forgo his nuclear program and he contacted some western leaders and indicated look, i do have this nuclear program. i am willing to stop it. i'm willing to have it inspected that i have stopped it because i do not want to be suffering the same date as saddam hussein. so if you look at the region, there are some disadvantages that linger from the conflict.

by the same token, you have a country of iraq that no longer has a truly vicious brutal regime that had used chemical weapons against its own people and its neighbors. it is gone. the iraqi people have fashioned a constitution, had elections under the constitution and are finding their way towards away from the repressive system towards a freer political and freer economic system. other countries in the region such as libya are engaged in a behavior pattern that is vastly better for the world than for the region, so there are minuses, negatives and there are some pluses, and i think you are an outstanding historian and i think it will people like you who overtime will play all those things and with the benefit of some distance make some

judgments. speeding i think a little while from now. let's go back to the beginning. you were born in chicago, grew up in one at the illinois which was not quite as prosperous of the town that it is now then. a little village, as she write about. went on to princeton. without a bit of a culture shock coming from the midwest? >> oh my goodness, it was indeed. i was told by the dean of the school i was going to go to a big 10 school and russell and the dean said no, no you have got to go to princeton. i said well, why? he said well, that is where you belong. i said i can go there, i don't have the money. he said i will give a gateway scholarship, which he did and so i went and of course most of the people they are gone to private schools. they had taken the freshman courses before and i got there and i worked my head off. i spent all the time in the library or plain foot all are

wrestling and never did much other than that. there were no women at the store store -- school. it rained a lot. [laughter] not my first choice and joys, my wife here was off at the university of colorado skiing her way through college and it was, it was a totally different experience for me. >> and you also heard a little talk by a princetonian who would run for president and nominated once. it is not in the book that i'm told that you actually know some of those words almost by heart. >> i do. >> don't tell who it was. >> it was at my senior banquet in 1954 and the former governor of illinois named adlai stevenson, had lost to dwight eisenhower already in 52 and he later lost and 56. it was our senior banquet in college and he came to speak at princeton. he was a princeton graduate and he gave the most eloquent and

persuasive speech about public service that i had ever heard orwell ever heard -- here. it was an evening event, and all of us just sat there listening to this really and -- he called himself an egghead and as a is a joke he used to say, what was it? >> have nothing to use -- lose but your yokes. >> exactly. i think all of us who were getting ready to go into the military, all this came away with a sense of responsibility and one of the things he said was that young people in our country have a responsibility to help guide and direct the course of our country.

and that the power of the american political system is virtually without measurement. and if america would have stumbled, the world would fall. it had an impact on me and i have put up a web site with hundreds of men most that i believe supports the book that we have got here, and you can go to an end note and go to the web site and actually see the entire memo as i quote a paragraph but i'm almost positive we have got adlai stevenson speech on my web site and i highly recommend it. it is a wonderfully inspiring speech. >> although he did not tempt you to become a democrat obviously. was there any point in your early life that you would have been anything but a republican? >> oh my goodness, yes. during world war ii as a young man my father was in the navy out of the pacific on a carrier

and franklin roosevelt was about the only president in my lifetime between 1932 and i guess he was sworn in 33 and i was born in july of 32 that i never knew herbert hoover personally. but franklin roosevelt was the president. he representative the united states of america in wartime and my parents, i and everyone i knew looked to him as the leader of our country and it was enormously important figure for a young man. >> and you were so taken with stevenson and what he said, it seemed that had some influence over the fact that you ran for congress at the age of 29, very dark horse 1962. most people don't run for congress that early or at least they didn't in those days as you

said. it was younger then it is nowadays. what moved you to get into that? >> well, i was the longest of long shots. i've been away from my home district for decade. i've gone for years to college, three nephews and maybe and then i worked in washington for two congressmen, one from ohio win-win for michigan. i had never met a congressman before my life and then i had gone back to chicago, home, and suddenly out of the blue a woman who was the congresswoman who had succeeded her husband, and they had occupied the congressional district from 1932 until 1960 and she announced she wasn't going to run for re-election. i thought to myself my goodness that same family owned that district for my entire lifetime. either you run -- you may not get another chance. so i talked to joyce and she is has game she said and we got a

whole bunch of friends from high school and college and god bless them they went out there and i think we have something like 1500 volunteers helping and people running around with car tops under cars saying rumsfeld for congress and earrings and buttons and bumper stickers and sure enough, i was fortunate. one of the things that might've helped michael is that president kennedy had gotten elected two years before and he was so young >> yet run for congress at 29. >> had run for congress at 29 and served in the senate for part of the term and then he ran for president but he was a young president and he had been elected and he was so attractive and charming and humorous. >> in the first or the second presidency so you pose for a picture with eisenhower during the campaign and as a new congressman an i think within your first couple of months went to the white house and met kennedy. >> i did indeed and but the fact that we had such an attractive young president had an appeal in

the district that made a kid 29 years old running for congress look like maybe he could actually be a congressman. >> and so it proved to be. you came to washington and among the things you did in washington and you write about it in the book was you attended a briefing by lyndon johnson on vietnam and tell little bit about that because you actually spoke up in that briefing in a way that i think very few people did. >> well this wonderful vice president, hubert humphrey was called a happier warrior and just a wonderfully energetic and appealing person. he was vice president and he had just come back from vietnam. vietnam was increasingly becoming a major political factor in the country. it had not been when i first ran in 62 but by then i suppose of it was 64, 66. >> 65. >> 65. president johnson was getting

complaints that members of congress didn't feel they were being informed about the war. >> however could they have said such a thing? >> yes, i know it. he invited the members of congress down to the white house and we all went down, at least a large number went down, 150 of us in it was winter as i recall. the invitation came late and we went in and it is not nothing for young congressman to be sitting in the white house being briefed by the president vice president just coming back from vietnam. hubert humphrey starts to give the briefing and lyndon baines johnson was commander in chief. he was bigger than life. he would pop up every time someone would say something and answer the question and hubert would just about be ready to answer and stop and lyndon johnson would take over. >> that is pretty much the

weight usually was dhume. >> yes, indeed. he was a powerful figure. >> and johnson was talking about the things he was doing to win the war and you piped up and said like --. >> as a congressman, listening to him i was probably more critical than i would have been as a member of the executive branch being asked questions by members of congress so where you stand kind of depends on where you sit but, he was going through a period where he was trying to figure out what to do in the war in vietnam and he would go through a heavy bombing period and then there would be a bombing pause and he would hope that would cause a positive reaction from the north vietnamese or the viet cong and it didn't. and, he and explaining what he was doing was asked a question by a democratic congressman named young from texas about why

it wasn't working. his answer was in effect that it would work and of course the fact was if you do something for a period and then stop completely, it is confusing. it is confusing to our people. it is confusing to the enemy and i did ask the question and try to get some response from him as to how that combination of off and on was going to work. and he said well, the wait is going to work is more of the same. at that point he was in a bombing pause, which suggested that it might not work and of course it didn't. he had a tough job and he did his best. >> in retrospect what you think the big mistakes were in vietnam and making the decision the way it was fought?

>> well i wasn't in issues and it is hard to say for sure, but in the last analysis that country was going to have to find its way it sells and the task we had was not to try to go after the north vietnamese or the viet cong alone because all they have to do was disappear. they didn't have to fight a single battle. they could just disappear and a week later show back up. they could harvest the rice and then come right back and you could have walked u.s. forces from one end of the country to the other and they would would e just disappeared into the countryside. and then when you they pass they would come right back. in my view in retrospect, the benefit of hindsight, the task was really to try to get the south vietnamese government capable of organizing and training and equipping their own forces and providing something

for the people of south vietnam and the rest of vietnam vet offered a promise for them for a future. i think ho chi minh was more successful in suggesting to the vietnam -- the vietnamese people that the future under him would be brighter for those people. there was an argument made that the south vietnamese government was corrupt and out of touch with the people. that that is not unusual in the world for governments to be labeled corrupt. a great number of the governments in the world are corrupt and i don't know the north vietnamese government under ho chi minh was not corrupt. that was an argument and the combination of those things i think created a very difficult circumstance for lyndon johnson and the united states of america. >> and in 1968 richard nixon was elected. he comes to you and asks you to take on the office of economic opportunity, one of the crown jewels of the great society, not

very popular with republicans were nixon who basically wanted to dismantle it. not a great career move for you i think but you did it. what was your rationale? >> i had voted against the legislation when it was passed. sargent shriver who recently passed away, had been the person who headed up the office of economic opportunity and it started under resident kennedy. he and his brother bobby kennedy and the justice department had fashioned a program to try to assist the poor in the country and then president johnson came in with his big texas approach and enlarged it and it became the war to eradicate poverty. if you define poverty as a certain percentage of our population, and then you try to eradicate if it is not possible

because there is always going to be a certain percentage that fits in that category. and they immediately started a host of programs. there was the job corps. there was headstart. there were migrant programs, health care programs, drug programs, community action programs. there must have been 12 or 15 different programs under this umbrella of the war on poverty. ..

the local state governments were constantly being harassed by the program as well as we have the federal government supplying money to the office of economic opportunity that filed lawsuits against mayors and governors and councils all of the people regardless of political party it had nothing to do with politics. he was against the structure so it was widely disliked. estimate your your promising republican people even then talking about the possible future president is in this survey agreed cured for that? >> well, joyce chezem u.n. usual humor and one night i got home and went to the icebox and there was a little sign that said he tackled the job that couldn't be done and with a smile he went right to it. he tackled the job that couldn't

be done and couldn't do it. [laughter] you laugh. at 10:00 at night when i was reaching into a soda a and reading that, that throws you down, i tell you. [laughter] >> so you did that and went on to the next white house and you write in the book you wanted to leave washington after the election of 1972. did you see watergate coming? >> guest: i didn't at all. i ended up going over to nato as the ambassador right after the 1972 election and the pundits in washington couldn't believe that i would leave the power. i was a member of the cabinet in the white house and suddenly i'm going off to brussels belgium and looked like siberia to the political people in the white house because the proximity to power is considered in washington what one would want

and i did the opposite. i went thousands of miles in the other direction. someone wrote in a magazine in washington after watergate broke who is the smartest man in washington? answer, donald rumsfeld. statement, but he's not in washington. and sir, that's right. [laughter] he and i got a reputation for being smart instead of lucky. to richard nixon had been reelected by one of the biggest margins in the history of the country. he won every state in the union accept massachusetts in the district of columbia. no one could imagine that i would want to get away and i would want to be away from that as opposed to in the middle of it but we took our family and went to belgium and we have a truly wonderful experience representing our country overseas. >> and gerald ford becomes president after the resignation and your great friend and

colleague in the house in the 1960's. he said he wanted a staff at the wheel everyone would report that the president. your body after month he thought that wasn't working very well. it's been said a lot people that worked for president ford were very much impressed with the fact the presidential power. did you see signs of that? >> gerald ford was a legislator and he was a minority leader and function on the spokes of the wheel concept where everyone could come to see him and he liked people. he was a gracious wonderfully warm and decent man and anyone who wanted to have access to him could and his minority leader of the united states house of representatives worked but as a positive. the president of the united states can't do that. it doesn't work. it's dysfunctional and he had

watched the nixon white house, and i believe he believed part of the reason for nixon's downfall was the result was called the berlin wall, white house staff system run by bob haldeman and john ehrlichman that he called the berlin wall because they both had names the found in german mix vv commesso he didn't want that. and he said he had established this and he asked -- he asked how to stay on and then it turned out he felt he couldn't keep him and he went over as the allied commander in europe and asked me to come and i told him i wouldn't do it. it couldn't be done, the demography design wasn't going to work and he said i know that now but i want to help you get from where i am to where i want to be and give you a little slab

of where we navigate over to the national white house chief of staff system. >> cheney said serving as the chief of staff house your successor under the president ford he's also many signs of the fact presidents were constrained in the wake of the watergate, congress was moving in and the course of some extent and he said when it became vice president one of the things he hoped to do is expand presidential power and move the pendulum the other way. did you feel the same way? >> when you have an embattled president, and functioning in the white house that at that point was the illegitimate, watergate and trained the reservoir of trust in the country, and for the first time in history a president of the united states have to resign. it was a stunning event. in our country and in the world.

