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those in this room are providing also our listeners and viewers progress you have question about how to support us come until three to send me any mehl. finally it is my pleasure to introduce the presiding officer and president, a 31 c year and diplomats and i feel grateful to turn the podium over to her. thank you for being here. [applause]than and. >> thank you very much. many thanks to all of you and a warmyo welcome this morning. ian has told do quite a bit

about the split we will come embassador whole -- ambassador hull represents the master practitioner of diplomacy who puts together books like this and it is part of that great national asset thatth that is very much included.c i would like to paygo pa theome warm welcome and also tou ambassador hull we will be treated to a discussion of a very important topic of the emerging middle east and yemenen as one of the many hot spots in the context of thea presence of outside of their. given the news and development over the last several months the programer could hardly be time lear

also applying to the publication of his book. i have not had a chance to read it myself. i look forward to doing so but for those who have, they tell me it is a great read. i am sure we will feelad that after the discussion this morning. our guide is very distinguished retiredm diplomatun ambassador to edmund hull his book "high value target" countering al qaeda in yemen" will be the basic roadmap for the discussion this morning. ambassador hull served as ambassador 2001 through 2004 and has extensive experience working in counterterrorism and shoes at the state department.r mor those of you who who have seen a more extensive by a detail in the announcement so those credentials in terms of the middle east in

the counterterrorism speaks for themselves and you will turn the podium over to ambassador hull and he will speak for about 20 minutes than there is plenty of time for question or answera.ti thank you very much. [applause] >> testing? that is the hard part. i want to thank susan johnson for that graciousai introductions and also to all

of you for coming here today. not a lot of spare time and some if you are taking time away from important work for i hope i can make it worthwhile. i will make three propositions and then what you are interested in with your questions. the state department is not by and large a lending institution. it has many, many strengths is the best and brightest and takes care of them however, unlike the military there are lessons learnedte

and in my experience there is little or no business on best practices. the state department 10 is to recruit individuals to provide a modicum of screening and asks them to improvise solutions. lot depends on who you workf for including henry kissinger you're likely to get goods lessons of strategy and how to develop copps. if youre work for tim baker you're likely to learn about steelmaking as he did getting involved in the conference. also you're likely to geto lessons of creative humility and the significance of the initiative like the middleitia east partnership initiative.ai

and fortunately we have so many exemplary individuals that it works very well with the personal examples. i do not suggest any marinara optimal. and as susan was suggestingven and even if you're not so fortunate to work with some of these people you learn such questions from the practitioners. and also lowered dick holbrooke who tries to indoor or call colin powell

reit? would be great to have the book from crocker on diplomacy are a book from kennedy on management inand diplomacy? lowered from grossman? i believe this is an area foror improvement and i assume this is what the academy of diplomatic studies and training has in mind with thise series on diplomats and diplomacy and also for the high value tigerpark rose second proposition is that the effective counterterrorism needs a strategy. i argue in this book that

counterterrorism should not be conceived nearly as an intelligence matter or a military question, but rather as a broad strategy. in yemen be encapsulated the strategy is no development without security and no security without development.wo it works very well in arabic and that strategy alone from extensive contact officials are average individualsildi individuals, makes what is important to us move against an effective way to a waswhic important to them which was to melamine? it was summarized in a

simple formula which the yemenis could remember or make their own and aying gratifying phenomenon they would come up to us and propose our strategy as their strategy and we could agree. one of the objectives is to show how a strategy is formulated. under the dramatic success it is tempting to believe that shortcut to victory isi special operations arefi

predators. the predators' strike was necessary but far from sufficient. individuals even as bin.ve laden could be replaced. kinetic successes give of momentum and give us base to apply a broad counterterrorism in that must include diplomacy to motivate partner governments to create support among the population with political and economic development to address thede underlying fibers of extremism and law-enforcement to promote the international rule ofar law as well as military cooperation and the guise of

effective training and to protect ourselves and to expose sokaiya. all of this ever needs to be sustained so that al qaeda cannot adjust the setback to reconstitute itself in a in more formidable form.or the demise of bin laden presents a great opportunity been no inevitability for success but a similarly in yemen 2002 the elimination of a predator provided us the opportunity been no inevitability. it would be a mistake to rest on our laurels and we should not and cannot.. my third supposition is that the embassy country team isou