when you train the reservoir of trust which is how we govern we don't govern by command, we govern by persuasion and three leadership and you have to be able to persuade and if there's no trust you can't persuade. people don't respond. and the white house was in that terrible, terrible circumstances the effect of that was that he had a dilemma should he go for continuity which would reassure the american people that he couldn't who had never been elected with no campaign staff, no platform, no knowledge about the country having campaigned the country, no base of support he felt the need to reassure the country that there would be continuity and policy.

the alternative would have been which i favored he would favor a change. my view was that if that institution of the white house was deemed legitimate and not trustworthy then-president ford had to create sufficient change that would be seen not as a continuum of the nixon ford white house, but as the ford white house. and he made unef changes in the cabinet and the staff that people would see him as stepping forward with a new team. he opted for continuity, and pay the penalty. >> you think he shouldn't have? >> i think that he should have made enough changes. he was such a decent man he said i don't want to let anyone go and have it appear that they did something wrong because there were a handful of people who did something wrong in that white house and it wasn't a large number and there were wonderful people. pat moynihan was there and alan

greenspan and george shultz and a host of dr. stein and dr. wittman and so many people of wonderful reputations and gerald ford couldn't bring himself to fire anybody. he didn't want to do it because he felt it would be a tarnished. >> you later kristen the book of the story of how fielder president george h. w. bush went to the cia in 1975. you want to tell us the story and when you feel the real story was? >> what do you mean what i feel real story was? [laughter] >> tell the full story and then god's troup? [laughter] >> george herbert walker bush came to congress i think in 1966. i had been elected in 62 and he came with a wonderful group of people and i knew him and served

in the congress with him and he at some point in the debris think running for the senate and losing and then he went over to china as a representative and he wanted to come back and he told president ford he wanted to come back and serve the executive position and i was chief of staff in the white house and periodically i would be asked by the president to send a group of names to the attorney-general or the director of the cia when bill colby said he wanted to leave for another cabinet officer in that part of housing and urban development so the staff in the white house would produce these documents of six or eight names of people and here's the pros and cons and the people who favor and then the president will get them and ask to have the fbi to deutsch or have other people that the amount and that went in when the president said the director colby wanted to leave the cia

and push's name was on that list with the staff and people had first come second, fourth of all of the line or below the line and for whatever reason there was a myth created because i have been considered vice president when president ford picked nelson rockefeller -- and george herbert walker bush had been considered that we were competitive and so the myth cannot when he was sent to the cia the senate said we won't confirm you unless you agree he will not be vice president produce what kind of rule him out. and i told president ford i thought he should do that he should definitely not allow the senate to tell him who the country should have as a vice presidential nominee. and later urged him not to agree

to. the facts or george herbert walker bush begged the president to tell him he wouldn't be vp he wanted to be the director of the cia and his wife wrote a book and said he was thrilled to be nominated for that and somehow the mckennon now that ali was the one that masterminded all of this and a range for him not to be considered a vice president -- began to write to believe that. >> i don't know that the myth persists that and i felt he was tired of it and i wrote president ford and said give me a letter that tells you the facts are and he wrote back and said you're right george herbert walker bush begged to be the head of the cia, wanted to be ahead of the cia, was delighted to be the head of the cia and he had nothing to do that and that is the long and short of it. >> in our world meredith's and

furies get strung out over a period of time until lives like the argentine stone and not withstanding the fact they are totally based and mid air without any proof or substance at all so let's move the clock up since we don't have a lot of time. in 2000 george bush's chief of sunni elected president and you go to see him. did you have any thoughts you'd be acted on to the cabinet? >> no, i was an old man. [laughter] >> we had gone to our 50th high school reunion in illinois and in the year 2018 and september with her perception and wisdom and foresight announced this was the beginning of the rural period this was september of 2000 and we had no more idea in the world that lie within the up back in the government and had no particular desire year and we

were happy and life was good. i had been in business and pergola of years and was successful and served as the chairman of several government commissions. one of the ballistic missile and one on and felt i was contributing in a volunteer way. >> when you consider a defense, and things changed the pentagon since 1977? could >> i wish i knew the numbers but the congressional staff had ballooned and had grown by the multiple two or three or four. the defense authorization bill was a piece of legislation to congress passes and then the at the conference and then there's a piece of paper that represents the authorization bill telling the department of defense when it can do for the next year when

i left 60 defense in 1976 the defense authorization bill had 74 pages. when i came back in the year 2000, the defense authorization bill had something like 574 pages. that's going to be off by a few but it's good enough for the government work. you get a sense of what had changed. what it changed his the department of defense is enormous and there is no way that it can be efficiently run. the government is almost inherently inefficient because it can't buy. unlike a business when you drive down any street in philadelphia and see the retail operation the was there there one day and gone the next it can feel. the government stays. so the inefficiencies compound

and the affect is that it is an efficient and to the extent something's not efficient congress concerned about representing the constituency feeling the responsibility for oversight, legislative oversight sees something wrong and decides when to fix it is to recall your another report or high year more people to monitor something or have more hearings to look into so what you see is how many people are old enough to remember oliver struggles. remember a great big guy with a for this big and so many over boulder that he couldn't move and no one of the threads is the thousands of threats that prevented boehler from moving and that's where we have arrived in the government. so much oversight and so many pages of microrequirements and

so many reports to be filed it consumes an enormous amount of time and there are over tindals and lawyers in the department of defense. imagine i've got nothing against lawyers pick, pipe >> all of the lawyers are rushing out of the room. >> i don't know how the convention with 10,000 lawyers. [laughter] >> we haven't got much time and i want to get to the other things that happened during that decade. 9/11. in retrospect you said 9/11 could have been averted if you were able to sort of rewind the state's denver earlier presidents believed differently. was that to some extent the result of things the president did or did not do?

>> i am not one who can answer a question like that. on the one hand just logically you say to yourself their must have been some things that might have been done differently. on the other hand, the task of the intelligence community is truly difficult. this just a very, very tough job. the world is a big place. the cherished networks and the closed societies in many countries make it enormously difficult to gather intelligence that can be useful and actionable. in my adult life i have seen literally dozens of instances where our intelligence community failed to predict something. there was a very fine book called pearl harbor by roberta

wohlstetter and the foreword to the book was written by i think at harvard at the time named dr. thomas schelling and he wrote this and about surprise and he characterized peru herber has a figure of imagination, and of course there were some hearings after pearl harbor, what might have been done, who might have known, was it right to have a concentration of battleships mobilized and vulnerable as they were with all of the planes on the ground i look back on 9/11 and i am aware of the reappraisals and the lessons learned from studies that have been done and there's no question, the fact the united states of america cash in the

case of somalia after being attacked pulled back and the instance of he was attacked and ships pulled away and i think it was bosnia some folks went across the line and were captured and we pulled back several kilometers. in lebanon after the marines were killed and the barracks at the airport in the root of the united states withdrew their forces. after the towers in the u.s. siskel were attacked by terrorists the reaction of the united states was minimal, there were cruise missiles launched on a couple of occasions. but if you think about that, the terrorists that organized these kinds of activities, they don't have countries to defend. the don't have populations to defend, the don't have real

estate and infrastructure they want to protect. they operate in the shadows and you can launch an awful lot of cruise missiles and a job an awful lot of moms and too precious little damage to the terrorist network and they came away having drawn a lesson in have said as much, osama bin ladens said on several occasions on video that the united states with the paper tiger and the united states was hit, it will react, it would withdraw. it won't reach out and do damage to the people in closing that damage on the country. so someone could make a case that that patterned the weaknesses provocative to the extent we believe in the manner that is weak and allows this kind of things that it provokes people into doing things they might otherwise not to.

if they thought the punishment for doing it, but. the last thing i would do is to say that there was something somebody could have done to have prevented september 11th. i just would say like pearl harbor rose failure of imagination and probably relatively understandable steed of imagination. >> media couple questions from the audience. one is about iraq and the imam. do you think that is a fair comparison? >> there are certainly similarities and certainly notable differences between the two. but the vietnamese are not likely to attack the united states of america. the terrorist threat, the dangers, and iraq was on the

terrorist list, the terrorist threat was a very real one to the country and al qaeda had demonstrated that it would come and attack america. there was no link between al qaeda and iraq there certainly was between afghanistan and iraq coming in iraq was on the terrorist list and had a pattern of having developed weapons of mass destruction so there were these things that affected it, but i would say that i think the differences were greater than the similarities but there were similarities. >> how about the case to the and i both know a lot of people that worked for lyndon johnson and one thing i often say the tough thing for them is when someone comes to them and says are lost my son in vietnam to why did he

die? what would you say? >> anyone in the position of responsibility when the conflict occurs and as we would go to the hospitals and the wounded whose lives are changed forever meet with their families and the families of those who had killed, we would think to ourselves we are going in. what is it we could say or do the would help them understand the appreciation that we in america have for the sacrifice, the individual sacrifice and the sacrifice of the families as well because they sacrifice, and they serve and we would come out of those meetings inspired not feeling we have helped them and

that feeling they have helped us the pride they have in their service, the cohesion and they feel with of the units they are in and their desire to get back to their units you just could not fail to come out of the meetings inspired by the young men and women. the big difference between the vietnam war and conflict today is that thanks to milton friedman and richard nixon and the congress we have an all volunteer military every single one of those people who serve the country serve because they want to serve, the serve because the consciously decided they wanted to raise their hands and they want to go and protect our country, and the dedication and that patriotism and pride that

the field is so powerful. now how does one answer that? i guess the answer is that -- >> with the johnston people say is don't push us to tell exactly what the sacrifices come 84. does anyone ever do that when you see them? >> sure. >> what does that mean? world war ii i would assume that isn't hard. but the war like iraq or dnr or something that isn't, you know, full throttle, what do you say? >> a war this army is against me become air force against air force, that's clear, that's understandable. it starts and ends. it ended in world war ii on the misery, the battleship with the signing ceremony. what we went through the cold war was different. as many decades long. it was and is the logical competition of ideas and there

was never going to be a signing ceremony. what we are in today is much more like that. it is a longer period what time after it took, it's a competition of ideas, but for whatever reason we are hesitant and not skillful and engaging in the competition of ideas. we recognize the overwhelming majority of the muslims in the face of the earth are fine people who have a religion that may be different from christianity or judaism and other religions but they are not radical, they are not terrorism terrorists. they're fine people. yet there's a small minority of muslims that have engaged in terrorist acts that organize to do those things, and we are reluctant to pick up the the

date and pick up those ideas. they are not reluctant. they are recruiting, raising money, organizing, and they are now planning attacks against the nation's state concept because they have a conviction that it is they're calling to do that. so the fact we are not willing to engage in that debate or not skillful at it or reluctant to do with leaves people with the vagueness as to why people have to do things. the wonderful thing i found with the men and women in the armed forces is that they are there whether they are serving in korea or bosnia or iraq or afghanistan. they know what you're doing. the understand, they are proud of what they're doing. and modern communications and e-mails they are able to communicate with their families and their families and of having a sense of what you're doing and why they are doing it.

and when there is a loss of life it is heartbreaking. when there is a loss of them it's heartbreaking. did you talk to those families and talk to those people and they don't ask why was i there. they know why they are there and they are proud to say we, are there. and we are a very fortunate country. >> that's for sure. you are very close student of leadership as well as the leader yourself. [applause] and to have seen a lot of leaders. i guess what i was thinking of is here is the leading scholar on presidential leadership keith took upon pact the trustees exceed his going to ask the question of leadership. >> some deutsch just write about it. but when people in my line of work right about george w. bush would do you think would be the shortcomings that mentioned?

.. >> and then people read his letters and saw that this man

was knowledgeable and while not a micromanager, a strategic leader. and a superb and highly successful strategic leader. george w. bush was described as not curious. not knowledgeable. he'd gone to harvard business school, he had gone to yale, i guess, and was clearly is an intelligent human being. i mean i didn't know the man. i had worked with his father in congress. but i didn't know that george w. bush. and i watched him as a president, and he clearly asked penetrating questions. he worked his way with foreign leaders in a skillful and engaging manner that developed relationships that were constructive for our country. and yet he was -- people made fun of it. all of those presidents.

i don't know quite what it is about our society that does that, but i must say i've watched a lot of presidents and i would say that george w. bush -- i mean you think what he did with the surge in iraq. >> was that something that you would have supported had you stayed on? >> indeed. what he did was interesting. a lot of things combined to make it work. the on bar awakening took place, the training equipping of the iraqi military had come to a very advanced point where we had hundreds of thousands of iraqis trained and ready to participate. the iraqi government had matured and was beginning to provide more skillful leadership in the country. what he did -- what he added i forget what it was 20, 25,000 additional troops. we had done that three times.

it wasn't the troops. he galvanized the situation in iraq by his boldness. when the congress was about ready to cut off the funds, he made a decision to increase the number of troops. attend caused the people in iraq to say my goodness, he means business. he's not looking for a way out. he's looking to win. that caused the political situation in that country to gel and coalesce and the maliki government went into the south and took care of some of the diffidence. it wasn't an army, people who came out in the street and made demonstrations. they went quiet. they didn't know who would happen. the center of gravity had shifted from iraq to the united states. as they say in the military, the center of gravity, the real locust of the problem was in the united states. and the congress was about ready to pull the plug and cancel funding as they did on vietnam.

and the boldness of what george w. bush did galvanized the political situation. >> and made it more possible to be successful in the end. >> exactly. he deserves a lot of credit for that. >> how much should the war be judged by the success? let's say that lyndon johnson had ended in victory in late '66. would we be looking at him as a great war leader and someone who did this the right way? >> you are the historian. it seems to be that -- i don't know who said it. but wars are a series of catastrophe, ended by success. they are difficult, hard, enemy has a brain, eisenhower, i think said, the plan is worthless. planning is everything. and the plan is worthless. because the enemy -- >> that was one the rumsfeld's rules too. >> when i say rumsfeld rules, it's a rule that i quote from someone more intelligent than i

am. >> indeed. with full credit i want to get in. >> indeed. but it's true. every time you try to do something, for every offense, there's a defense. for every defense, there's an offense. there's a constant change that takes place on the battle field. i think that the -- we are unlikely for a period of time to end up with the kind of clarity that we had in world war ii. because of the nature of the world what we're living in. it is asymmetric, it's not similar -- symmetric. it's ever changing, it's going to be a challenge for the leadership and the challenge for the country. but the growing of the weapons, what president bush was faced with when he made his decision on iraq was there a study by john hopkins university called

dark winter. and if my memory serves me collectly, i -- what the series of experts got together and they said, what if we took smallpox and put it in three locations in the united states of america? in a relatively short period of months, done by john hopkins university concluded. i'm going to wrong by a bit, but it concluded that something in the neighborhood of 800,000 americans would be dead. someone here knows that exact number. is that? that's close enough. a multiple of that would be infected with small pox.

think of that. think of the inability to prove from state to state. free people. we want to get up, go where we want, say what we want, and think what we want. the purpose of terrorism is not to kill people. the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize and alter your behavior. imagine this country if we had 800,000 people dead from small pox and marshal law imposed across our country. that studies exists, it's available. and it is that concern that caused george w. bush and his administration to step up and decide that you couldn't wait to be attacked again. the only thing you could do would be to decide to try to put pressure on terrorists states, and put pressure on terrorists networks, and make every single thing they do harder. harder to raise money, harder to move, harder to communicate with each other.

and keep that pressure up so that they can't collect themselves to the point where they can engage and act like that against our country. >> we've got just a couple more minutes. so i'll ask two more questions. one is what should an historian write about donald rumsfeld's time? second time at the pentagon? >> i think i'd give it ten or 20 years. i think perspective is good. journalist like to think that they write the first draft of history. i don't know that i'd used the word history with the first draft. i served a lot of years in government. now i've been out for four. i debated whether i should write a short book in a year and use my memory, or digitize the incredible archive that i've

accrued over my lifetime and start inviting people to discuss the events and phase. if you look at the acknowledgment section, i don't know how many people are listed there, but it's many, many, many dozen. we would talk and transcribe and go back to the records. then i've said if i got the archive, why shouldn't be digitize it and see if we can make it available to the reader. i'm told that maybe for the first time we know are going to be -- having availablen ebook. which means electronic book, i'm told. [laughter] >> they didn't used to have those when i was a kid. you can read the book, and you can look at the end note and see the source where i've cited something. and then you can go to the web site and pull up the entire document. and see right there important the context or the perspective that i've provided which i've

worked my dyslexic dickens to try to make it accurate and fair and correct. you can look at the entire document and say to yourself, i would have done it this way, or i would have done it that way. but there are thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of pages, many of which had been declassified that are able on the web site. >> which is great. okay. we'll have document. what should we write in 20 years? >> 20 years, i'll be 98 years old. you can write whatever you want. [applause] [applause] >> final question. this book as i've mentioned has very detailed accounts of secretary rumsfeld's encountered with all sorts of public figures, world leaders, people

in very influential and important decisions. but maybe one the most intriguing is your encounter with elvis. why don't you tell us about that? [laughter] >> oh my goodness. elvis presley. a lot of his songs were really not my thing. [laughter] >> why does that not surprise me? [laughter] >> but on any given sunday today if joyce and i can't get to church, we have some elvis presley tapes singing gospel. and they are wonderful. we play them sunday after sunday after sunday. how did all of this happen? when i was running the so-called war on poverty, sami davis jr. was on the advisory board. and he cared about the country and he cared about the poor, and he -- i was out in las vegas giving a speech and it happened

to coincide with his 100th performance at one the casinos. the ands or something. so we went to see his show. he and his would have were there. he performed, and he was spectacular. i mean it wasn't an accident they called sami -- sammy davis jr. the worlds great entertainer. he said to joyce and me, the next night i'm off. i'm going to take you to see the best entertainer in las vegas. he didn't tell us who he is. the next night we went to another casino. he went in and got a dinner table. if you are sammy davis in las vegas, you get a good table. the four of us sat down and it was elvis presley. sammy believed that elvis was the best performance in town. he was in his later years and he was large. he was wearing a sequin jump

suit. >> not quite the uniform of the next white house? >> no, no, no, no. of course, i'd never seen the man and i'd never heard the man. and he had these -- what color is it chartreuse? red? pink? scarlet? he had scarlet scarfs, and he would wipe his face. he'd stand up there and sing. it was fantastic. he'd sing the most ridiculous thing in the world and people would cheer and yell and love it. and i'd sit there and go like this. then he would sing a ballot and it was absolutely beautiful. i mean this man had a voice that was spectacular. and i love country music and i love ballots. and he would sing and it would just -- you'd be carried away with it. then he'd take the scarf, wipe the face, sweat off, and throw it out in the crowd and everywhere would scream.

he through one to davis. davis gave it to joyce. and it's framed. [cheers and applause] >> what happened was, afterwords sammy said to joint joyce, come, we're going to go back to the dressing room. i'm not the type that hangs around las vegas dressing rooms. you go in this place and it's large. here are all of these people, sammy is getting dressed, and he's walking around and all of the show girls are there, and there are very attractive women with trays selling celebrates and selling western jewelry and turquoise and what have you? all of the hangers on and staff. joyce gets carried away. he's talking to somebody. she couldn't find me. and she finally looked around the room and way off in the corner, elvis presley had me cornered. i was around the corner and he was -- he's big. and he was like this and i was

kind of hidden right behind him. he was talking about the united states army. if you remember, there was a draft during that period and some of the people did not go in the draft. they won't canada, or they refused. and he went in and served in the united states army and served in germany, and he wanted to talk about it. he loved the army. he valued his time serving. he was sitting there going back and forth with me about this and that and the other thing. and i just found it fascinating that here was this man who a minute ago had been up there wiping the sweat off of his face and throwing it. here were all of the gorgeous women walking around the dressing room. he was standing there question after question for the united states army. it says a lot for the man. >> what can i do after that but say thank you, mr. the politicsk

tv, this is 40 minutes. >> politics and prose's timing is exquisite for a number of reasons. one is it is almost exactly now two years ago from the day in which i finished the first draft of the strategic review for president obama on american policy towards afghanistan and pakistan. and we began the laborious process of vetting it through the united states government. it was almost exactly two years ago that i flew with the president on air force one to go over it on a four-hour flight. at this time, i'm going to give my standard disclaimer. my views are solely my view. they are not the views of the obama administration or the president.