the effective mechanism for achieving know who of government efforts with the adequate resources. i think we see a consensusof that some problem is beyond the scope of any part of u.s. government.an humanitarian disasteratio stabilization and counterterrorism. but what is not generally appreciated downtown is that the team in the field is the ideal way of achieving the whole of government effort and the military ispa particularly challenged to understand this. and therefore trying to set up ad hoc these and coordination groups. now the effective country

team starts with the ambassador and it is critical not to represent the state department. into louis that formal letter is a critical tool with that country team. but certainly doesn't andinly with the ambassador. arriving as i did with no development section what i could do as an individualr and our priorities the firstr year was billing the critical gaps.th -- filling the critical gaps the big obstacles were

security restrictions and state department lack of resources. the success we had in yemen would not have been possible withoupt dedicated foreign service nationals, people w who are with us today. would not have been possible without to be actually employed the retirees who came out on such shortt notice to provide criticalrt support and in the economics section and it would not have been possible without entry-level officers that colin powell brought in as part of the diplomatic readiness initiative. those who came from the

national democratic institute to play a key role in helping the money is to make the parliamentary elections of 2003 a success. it wouldn't have been possible without the spouseoty like those who came as a spell of a foreign service officer brought critical developments skills with him and people like my wife who succeeded to relating to the yemeni is probably better than anyone else in the embassy. in a sense i am preaching to the choir. the statehe department deficit it anze diplomacy formalizes this position. the secretary of defense any

of us who were listening to bob gates on "60 minutes" understands he appreciates how critical this is to the success of afghanistan and ind iraq and yemen. i would argue by and large, native along at -- congress or the american people get it. the u.s. military has done a superb job of explaining to congress and the americanutio people what their constitution is to u.s. security but the state department has not done anequ adequate job in the realm of diplomacy which is essential for success. as we're here today the state department even assumes more responsibility in iraq and afghanistan and

elsewhere. but we do not see resources commensurate with those responsibilities. micki bd our mix of your credit case for those.e i believe congress and the american people need more graphic examples. yemen is my case in point* and the book is my way to do so. thank you very much. [applause] >> any questions? >> i am from 86 thank you

for your service. you do talk about lessons learned from my do have some in particular you would like to discuss with the audience now? >> i have a host of them in the book. m ing and i think they aren accessible in reading our account of how we proceeded and also comparing it to happens interveningyear years 2004 and now. you can see in that comparison, how great of a job it does to adjust to the setbacks to reconstitutepo itself and how port of a job we do to sustain the effort and thereby create operating

space. but specifically, i think you need the strategy of how you will goho about this past to be more than just the collection of the ad hoc efforts. not only from the government but from the people of the country. this is a lesson i first learned and egypt in the 1990's when they were the said by terrorism. and they reach the tipping point* when the 12 year-old the egyptian girl was killed from one of the terrorist operations. symbol of the

harm of the egyptians than similarly when attacking the oil tanker off the coast and the oil spill damaged the fisherman's livelihood, you could see in yemen a popular reaction against this violence that cost people their livelihood. it wasn't something we coulding sell but something that had to help the government but once motivated they did a very good job. i think the third lessona learned is better if they do it. that is a little counter-intuitively come off the bin laden operation and feel certain pride and

accomplishment that is totally legitimate and is totally inappropriate we had a similar case in yemen. but it is hard to imagine us sustain the operations asl long as necessary too actually be seat -- inc al qaeda so as soon as possiblesh our role is to become interact and our partner role is to become director and what i tried to explain is creating space and time but the real success taking

down the rest of the organization it is supported buy us and it is a much healthier model and more modelnable and some 218 direct action all over the world. >> we are very pleased to recognize our cnn correspondent. >> thank you for thaton introduction. [laughter] thank you ambassador and congratulations on the book. could you talk more broadlyu about the possibility of regime change and yemen and how that could affect the counterterrorism effort and let you discuss the other needed for the u.s. partnership? >> a lot of the challenge in yemen in my lifetime was a

working emulation ship with the president. he is very cunning but he is not particularly easy to work with. it took far more than my efforts with president bush at the time mw and vice president cheney president saleh is important to counter terrorism operationshi in our partnership with theth minnesota is much broader than the president. the great risk we face currently is the uncertainty and the political turmoil it

causes the government to withdraw forces from the periphery and that inevitably will create additional operating space for al qaeda.and given the adaptability and ambition of the arabian peninsula we should assume they will use that operatinge t space not only to attack their interest but also the u.s. homeland. sho we have short-term boehner ability -- boulder bill would be. i would argue in the long term to of there is a successful transition to a more popular government that favors the united states and al qaeda al qaeda objective