please do not confuse whatever i have to say with the views of the obama administration. secondly, of course, as you noted in the introduction, we are in the midst of a major crisis between the u.s. and pakistan. "the deadly embrace" has become literally quite deadly in the last month. raymond davis who was apparently an american diplomat. i don't know who he works for. don't ask me. i can't confirm who he works for. shot to death two pakistani citizens, a third pakistani citizen was killed by another american driving a vehicle coming to his rescue. and in the weekend after those deaths, the widow of one of the two committed suicide. because she believed that her government would not stand up to the united states of america. the family has subsequently said

that if pakistan gives raymond davis back to the united states, they will all commit suicide, one at a time. now, that may all be a bluff. but there are aren't a lot of governments in the work that are going to call their own citizens bluff on a threat like that. we have high drama, spy versus spy, and it comes after an increasingly difficult relationship over the last several months. in december, cia's chief of station was in islamabad, the highest cia officer in the country was named in the pakistani press. what we refer to as he was outed. he had to be pulled out the country literally over night. if that wasn't bad enough, "the new york times" and "washington post" citing cia sources on background that he had been outed by the pakistani

intelligent service, the interservice intelligence director for isi. i've been engaged with liaison affairs with governments for many years. we don't usually out each other and talk about it in the newspaper. since the arrest of mr. davis, the president has said very clearly he is a diplomat and must be given diplomatic immunity. we have already canceled a trilateral meeting to work on cooperation in the war against al qaeda and the taliban. zardari's march visit to the united states is in jeopardy, and president obama's promise to visit pakistan in 2011 is clearly in jeopardy. and if this wasn't bad enough, if you listen carefully,

spokesman or both sides, there's a sense of doom and foreboding behind the relationship. pakistan ice chief of army staff was here last fall. when he went home to pakistan, he said he would be most bullied man in the world. yes, that's not normal in mill to mill relations. and if you read carefully, there's clear concern in our government that there could be a 9/11 type mass casualty attack on the united states, dateline to pakistan at any time. last may we almost had one at times square. there's concern there would be another mumbai-style attack. there's concern that i write about in my book that pakistan

could become a jihadist. that's thinking the unthinkable in terms of pakistan. it's not the most likely outcome, it's not immeant, it's not inevitable. but for the first time in pakistani history, i think it's become a real possibility. the stakes here couldn't be larger. pakistan is the 6th most populous country in the world, who will soon within a decade be the 5th largest country in the world. it is the secondest largest muslim and will surprise indonesia within a decade. it has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. today pakistan is on the cusp of becoming the 5th largest nuclear weapons power in the world. for those of you who don't walk another with a cheat sheet, who are the top five? they are, of course, us, russia, china, france, and the united kingdom. pakistan is close to surpassing united kingdom and on a

trajectory to make it the 4th largest. pakistan is the host to more terrorists groups than any other nation. per square kilometer, you can't find more terrorists. it's impossible of the gaza strip. pakistan has an extraordinary relationship. it has been the patron of many groups, the one that attacked mumbai. it was a subsidiary with the isi, yet, it is at war with others. it is an extremely violent war. last year there were over 2,000 terrorists attacks. near 10,000 pakistanis were wounded. how do we get here? that's a subject that i try to address in the deadly embrace. i try to do it by looking at

three narratives. the first narrative is pakistan's own internal development. the second is pakistani bilateral, and the third is the rise of the global jihad. what we think of here in america is al qaeda, but it is a much larger movement of the like-minded organization that we share the same goals, not the same leadership as al qaeda. we briefly turn to each. pakistan's internal history is a fascinating story. extraordinarily complex. at one level, there's a struggle between those that created pakistan, who had a vision of a pakistan that was going to be a modern, democratic, largely secular state that would look a lot like england in the river valley. against him from the start were islamic extremist who originally opposed immigration of pakistan, because they wanted to control all of the subcontinent, and

have now come around to waging war against india. then there's the struggle between the civilian government and the military. pakistan has a military which has seized power four times in some 60 years. one of those seized power rightly deserves the title of the grandfather of the modern global islamic jihad in the 1980s. he was our partner in the war against the soviet union. we'll come back to that. these various struggles interact constantly with the pakistan. making it a very unpredictable mix. and pakistani history is also littered with murders and assassinations. from the first prime minister who was murdered in 1942, to mr. bhutto who was murdered two years ago. to the murder of the governor of punjab.

in most cases, we don't know who did it. it's like we are reading a agatha cristie model. we never know. they are all mysteries. the u.s. bilateral relationship is a roller coaster. we've gone up and down. we've been best friends, most allied country in the world, and we've been at each other's throats. if this is a soap opera on television, it could get number one ratings. because the drama is so high. all of the ups are built around great secret projects. the youtube base that flew over the soviet union, the trip to china, the war against the soviets, and more recently, the war against al qaeda. all of these secrets, of course, don't remain secrets for very long at all. they all come out.

one standard though, is that the united states consistently has always supported and endorsed the military dictators. we love pakistan's generals when they take over. sometimes in the beginning we're initially reluctant. soon we come around. and it's bipartisan. republicans and democrats alike have fallen in love with pakistani generals. there's also great individuals, charlie wilson, great movie, but also larry presler, a little known senator who's bill cut off military assistance to pakistan. when we cut off, we told the pakistanis we were not going to deliver 30 some odd f-16 aircrafts they had ordered and paid for, we weren't going to give them their money back, and we were going to charge them

back. larry presler is not well known in america, every pakistani knows who he is. america is a fair weather friend. they see us as a tissue. you use it and you throw it away. i'll leave your imagination to the other things they come uphe. it was born in pakistanw agains. don't get me wrong, i think what we did in the 1980s was the right thing. we changed history. we brought down an evil empire and we freed millions of people. one the unintended consequences was to create a frankenstein.

we all know pakistan, but i try to sell you abdul, a palestinian who was the intellectual forefather. he wrote the formative pieces about al qaeda's philosophy and narrative. he is the founder, co-founder with osama bin laden of the services bureau, which became al qaeda, he's the co-founder of the group that attacked mumbai, and he is a significant figure in the founding of hamas in the gaza strip. he's the trifecta of international terrorism. it's the combination of these three things together that has produced the uniquely combustible and dangerous pakistan today. so what to do about it? well, i've learned in book talks that i'm supposed to leave you with a tease. and not tell you the last

chapter, otherwise, why would you buy the book? so my tease is my answer to what to do about it is in the last chapter. i'll start with a simple rule. humility. 60 years of american interaction with pakistan demonstrates we can do a great deal of harm. very little evidence that we can do a lot of good in pakistan. so take the hippocratic oath to begin with. do not support the generals at the expense of the politicians, even though the politicians as are corrupt as can be. there are no heros in this story. there's no thomas jefferson. there's no john adams. there's a lot of aaron byrds. that's what we have to work with. secondly, there are no magic bullets, there's no simple solution to the problem. we can't buy off pakistan. we tried to do that in the last

decade. we gave them $12 billion in unaccounted funds. that's an estimate. because nobody in the united states government knows how much we actually gave them. we can't invade them. this is a country twice the size of california with the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. invasion is crazy. but under some circumstances, you can envision an american president with very few options otherwise the use of military force. there are extraordinarily difficult tradeoffs in this relationship. and the most difficult ones involve around the nature of our relationship with the isi. the isi is our most important partner in the war against al qaeda. the isi has delivered more al qaeda prisoners and has given us more targets than any other liaison and yet is our most difficult at the same time.

leon panetta in hearings just a few weeks ago summed it up. this is the most complicated thing he's ever seen in government. leon panetta has been around in government for a long time. just one final comment before i take your questions. and comments. the research for this book was obviously difficult to do. when talking about secret intelligence organizations, the cia does not like to have it's truths revealed, even by the own former employees. the i circumstances -- isi doesn't like anybody to smoke around i circumstances -- isi. and al qaeda and taliban have always turned down my request to interview. what i have been able to do over the course in many years in

government and since i left government speak with the interview of many of the key figures in the story, including four presidents, including secretary of state, including every american ambassador to pakistan, including every director general of the isi since the 1980s. i spent a great deal of time with mrs. bhutto, i spent time interviewing president bushar. did they all tell me the truth? no. but at least i've done a job of reaching out and trying to get everybody's story. with that, i look forward to your questions. if you want to ask me what to do about it is the first question, of course, i'm going to tell you. [applause] [applause] >> okay. step up to the mike please.

>> well, if you can summarize what you are going to do about it. it was a very tempting tease. >> first of all, we need to make sure when we work with pakistan, we do not undermine the civilians. that doesn't mean not dealing with the military, but it means always ranking our priorities and engaging with the civilians first. not because we are in love with president zardari or his likely replacements, but because we should be supportive of a process. one the things i would emphasize about pakistan today is that when we look back over at history, this is a country that has caught consistently for democracy. not very effective. but they have gotten rid of four military dictators. it's not egypt. egypt sat under the military

dictator for 30 years. pakistan does not sit still. pakistani want democracy. there are consistencies in pakistan that are seeking democracy, and we need to help enable them, not undermind them. secondly, we need to address the issue that addresses the pakistani army. that's the relationship with india. when the president set up afghan and pakistan special envoy office, he got half right. you can't deal with afghanistan without dealing with pakistan. but the other half is equally important. you can't deal with pakistan without addressing india. we cannot be a immediate creator between india and pakistan. the indians will refuse that. but we can be a facilitator. in as otherwise somewhat grim pitch, let me give you a piece of good news.

last week after pakistan agreed to assume their negotiation process, which was subspended after mumbai, not because either sides thinks there's a great chance of success, but because both sides realize there's not viable alternative. and we should encourage that process. there are thing that is we can help do to push india and pakistan towards a resolution of their small differences and ultimately their big differences. let me give you one small difference. if you want to fly from islamabad to new delhi, you can't get there. you got to go to mumbai, tehran, there are almost no direct flights between these two countries. there is less than one percent of the gdp is engaged in trade with each other. this is not normal, this is not natural. encouraging change in south asia is big.

it is the big idea of the united states for support. >> could you please comment on pakistan's dilemma in trying to prevent the forces crossing their borders into afghanistan that continues as such a concern to our forces knowing that the enemy seems to be escaping into pakistan so frequently? >> the forces we are fighting in afghanistan are primarily the afghan taliban that come within several different flavors. the pakistani government in the 1990s did not create the afghan taliban, but they were the midwife to it's creation. the pakistani army believes to this day that the afghan taliban is an asset for them. sooner or later, the americans

are going to leave afghanistan, and there will be a struggle for influence there, and their biggest asset is the afghan taliban. up until a year or so ago, they believe victory was in sight. they were going to win in afghanistan. we were going to pull out. hold on to your asset if you think they are about to win. but over the course of the last decade, the pakistani taliban has also -- i'm sorry, the afghan taliban has also given birth to a mini me, the pakistani taliban. which targets the government of pakistan. so the pakistani military has an extraordinarily difficult job of trying to parse the difference. they are still convinced the best way to deal with this is to fight those who are your enemy and use those who are your asset

for the future. the united states in a very american way, of course, says, do more. you got to take the entire thing down. pakistani's look at us and say you are hopelessly naive. first of all, you won't be here when push comes to shove. secondly, we need the people. we want to continue to have relationships with them. this conflict over this fundamental issue is what is at the hard of this spy versus spy battle today going on in africa and pakistan. these different points of view. >> i immigrated from india to the united states 30 years ago. and my question is in the event of a piece between kashmir and over kashmir between pakistan and india, there were reports

even once to cease fire on the agreement between now and pakistan over kashmir. my question is if the army could control after the islamic radicals in the united states and pakistan, would there ever be a solution -- will there be a time where the pakistan could be like india? because thomas friedman wrote two years ago concerning pakistan and india, the democracy in of india gave raise to what india is today whereas the dictatorship and pakistan that led to all of those. so my question will there ever be because the people are the same culture and the language? so your comment and question -- answer. >> there is a very important question. let me just for the benefit of

the rest of the audience put a little bit of perspective here. general mushar after he first tried nuclear implementation and several terrorists attacks and threats came around. he's a slow learner, but he got the right outcome. the outcome that he negotiated with the indians, and i've talked to him about it and i've talked to the indians, everyone agrees on what it was. it was a deal in which the cease fire line in kashmir would be recognized as an important border so that indian territorial integrity would be expected, but it would be a permable border. so kashmir can go back and forth a little bit like maryland and virginia, a lot more like europe where there's not a lot of border.

unfortunately, the sell by date with the pakistani people expired at this critical moment. he says his partner was general kiani. if that's true, there's some glimmer of hope here. this is a good deal for india. indians who think about it may feel some level of satisfaction in watching their arrival and trouble. but if they think about it at all, they know that their vision of a bright, shining india, one the great leaders of the 21st century is impossible if you are connected to a failed state or worse a jihadist state next door which has hundreds of nuclear bombs target on you. i am convinced that prime minister in particular understands this. it's a good deal for the

kashmiris more than anyone else. they have lived in a nightmare for many, many years. the hard part is selling it to pakistan. the good news here is president zardari wants to do it. that's why he embarked, and that's why mumbai happened. the dark forces in pakistan wanted to prevent it from going through and carried out an operation to do so and succeed. we cannot make this happen, but we can help indians and pakistanis. we can be cheerleaders, go to u.n. security council, we can give them ideas. but we have to do it in a way that is uncharacteristic. we cannot talk about it all the time. we cannot have a special envoy for kashmir, we cannot give constant press reports on how we

are doing. we've got to be sophisticated, sudden the, and under the radar screen. many of my colleges that work in the u.s. government say i'm dreaming. we can't do it. but pakistan is the country that it's easy to be pessimistic about. it'll make you nowhere. so we have to try to raise our game and raise our sights and see if we can help them do it. >> hi, one question and two points. at lank -- langley said there was only 50 al qaeda. why are you scared of 50 jihadist? and spend millions chasing them. i urge you not to combine pakistan and afghanistan. there's 90 million punjabis,

and the pashtuns are especially troublemakers. these countries the border by three and one german, otherwise known as one -- that's a terrible thing to happen. i'm going by where as combination of mormons and the -- >> never heard of that in jordan. mark characterized as mormons. >> you know. >> i'm going to steal that line. >> like the terrorists. you know how the massacres have occurred amongst by the sunni taliban. we have been slaughtered by the sunnies the last thousand years. the community is paranoid.

the country is collapsing, the taliban are murdered the people. helping blood. you know, get rid of it. my view, and i've been there way for 40 years, is that pakistan in afghanistan, collapsing, and just like other places, like sudan, new nations, new states have been created, and very few people have appeared with that chaos. >> you and i, i think, are close to an agreement about pakistan's problems today. you brought up more of the visions for the pakistan between the punjab of majority which dominates the officer core which

seized the country as a punjabi estate and everyone else is second or third class. that's absolutely true. you raised rightly the growing strength of extremism. highlighted by the murder of the governor of punjab. extraordinary thing. his own bodyguard shoots him to death and the bodyguard gets all of the favorable attention. 1,000 lawyers go to protect him. the battle for the soul of pakistan is under way today. how it will turn out, no one knows. there are a lot of very dangerous possibilities. i just make one comment about 50 al qaeda. with all due respect to the director of central intelligence, i've been engaged in the business of counts insurgents and terrorists for 35 years. we don't have a clue.

anybody that says they know how many there are is either bluffing or something worse, al qaeda is a lot more complex problem than 50 individuals. and i wish the united states would get out of the business of body counts. we learned in vietnam that's not very helpful. get into the business of thinking about our enemy and more flexible way. >> first, picking up on your theme with regard to the global jihadist movement and broadening the scope. how do you see the global jihadist forces interacting, dealing with, and hoping can the change that has yet undefined but clearly in play. but this is a very interesting struggle and i think could have serious implications far lot of things here.

a lot of people are talking about, but don't know a whole lot. your opinion would be interesting. the second would be recalling some figures from the past. i wonder what you think about the future of colonel gadhafi. >> i think colonel gadhafi's shelf life can now be measured in days. i certainly hope that's the case. he has demonstrated what he's been for the last 40 years dramatically to the world. all of the myths have fallen. he's a murdering terrorist. killed several hundred americans. he's been engaged in one act of terror after another. i hope this is the end game. i don't see a negotiation between the opposition and colonel gadhafi like between hosni mubarak. the egyptian revolution, i think, is much more significant.

al qaeda has been caught on the back foot. really taken off guard. al qaeda's philosophy was the only way to bring about change in the arab world was jihad. violence and terrorism. the violence and terrorism should be directed against the crusaders. that's you in this room. what's happened in egypt is regime change through a largely feasible, not 100%, but a largely feasible mass-based movement. this doesn't stick to the model. in fact, the al qaeda leadership, in particular, number two, who has fought hosni mubarak, will anticipate in the assassination of anwar addat.

he finally put a statement out last weekend. guess who's to blame? napoleon bonepart. yup. he invaded egypt, set upon the decline of the islamic world, and it's all his fault. while this is very consistent with al qaeda's narrative in history, it shows you a little bit of how awful they get. but there are several scenarios in which they can come back. if the promise of democracy now turns into something much less, then there will be a radicalism. in libya, we don't know who those kids are. we don't know who they are fighting for, who they are listening to. in yemen, we know part of the

opposition is al qaeda. not all of the opposition. for now, they have suffered setbacks of certain humiliation, it's good news for us. but this game is just beginning. you know, the easy part of the revolution is toppling the dictator. the hard part is building a democratic stable country that provides jobs for 85 million egyptians. that's a really hard thing to do. >> quick question on the geopolitical scene around pakistan. china has a border with pakistan and india. iran has a border with pakistan -- afghanistan. and they have their own agenda and they have their own strategic imperative. the china has a lot more

influence in pakistan than the u.s. they take our money. but the china is the influence. they call them the all weather friends. china does look at the u.s. and look at india as quasi. i am wondering if they have an interest in actually creating some instability. like the story that they funded and gave the technology for a nuclear reactor to make bombs to pakistan. just now in the world of nonproliferation and all of the stuff, they are encouraging the pakistani to build nuclear bomb materials. what's your take on the iranian and chinese? do you discuss it in the book? >> briefly. you characterized china rightly from pakistan's perfective, they are the all weather friend. they are taller than the himalayas and deeper than the

indian ocean. in practice, they've given them a lot of weapons. but in every clutch situation, the china hasn't done anything more than we have. china's short answer is china in is in a quasi rivalry with us and india. but it's also in a relationship with us and india which is an economic cornucopia. china is trying to figure out how to balance all of this together. for me, it's the high road here is to try to get the chinese to row with us in this. they don't want a jihadist state in pakistan. they don't want to see the indian economy suffer a devastating blow. because they are investing in the economy now. tricky? hard to do? but something that we tend to do. iran is a more difficult partner. the short version is in afghanistan since 2001, iran has largely been a supporter of what

we want to do because they hate the taliban. the trick here is to somehow segue off their relatively positive pursuits in afghanistan from the so many other things where we have very serious disagreements with them. that's a very tricky diplomatic problem to pursue. >> do no harm, does that suggest that the drone attacks are counterproductive? >> it's it's -- i'm glad that yu brought this up. if i were to teach -- i teach at john hopkin's. if i were to teach a course in decision making, i would use the drones as a classic example. the drones, which is an operation that president obama

inherited from president bush. president bush created the infrastructure, obama skillically exploited it. are our only real way of putting pressure on al qaeda and pakistan today. and it works. it has put a lot of pressure on them. al jay what used to put out a new message every week. last year he put out two. two of them less than 50 seconds. it's because they fears the drone. on the other hand, the drone is incredibly counterproductive. even though the isi provides a lot of the targeting information for it, and it a beneficiary when it kills the pakistani taliban. this is a classic example of what's really hard in making decisions in government. there's not a naturally easy solution.