has little to do with the kind of values or demands of the protesters have made on their government. thema solution shows recourse of sharia law does not answer at all thed aspirations of the revolutionaries of yemen or elsewhere in the middle east. they're very close to the values of the united states. so the challenge is gettingth to the period of vulnerability and helping the amadeus -- yemenis bill that society. >> in the area of lessons

learned would you say there are any valuable lessons areo that have been learned or might be learned from for the services of otherittl

countries being in the middle east especially of france and the u.k. >> our like to expand it a little bit but also other government efforts. we found the british to be excellent partners in training the central security forces of yemen.i we started out focused on the special operations forces and it turned dart that was protection not counterterrorism.t it was ideal the british started off with theou security forces then we continue that training. all along i thought it wasen o undesirable for the u.s. to

take the entire burden on its shoulders therefore we made an effort to to share the load. three jordanians played a significant role to workth t with the yemeni is security forces. yemen is the arab speaking environment. to be effective you need air bag. what the jordanians have been the effort our skills to help interpret and theres. were other development efforts, the duchess doing significant development work and we were not alone in anys

sense and coal was greater than the sum of its parts and an effort to the united states is less acceptable than those that were more broadly based not only in the european countries that the instances of both countries. >> thank you. said direct criticisms have been made a bid ministrations response as being supportive of

democracy to be tolerated not countries like bahrain and they appear to be more on stability how you address that equation and yemen? >> i think i a gray we don't have the one-size-fits-all policy. anyone that is familiar with the middle east knows these countries have different dynamics so i am okay with a country by country approach. but in yemen we are running a big risk because basically that given the forces at play it is a bad direction for us and good for al qaeda. there is less government control in the periphery and a greater chance ofn civil war you only have to work

work-- look at the face-off of the forces and to recognize that possibility. it was altogether reasonable for them to sort out between themselves but also to reach an agreement.el also i think the efforts may still have some potential.hi but if we need to ramp uper our efforts that may be by more attention and concerted diplomatic efforts. i think if we don't step up, then we risk seeing in this situation develop whereat the next three comes along

the lines of responsibility to protect the situation from libya. i just don't see it being in our interest to allow the interest is that the optionss become more and more narrow and more and more expressiveore but i am four stronger diplomacy. if >> >> thank you for writing that book. do you think in light of the bin laden death or any way, a aqap will continue to

go more outwardly as well as inside and also what about al-maliki i have doubts about his leadership. >> even before herb bin laden aqap al qaeda in the arabian peninsula have beeny identified by intelligence experts and policy makers as the most active network if you look at john brennan speech last december from the director of national intelligence our counterintelligence and early this year it is clear aqap in this way have surpassed al qaeda is anrgan organization that is quite formidable that it is very

creative and have come up with uses of the internet, a media and english language media surpassing al qaeda and are not shy at all to state the ambition is tobed strike the u.s. homeland and not be there with yemen or saudi arabia. it is a threat that needs to be addressed. that is recognized. now president mo rocky is an asset especially expanding the pool of the mujahideen for a bit -- are beyond arabic speakers alsodu appealing to those individuals who have more

passed under our radar. but al-maliki is not the leader of aqap there are homegrown of yemenis and the saudis who are the formal in leaders and the operational leaders and we have a tendency sometimes with popular counter terrorismrori and to latch onto one individual that we can identify to know the name into mistake that individual for the organization for the real leadership by don't doubt how -- adderall the professionals across the state are at the lighthousel

lighthouse -- white house do but the media or the journalists do tend to be careless and the way they report the roles of these individuals. >> thank you for youlr ye presentation. now, today, in this town looking at important programs on budgetary cutting blocks. i would like your analysis of what projections are likely to surface if people see the united states is not able to pony up the necessary resources as we've transition to reduce the military footprint from the region. where are there opportunities are other coalitions or other

like-minded folks as we hope that the many protests sort themselves out and identify a pass for their own future? >> secretary gates said it very well last night when hed said it would be a great mistake to be penny wise and pound foolish as we go forward in the middle east and south asia up. we're pulling troops out of iraq and afghanistan the military component will be on the downward slope. but if we do not ramp up and the civilian side would give resources to those people p out there, i have a personalb interest in this regard as my daughter works with usaid