100% candid upfront, i am a supporter of drone operations. i recommended increasing two years ago. i think we need to be careful not to become drone adistricted. the drones are a platform and weapon system. they are not a strategy. they are means of putting pressure on al qaeda. they will not destroy al qaeda. this is the real-world problem. if we don't keep the drones up, the danger of mass casualties back in the united states will increase very significantly. if we keep doing them, we drive away a significant part of the pakistani people. there's no simple answer to this problem. in the long term, the best answer is to get the pakistanis to take ownership of the drone operations. the pakistani government doesn't want to take ownership of it.

it much performs to let obama and leon panetta take all of the flak. it demonstrates the contradictions that are at the heart of our relationship with pakistan and which make it such a difficult partner to work with these days. thank

welcome to the committee on operations in libya. since you were in the united states yesterday we are grateful to you for coming in so soon

after what we presumably was a long and grueling flight. before we begin, i would like to make a general announcement about jackets, i never make an announcement about whether people have to wear jackets but they don't. anybody wants to remove their jacket please do. and next, secretary of state please introduce your team. hardly necessary but nevertheless. >> thank you, chairman. gives me great pleasure to introduce my fellow witnesses on my right your left the assistant chief for operations who the committee knows well. and the director of operational policy, who the committee might know even better. perhaps i can, if i may, say a few words before we begin questions, chairman. >> with what in mind, exactly? >> if i may, one or two brief

points about how we see this session and the -- >> this session being this evidence. >> this evidence session. >> okay. >> to set the scene, chairman, britain is taking an active role in international efforts to protect civilians in libya. we do so under the authority of the united nations and as part of a broad coalition which includes arab nations amongst its number. as the foreign secretary told the house of commons yesterday, 60 nations are contributing aircraft or maritime assets to the region, in total 34 nations are either providing or offering various kinds of support including military, logistical or financial support and humanitarian relief. we work very closely across government to you the national security council and make sure

military activity is one of the measures to maintain the pressure on moammar gadhafi's regime. we don't engage closely with our coalition partners. yesterday's chairman said i visited washington to discuss the issues with u.s. secretary of defense robert gates. in the last few weeks i've visited qatar, italy, cyprus, france and u.s. yesterday. i'm sure the committee would want to join us paying tribute to the bravery and professionalism of the men and women of the uk and our allies armed forces for make such a significant contribution to the operation in libya. this is an active and fluid operation and evolving campaign. >> do bear in mind that the foreign secretary made a statement to the house of commons yesterday, and i think we're aware of the background to all of this. and i'm sure that things that

you have to say will be adequately brought out in the questions that we will wish to ask. >> one point. this is an excellent fluid operation in an evolving campaign and the messages that have come out of this session here this afternoon will resonate with our forces and also with the gadhafi regime. and i hope to committee will under that there are areas of information which we could probably give more completely, but the committee, i hope, will understand that to make too much information publicly at this time could prejudice our efforts. >> yes. thank you very much for making that point because i think it is extremely important. i am sure that the committee will bear that in mind in the questions that we ask. >> thank you, chairman. >> and the tone that we adopt in

what we ask. i would like to begin by asking about the issue of taking sides. it seems to me that we are taking sides. do you agree that that is the impression that is being given, or would you suggest that we are not taking sides? >> oh, absolutely. on the contrary, we're taking sides. we are taking sides of the civilians. that is what the u.n. resolution is asking us to do. and the civilians are being attacked by their own government. it is incumbent upon us under the u.n. resolution from text us so to that extent of course we have to take a side. are we investing in a policy that has a pre-determined view as to what the government of

libya ought to be? no. >> and, if we are taking that side, what are we doing to ensure that that side wins? >> it is not a question of if you mean by side one of the redwr regime or opposition forces what's incumbent upon us to ensure the population is protected. everything that we have done in recent weeks to achieve that by degrading the military capabilities of the regime, by directly targeting their assets that threaten the civilian population, by pushing them as we did from benghazi and a humanitarian catastrophe, by damaging their ammunition dumps by degrading their fuel

supplies, by making their logistics much more difficult, by degrading the command and control, all of these things are a means by which we intend to diminish the ability of that regime to harm the civilian population. >> the worry that i think was expressed by bob haynesworth yesterday in the house of commons is to make sure we're doing enough to make sure that the fighting goes on but not doing enough that it comes to an end. >> there has been some talk as the committee is aware of this concept that we're and i stalemate. i delved with this issue yesterday in the united states. over the last few days we have seen opposition forces make significant gains in misrata. it's not yet clear whether they, in fact, control the city. the situation remains a little confuseed. we've seen the italians decide to contribute attack aircraft for the first time.

kuwaitis donating known the opposition forces. we've seen ourselves and others with mentoring groups in benghazi. i think there's a danger in extrapolating the events of any one short period of time into the wider shape of the campaign. i think if we look back to where we were before the intervention when it was entirely possible that the regime launched a humanitarian catastrophe upon the people of benghazi and where we are today and the military capability of that regime, we are a long way away from that starting point. so i do not recognize it as a stalemate and i think that we made some considerable progress. if we look, for example, at the speed of which nato of able to put together its command and control, i think it's been considerably faster than in previous conflicts and i think the fact that we've been able to send a broad coalition with a high level of fire power including arab countries in that coalition is a achievement. so i think we are moving

forward. so i don't expect the suggestion that not enough is being done. >> so you don't accept that it is a stalemate when you were in the united states yesterday, did you tell admiral mullen that he was wrong? >> well, when i was interviewed, it was quite within earshot of admiral mullen. i have made my view perfectly clear. a moment ago that admiral mullen talked about, he talked about the context of last week. since then, especially in the last 72 hours we've seen a number of factors move in the favor of the coalition. as i said at the outset this is a fluid situation. we must be careful not to look at the situation at any one time and assume that's what the future will look like. >> we'll come back to some of these issues any way during the course of the afternoon. that's helpful. we know you have to go at 4:00.

so this is time limited. so, general, would you mind -- unless you have something essential to add, jeffrey dobbs also necessary measures to be taken to protect civilian life, but it also excludes foreign occupation force in any form. what do you see as the limitations of the u.n. resolution? >> well, we are quite clear that all necessary measures are subject to the test of being reasonable and proportionate to protect the civilian population. i think what we've done has always fallen within that. there are, of course, limitations to what can be achieved by air alone. it was accepted that by the u.n. resolution when the no fly zone was created.

but our aim was not to impose upon the people of libya a particular form of government. our aim was to protect the civilian population. i go back to the whole aim of what it is we're trying to achieve in libya, which is to en men, women and children can sleep safely in their beds, knowing that they will not be attacked by gadhafi's forces. so everything we've done is with that in mind. and we're being extremely capable on two air and the answer is yes. but to do so, would have only been possible if we were willing to accept greater collateral damage and higher risk of civilian casualties. and apart from the argument of being on the high moral ground, and having a higher respect for life than gadhafi clearly does, it's been essential in making that coalition internationally not the least with the arab countries we show respect for minimizing civilian casualties.

so we've been very clear there's a limitation on what we can do there. likewise when it comes to our mentoring groups we've been very clear to point out it's to give these groups, they are there to give g organizational capability, to help with logistics and to help with communications. we at times have been very careful to act twin advice of the attorney general what is lawful and what is not under the u.n. resolution. >> of course there are civilians who have no bed to sleep in, normally because they are in the west of the country they are moving towards the border and there's the possibility of having to create some foreign safe haven for those civilians and in your vow with the deployment of troops to help create and protect those safe havens for civilians and the fighting in the west intensifies the prospect is happening

increase would the deployment of troops for humanitarian purposes to see if there are civilian life on the border be within the term of the resolution or would you have to seek a newman date? >> that's something we would have to seek advice on a case by case basis from the attorney general. the basis on which we operate is if there's any new development that we believe is different from that which has gone before, we would seek advice from the attorney general. that's not a question we have yet put to the attorney general but i expect it's something we'll have to do that. >> have we got troops to deploy if we need to? >> there's no intention to deploy any british troops on the ground in libya. >> even for humanitarian -- >> we have no intention to deploy british troops in libya. >> does the u.n. resolution permit under the current mandate the coalition forces to target

colonel gadhafi? >> we, first of all, of course did not talk about specific targeting. but we made it very clear that we believe that the resolution and all necessary measures to protect the civilian population, allows us very clearly legal justification to target where there's members of regime in the control of those take the risks. our aim is to reduce the capability of the regime to make war on its people. we do not discuss individual targets, but we make very clear what the general case is and those involved capable of understanding that. >> my question simply is would the u.n. resolution permit it if it were to be considered? >> well, that again is a question for the attorney general. it's not a question that's come up because we've not discussed

that particular question, we have made very clear we're dealing with command and control aspects. to make that a little clearer, when people talk about, for example, colonel gas any's compound in tripoli it seems to have the aura of some holiday villa. what we're talking about is reinforcing areas that are being used for command and control of military assets, whether they happen to be an accommodation facility incorporated within it. we're clear that our job is to degrade the regime's ability to make war on the people of libya and continue to do and the resoft of tr resolve of the alliance is diminished. the government made that advice to parliament. we undertake to make subsequent advice relative to parliament, seems to be quite crucial to a

decision that we take. >> i'll certainly discuss that with my cabinet colleagues. it has to be a collective decision. we didn't make the legal advice, we gave a summary of the advice. i know this may sound like semantics, but we understand the complexity of this issue. it has been the government's intend to make very clear the basis on which we are operating if there were to be issues that are different from those that we set out before. i will certainly give an undertaking to consult with my colleagues about whether the government feels it necessary to make such information available. >> what exactly does the issue in libya aim to achieve? has that been agreed. what have you clearly defined your aim? >> well, the uk's aim, if i make

begin civilians for gadhafi to comply with u.n. resolution 1973 and for libyan people to have the opportunity to choose their own future. these are fully aligned with nato's objectives, which are to protect civilians and civilian population areas under threat of attack by the regime, to implement a no-fly zone to protect civilians and to implement the arms embargo. these are the sames set out under the u.n. resolution. >> you said it was for the people of libya to choose their own regime. is regime change an actual goal? is that something that you actually actively are working towards? >> regime change is not part of the u.n. >> neither is the revolution. >> i would have thought it was a very clear aim for all of us that the free decision of people to determine their own future is something we would want to see.

i would have hardly thought that would require incorporation into the resolution. i would have thought it was to an extent self-evident, but it is clear regime change would be a major policy initiative and one which is not signed up to in the resolution. >> are we giving mixed messages? i just looked at the letter, the libyan letter from sarkozy in which it is said, if i can find it, where it is suggested that in fact libya would be -- they can't imagine a future for libya with gadhafi in charge. is that not also tant mount to saying that what we are looking for is regime change. >> the sentence before makes it very clear. it says our duty and our mandate under u.n. security council resolution 1973 is to protect civilians and we're doing that.

it is not to remove gadhafi by force, but it is impossible to imagine a future for libya with gadhafi in part. that echos the views that have been put forward by the opposition of forces themselves. when they have already witnessed two cease fires, two unilateral cease fires put forward by gadhafi during which time the population was still being slaughtered, i can understand how they feel about having little faith in a word of a man who has broken it so frequently in the past. >> i can understand that too. what i can't understand is sort of the almost dual speak where one minute we are saying that regime change and targeting of individuals is part of our mission, and then we're saying it isn't. which is it? >> it is also very important to apply psychological pressure to the regime. one of the ways in which we can hasten the end of this conflict is for the regime itself to recognize that there is no long term future, as long as colonel

gadhafi believes there is a future, he's likely to want to continue the conflict. it's essential we send clear messages that he's despised by many of his own people. he's isolated internationally and there is no future for his regime if he continues to believe there's such a possiblist, it's likely the conflict will continue. >> equally, if he believes if he loses power, he will be taken before the international criminal court, that gives him no reason forever thinking of leaving libya and finding a safe haven elsewhere. >> that argument is regularly put, but i would put the converse. do we really want a situation where we give some of those who commit the most heinous crimes against humanity the ghetto to say if you stop fighting we'll let you go and you will not be subjected to international law. i think it's essential in the longer term, the international criminal court has not only a long reach but a long memory. >> so can i be clear, the nato

allies are in agreement with key aims of the mission? are the arab league in agreement with those key aims? >> the arab partners who are with us are very clearly operating under the nato aims, under the nato rules, including the nato mission and nato command and nato targeting. and the aim of our contact group is to ensure that, as many of the country's in the region as possible come within the broader political umbrella of support. that is one of the ways in which we show that this is not the west, if you like, trying to impose a solution on libya. but this is a broader coalition of nations that sees that there is a people who want to be free, being brutally suppressed and the international community responding accordingly. i think it's one of the great

achievements in libya that we have kept so many of the arab countries with us and that so many have been willing to become part and attend the contact group. >> are we at risk of a stalemate between the libyan government and the opposition forces, and what more do you think nato can do within the current mandate to make sure that we don't end up with a constant stalemate and no one actually achieving a major amount of power. >> as i have already said. i don't think we're in a position of stalemate. i think we've seen substantial progress being made in some areas in recent days. it may not be as fast as people might like or have hoped for, but when we see more countries still being able to be willing to commit themselves to ground attack, for example, and the decision by italy should be hugely welcomed, when we see the progress that has been made in misrata. we have all seen the pictures of

the dreadful humanitarian misery there. when we're getting countries like kuwait being willing to come forward as part of one of the countries in the region to commit funding, then we are seeing some movement. when we are seeing the u.s. drones, for example, the armed predator coming into use. when we're seeing targeting a tripoli of command and control close to the center of the region's power base. all these are reasons to assume that this is not a stalemate. >> as part of all this, how will you judge and when will you know that you've achieved what it is you're supposed to achieve? >> i'm not looking for a date, but can you give us -- it's an impossible, ridiculous question. what do you see the process being by which you make that evaluation, you make that judgment? what discussions are you having

with your international collaborators in the nato plus coalition to actually decide what the process and the method is for deciding the exit strategy and particularly, the military component of the exit strategy and how will you decide it? >> i'm sure it is actually possible to give a date, but the only person capable of doing so is colonel gadhafi in terms of when he would stop waging war on his own population. our strategy is clear. militarily, to continue the u.n. enforcement until the threat to civilians is lifted and politically, to support the libyan people to choose their own future. these criteria and therefore the date really need to be measured by the regime's actions, not gadhafi's words. we've already had gadhafi say he's having a cease fire. we've not seen that. even when a couple of days ago, he was talking about pulling out

of miss rautrata so the tribes t involved. there are those who say does the coalition have the nerve, does it have the guts, does it have the commitment to see through this campaign? and the message that i want anyone who is sympathetic or involved in the regime to hear very clearly today is that the international community understands what it has been asked to do. it understands what its duty is and its resolve will not falter until we have achieved militarily and politically what i have just set out. >> the question i'm asking you, i suppose to the answer to the question i'm asking you is you'll know it when you see it. how are you going to decide that? because you have a very varied coalition of people involved. some might wish to make that judgment earlier than others. what is the discussion either within the contact group or the nato targeting processes or whatever about a common agreed process to make such a decision?

>> of course, one side of that, it's relatively simple. the civilian population are safe and they're not being shelled nor is there the ability to do so quickly. for example, i don't regard it as being a cease fire if there is a tank at the end of the street pointing at me and it's just not firing during this hour. that is not safety for the civilian population. so we will have to ensure that the forces do not threaten them and are not capable of infli inflicting that. that is, to an extent, self-evident. and the allies are very clear about that. our focus is on the implementation of u.n. resolution 1973 which lays out the very clear conditions that need to be met, including an immediate cease fire, a halt to all attacks on civilians and

full humanitarian access to all those in need. those are the criteria we believe will fulfill u.n. resolution 1973. >> but in that respect then, it won't just be the actual coalition of actors who are prosecuting the mandate that would be part of that process, but presumably the u.n. itself in some fashion, in evaluating when they say your bit is done. we now move to phase ii, whatever. >> nothing would please us more than for the kinetic element to be over and for us to be able to focus on u.n. assistance to the humanitarian efforts and to the rebuilding, politically and otherwise, of libya. as to when that can happen, i go back to the point. ask colonel gadhafi, i'm afraid, rather than me. >> if i see him, i will. >> i'm sure you won't. >> secretary of state, we've

already provided the libyan opposition with body armor, communication equipment and a number of officers and advisers. presumably you're satisfied with the provisions within 1973. my question is is this the first step towards directly arming the opposition and would that fall within the current u.n. resolutions? >> no, it's not a first step. we've been very careful this is mentoring, not training, as i made the point, this comes inside the legal advice we get to make sure that we're always very safely inside resolution 1973. our mentoring role is to ensure that the opposition forces are able to organize themselves better, the logistics are better, the communications are better. we believe this is vital to their state and to help protect

the civilian population better. it is not a first step nor is it intended to be. >> well, you've made a distinction now which some people would say it's a distinction without difference. rather than argue that, can i ask, do you think that the civilian opposition is sufficiently organized and trained to be able to make proper use of the equipment its got and the equipment we give to it, the relevant equipment we're giving it? >> well, we know that those on the opposition side are very disparate grouping. they are not trained military. as we've seen from our tv pictures, i saw yesterday a geography teacher and a doctor and others discussing how they had taken up arms to protect the families and the communities without any training. clearly, they are at a

disadvantage in that sense. but i go back to the point, if i may, that i made at the outset, that we are not there to be involved in choosing a side that will govern libya ultimately. we're there to protect the civilian population. we judge that as part of that protection of the civilian population to give those opposition forces greater capabilities in terms of organization, in terms of logistics, in terms of communications, is well within what we believe we are able to do. in terms of training and supplying weapons, there clearly is an arms embargo that applies to two sides. >> the logic -- the question is whether it's going to deliver something as a result of the impasse. we regard the national transitional council, a legitimate political interlow

cuted. is it sufficiently organized to represent a realistic government for the country, something that can pull together a current military struggle, a future economy and the rest of it? >> if i may ask to say something about that. but, you know, let's be frank about this conflict. if we want to see our objectives achieved, then one would be seeing a military force capable of taking on the regime. we've made very clear that we are not in business for that. that's not what the resolution allows us to do. it is not within the aims of the united kingdom or nato. if we want to change the equilibrium nonetheless. the way to do that is to degrade the regime and hopefully bring about a change in the behavior of that regime, vis-a-vis the civil population. that is the option open to us by

our continued use of air power and the degradation of the assets of the gadhafi regime. it is clearly the side that we -- the path we have chosen to take within the legality set out by the u.n. resolution. but peter, i think, can give an answer to the more detailed question of the transitional council. >> i think it's true to say that the itmc places huge challenges. we have had a diplomatic mission alongside them for about three weeks. we've been getting to know them through that process. we think potentially they could become an organization that as you said represents all of libya. they've been quite careful to make sure that they have representatives not just from the eastern part, but also from misrata and the western towns and so on. there are some experienced people there.

former justice minister, and there are others with a range of skills. their program is one that we would, i think, find admirable. they seek to establish over time representative governments, moving towards elections and so on. we think they have the right aspirations and potentially the capability, but i won't pretend they don't face huge challenges as well. >> thank you. in relation to the body armor that was supplied. it was supplied to the opposition forces. with any restrictions on whether it was used by civilians or not? >> no restrictions for distribution by the itnc. >> chairman, the provision of body armor is permitted under the nonlethal military exception to the arms embarg row under

operative paragraph 9 a of resolution 970 but does require prior approval from the sanctions committee set up under that resolution. given the pressing nature of the requirement that the committee has already referred to under 4 of resolution 19, it was determined that an immediate dispatch was an appropriate course of action. it was to enable those forces to protect themselves as they defended their communities against those forces threatening civilians. we believe that there was an overwhelming case for doing so. >> sir, the provision of body armor for the protection of civilians was to enable forces to protect themselves. that's the word you just used. >> it's provision to the opposition, and to any civilian police was to enable them to

protect themselves as they defended the civilian populat n population. >> sir? >> please. >> this is to be used for those who are in defensive position trying to stop and attack or in terms of forward infantry trying to charge up the road? i think that's the area we're talking about. >> yes, the primary provision was to enable them to protect themselves as they defended their communities. so an overwhelming need for those who were protecting the communities and if you look at places where people are trying to protect their own community, they themselves could be as adequately protected as possible, not, i think, an unreasonable thing. >> you would expect this body armor to be used essentially by the soldiers of the opposition

in protecting the civilians? is that a fair summary of what you said? >> first of all, it's difficult to determine who is a soldier and who is not. >> that's a very good point. how would you do it? >> i think anybody involved in the protection of civilians fills the criteria. they may well be themselves civilians protecting themselves. where these items of body armor go is, in many ways, moot because they are all involved in this. >> how much is this body armor worth? that may seem a very small question in the overall cost of all of this, i'm just wondering who provided it and who paid for it? >> it came from contingent stocks which were the current u.k. operations. as for price tag, chairman, i'm unable to give you that. i'll look to see what it is. i'm not sure if sir watkins is

able to do that. ahe's very good with numbers. >> i don't have a precise figure, chairman. this is basically stock armor that we had in stock against our potential needs. we are in the process of replacing that armor as part of our routine replacement program, so it was available to be given to the opposition the way we say. i can't give you a precise value on it at the moment. i think it would be quite difficult to value it anyway. it's not something you can put on ebay and seek bids for. >> there's a huge strategic leap in all senses from an air war to a ground war. not a ground war, a team of observers put on the ground,

boots on the ground. i think this is quite a worrying development, because, of course, it will be under security council 1973, but what happens when the military team we put on the ground comes back to you, sir, and says we believe that it is an absolute requirement to help these people that they have, say, forward air controllers, trainers, liaison officers with the forces, because they are observers, but i'm slightly concerned by what -- if they're observers, are they actually helping the military of the opposition, or are they just watching or are they not watching? there we are. that's my question. what do you comment on that,

sir? >> well, we have very clearly defined remit to the team in terms of mentoring to the opposition to improve the transitional national council's ability to protect civilians and civilian populated areas. i said we've been very clear from the legal advice that we have and it should be limited to enabling them to organize their internal structures, to prioritize and communicate more effectively. we have not, at any point, sought any advice on going further in that role. we're very clear that this is about protecting the civilian population. of course, there's a major difference between ground forces and the air war. we all understand the limitations, but in passing the resolution for the no-fly zone, the international community took account of that. we recognized there are

limitations, but that it was also very clear that it would be completely unacceptable to effectively have foreign forces on libyan soil for political reasons which i'm sure i do not need to go into. >> has the security council been consulted on the deployment of this team of observers? presumably they're aware, but have they tacitly approved it, or do the russians and the germans and the chinese, are they content with this? >> we're very clear that, from the advice that the government gets, that we are acting entirely within resolution 1973. we've been very careful at all times to do so. it's a view that obviously shared by a number of other countries in terms of this mentoring process. i think as that we have at all times made very clear that our

basis for acting is that we believe it's justified in terms of protecting the civilian population and assisting those who themselves are protecting the civilian population. >> i think that was an answer to a different question. he asked whether the security council had been consulted about this? >> i'm not sure about the legal basis or need to do that. >> they were not formally consulted but they are certainly aware. there's no secret. it was announced by the foreign secretary and i'm sure our ambassador in new york will have brought it to the attention of the proper authorities there. >> my final question is one of these military officers was captured, are we sure that they will be treated properly under the geneva conventions and not treated by gadhafi as a spy?

>> i think that it's hard to tell, but certainly, gadhafi is not rational. we have made every attempt to make sure that they are not captured by defining very carefully the limits of their activity and making sure that we have plans to recover them, if we believe the risk is increasing, just as we have with the rest of the mission. >> get them out, great. thank you. >> even if colonel gadhafi has scant respect for international law or human life, that those who aren't members of those forces might have those values. >> can i come back to one issue about united nations? the issue of the possibility of seeking a new mandate or new resolution. i mentioned earlier that there was no mention in 1973 of the

issue of the libyan people choosing their own government. would that not be preferable if a resolution could be taken through the united nations expressing that as being the end goal? >> well, as i said, chairman, my personal view would be that it is self-evident that we would want the people of libya to be able to determine their own future. why else would we be as an international community intervening to protect them? i'm not aware of any suggestion that there has been -- that this would require us to go back to the united nations but i'm perfectly happy to discuss it with our colleagues in the foreign colleagues if there have been any such notions. i'm not aware of them. >> we're not yet to the point

where the resolution of 1973 has been completely fulfilled by gadhafi. it would seem to us a little premature to be talking already in terms of another resolution. >> can i ask you about nato command and control processes and structures? one question might be are you confident that it's working? the answer is probably yes, but i'd like to explore that a little bit more if i could. about its efficiency and this question of legality within it, we got a new element now, you mentioned it yourself. we got predators, we got drones. general cartwright in america says the difference is -- what did he say? he said when you're struggling to pick friend from foe, a vehicle like a predator that can get down lower, and get i.d.s better, it helps us. it's the idea of picking out

snipers on balconies and things in the american press. how is the targeting process, that includes nato plus nations, albeit in the nato driven process in terms of targeting and making decisions based upon the assets now available? just to remind him that's what you can do if you need to. that's an easy target. the question of drones are more difficult. how is the target process working and are you satisfied of the legalities and other things? >> i'll pass. >> there are two forms of targeting. first of all the deliberate targeting which is bordered at every level in nato and bordered in the u.k. by the secretary of state where we address very carefully the issues of

necessa necessaryty. that's deliberate targeting. that's for fixed sites and installations. the point you make about predator is because that is a dynamic target. it is moving or certainly not visible for a long period of time. the rules for those engagements are even more demanding in that you have to absolutely identify that it is hostile and that it also fills this question of proportionate a proportionate. that that target is legitimate. >> the legal advice within the process? >> delivered at all levels by legal advices and fundamentally back to the attorney general.

>> i mean at the point where the operation was launched under nato command, we went in the ministry defense, the policy staffs and the legal advisers went through the nato rules of engagement like by-line, compared them to the u.k. rules of engagement and satisfied ourselves that they were legal in every respect. >> to give a sense of what that meant, when we were looking at how we would go about generically about targeting, as i said at the outset, we were very, very careful that in any selection of targets, we would do so only when we were absolutely convinced there was minimal risk to civilians. when we transferred that targeting process on to nato, we made very clear that the rules under which we had been operating up to that point were

the rules, our own forces would be expected to live up to under the nato process. and to that extent, we have, as other countries have, effectively a red card that says our forces will live up to certain ethical values in carrying out this mission. it has not been an issue because nato has, as sir watkins was saying, very much followed what we have followed. >> i mean, it's important for us to be sure that british people of all sorts are protected because they are subject to the icc, americans of course aren't, there we are, that's an interesting conversation we can have later. >> can i just give an assurance, a personal assurance on that? because when it comes to the conflict and a secretary of state is asked to ally look at

specific judgments, i took, as the government took from the outset, that we would set our assessment of acceptable civilian casualties as close to zero as was possible to be. i can give this government can give, this country can give an absolute assurance to people of libya and people of the region that at all times we have sought as far as humanly possible to minimize civilian casualties because it makes a difference to our moral position in conflict and it makes a difference to our difference in alliing white political alliance. >> i think that's an extremely helpful and very important statement. i'm grateful to you for making it. >> absolutely. and that's what we're trying to ensure. to pursue this question about the target a little further, and the length of the process.

it seems as though we have norway and sweden saying they're going to be in for six months. there's talks -- three months, sorry. talk about us being in for six months, turkey, a slightly different position for spain, so on. under the command and control structures, what does that tell us about how that process can run over time should it need to run for a period longer than three months? >> i would have thought you on this committee would have been well aware of the debates we had on icaf about who was going to be there for what length of time. there are clearly strong parallels here. perhaps the chairman would like to tell us how it operates on the ground. >> i think the nato structure that circumscribes all this targeting business, to use your phrase, is designed for resilience and persistence, that the structure can exist as long

as nato requires it to exist. as nations come in and out of the structure. making sure that the legal requirements and the roe is part of that process. it's designed to endure, just recognizing what the secretary of state has said. we're in this for as long as it takes. >> implications for british national security, assessment of, the fact that we're in north africa, we're doing the things the way we're doing it, positive or negative? what's the impacts of british national security on our actions in libya? >> the governments, in particular, the home office and the office of counterterrorism is monitoring the implications or possible implications very carefully indeed. i can't go into detail, obviously, but it has been monitored day by day. >> thank you.

>> you just said we are in it for as long as it takes. have you any idea how long it will take? >> as i said, it's a question that will be well put where woel do so to colonel gadhafi who is the person to most determine how long this will continue. if colonel gadhafi were to stop attacking his people tomorrow, if we were to move to a safe distance and very clear that it was not a continued threat and we were able to get humanitarian assistance to the people of libya unhindered the in the way u.n. resolution 1973 demands of us, we would all be very happy. it is essential that the international community gives the very clear signal to the gadhafi regime that our resolve is not time limited. we understand what is being asked of us, what our duty is

and our resolve will not be time limited, will not be short, will not be finite. >> will it take considerably longer if the americans pull back? i note that pentagon acknowledge that the u.s. is to provide 8 percent of aerial surveillance and 100% of all electronic war mission. will it take longer if the americans pull back their forces? >> well, we are able to carry out the mission to degrade the regime's capabilities more quickly if we have the speed of targeting and we have the range of assets available to maximize the pace. are we grateful that the americans have, for example, made predator available, yes, we are. do went all nato partners to be maximizing what they do in terms

of the activities within nato and the assets they make available? yes. i had no indication yesterday during my visit to the pentagon that there was anything other than resolution in washington about ensuring that resolution 1973 is carried out. >> i'm very concerned about the supply and availability of missiles for both the u.k. and our allies, whether or not we have sufficient, with the current pace of air strikes. again, i note from the department of defense, they have said, again, 20th of march, 600 precision guided missions have been expended. 455 from the u.s., 147 from the coalition. they also go on to say gadhafi's virtually no air defense left and a diminished ability to

command and sustain his forces on the ground. his air force cannot fly his air ships. his ammunition stores are being diminished and command bunkers are being rendered useless, but they still have tactical mobile surface to air missiles which are still a threat. do we have a capability to still have a number of missiles we will need to tackle those mobile surface to air missiles? >> first may i say, that's a wonderful discrimination of a nonstalemate. the speed and degradation of his military capabilities was about as far of a stalemate as i could describe. excellent description. we believe that we have sufficient munitions and sufficient capabilities to carry out the tasks as set out for us in the nato mission. but the committee will

understand why we would not comment on any specific stocks of any specific arms held by the united kingdom. >> are the stocks being replaced under contingency reserve? >> is the cost being met by the contingency reserve? the chancellor made it very clear that it is, chairman. if you'll permit my smile. >> again, i would just like to raise the issue about communication with the public. are you happy that there has been sufficient communication with british public about this operation, and are you sure and confident that anxiety amongst the british public about mission creek and the risk of further engagement in a long term mission is being addressed in relation to the public's

understanding of what is happening? >> we will take every opportunity we can to give those reassurances, which is why i'm actually very grateful that we have had a chance to make some of those very specific points this afternoon and the government has made a number of statements. i don't think anyone can accuse the government of not being forward leaning in terms of the willingness to communicate, for example with parliament, although i do accept the adage that if you want to keep a secret in the united king.dom, the best place to give it is the house of commons because it's the least likely place to be reported, but the government is very keen that we do at all points make clear that we are acting under the u.n. auspices. this is the international community that has come together, along with arab countries and not just the usual

coalition. that we are acting at all times to minimize civilian casualties, that we do understand mission creek and we're being very clear that we are setting out to degrade the war making ability of a regime which had we as a country not intervened would probably have unleashed hell on the people of benghazi. it's very hard sometimes to stand up and be very proud about something you have helped to avoid happening, but i think in terms of humanitarian catastrophes, what we as an international community stopped happening in benghazi is something that i think history will be rather kind to us for if we have been insufficiently clear about blowing our international trumpet about what

we have achieved there. that is perhaps a chrissism we can take to heart. having achieved the effect is of extreme importance. >> yes, and i would just like to turn now to the wider region. if we accept that the motivation is not about regime change, but it's about protecting civilians, we've seen in the wider region considerable repression of a similar nation, perhaps in yemen and bahrain but particularly in syria. could i ask in terms of the resolution paving the way for a similar resolution in syria. at what point should that happen and if it shouldn't happen, why is libya treated differently? really mindful of the fact that the general public probably don't see the causes of distinction between what's happening in terms of wholesale slaughter in syria as is what's

happening in libya? >> i think a good point to, again, i'm going to ask mr. watt kins to see if he has something about the diplomatic. in tunisia and egypt, there was a spontaneous uprising of the poem. the armed forces in both those countries sty ies stood aside a not take the side of the government in repressing the populations who wanted to control their own destiny. in libya, it was different. in libya, the regime did use its military power to suppress that voice in the most brutal way. the international community passed a resolution, ultimately two resolutions which gave an ultimatum to gadhafi. when he continued to ignore the wishes of the international community, the international community acted. this was after we've been through sanctions, diplomatic

pressure, all the means available to us short of military activity to persuade him to take a certain course of action. would we hope that other regimes would learn, that they should not oppress their people? of course we would. what we've seen in syria the last few days has been an appalling spectacle of despotted regime bearing down on its people in a violent and brutal way. every one of us would condemn that. is there still a chance?