because then it is a great change and we will see the kind of mistakes we have made in afghanistan after the initial successes that we made in yemen after 2004r reoccur and we will give al qaeda breathing space and they will take advantage. that doesn't mean it is in the lap of the u.s. taxpayer. there are other parties with interests that are larger than ours in the continuingg efforts and particularly about yemen, and my mind the wealthy states of the gulf

cooperationc states have been even a greater interest of helping yemen's succeed and al qaeda and the arabian peninsula has made it clear they have them in their sights.in i think there is an evolution and it has been positive. and i think the initiative of the results of the impasse is only the most dramatic evidence of that evolution. what i would like to see is the attitude similar to the attitude of what we saw in the european union when they came together to have initial success and then to

confront such developments or poor to go dictatorship there recognize they have a long term interest to stabilize the country's to bring them and a common interest in that. i do not think the arabian peninsula with the extremely eight impoverished yemen and itsy population is a recipe for stability there for you can make the argument there is a strategic deal to be made in whatever way they arein comfortable to make it. but a strategic deal thats needs to be made.te

>> for the last couple of years i was involved in an musses learned returning civilian members from reconstructions teams in iraq and afghanistan. one of the questions is what could have made you more effective than your work? the common answer is if i had more freedom of movement i could have done a lot more and by that they leave their movements were greatly curtailed by seniorent management and sometimes the embassy and washington or ay, s combination of the two which had a very low tolerance foror risk not wanting to lose the life of a civilian member.i my question is, what is the

implication for the future activities of high civil unrest? does that mean how would you see the balance between their traditional activities of foreign service and the role of our clandestine and services in thee information of implementing policy decisions? how is that affected by the lack of tolerance? >> the short answer is it is a recipe for failure.a i can give you the short answer now because there is a long answer in the book. it is entitled the chapter of an embassy, and not a bunker.irst the first time that colin powell, he was secretary of state designee and asked for

a briefingu on counterterrorism and we all came in and briefed him and the counterterrorism security and it was a real eye opener which he later sided in his testimony to the 9/11 commission.w relayed out the threats from al qaeda. he gave them the encounter because at the end of the long session he said thank you very much. i appreciate what you have told me and one thing wet must guard against is ton hunker down in our embassy embassy, that will give the initiative to outcry the.

we will protect our people but we will not hunker down. i took this has marching orders from the top and with some in the state department who wanted us to adopt a very cautious position that this was unwise because of the long term it increase the vulnerability to the outside the. i go in this at some length in the book because it is very important. >> i will buy it. [laughter] >> i would say during my tenure, we had no official american killed lower

seriously injured in yemen despite a very forward posture of where we have been now the second question? intelligence people do brilliant work and we have seen that recently i even thought with him in. it is essential. therees is no way the state department competes in that area. it does tend to be nearlyus focused and does not get into such questions as though well on the part ofthe the president or his government togo undertake what we need them to undertake. those are the kinds of assessments that the state department has a comparativeu

a vantage.e it does not necessarily get into what is going on and why al qaeda has fertile ground to insert itself, we need a much brighter broader analysis and collection of what the problem is. to me, not at all competitive it is complementary and dassin ambassador i could not do without both >> i was with aid overseas id now with the secretary office for the coordinator for constructive

civilization and as soon to become a bureau. we are all in a little nervous. >> congratulations. >> one of my old state colleague says we need a dies to know things about money. but in that regard, the kinds of things you're talking about the waterr cooler discussions that we have as we are looking at of the fy 12 budget call the call will security contingency fund inspired by something called the pooled funds operation that the u.k. put together the basically takes their security and civilian elements are many and pulls them to use them for the for conflict situations.cy the crises overseas.t

there is a low bit of cynicism but was that would mean is a little bit of statf e money prevailing with the policy issuesg and wheree it needs to go to address the kinds of things we're seeing over the past 1520o years and slightly undefinable kinds of crisis. having been involved in the budget i wars, i am skepticall,b but what is your take onmi that? too reflective also from vietnam, the civiliansvolu operations and revolutionaries had aun support coverage.

thank you. >> you will find in reading the book when it comes to money, i am entirely opportunistic. i have very few principles. one of the great irony is is that most of thes development we were able to do and it was significant, came from proceeds surplus commodities made available with the money and ben programmed iti to where we came up short on almost all of the other areas, the department oft agriculture allowed us tor generate a certain amount of

revenues of the development program. you will find an easy sell anything that expands the pot of money including what has been given to do dod president and secretary gates and many others are very happy to have the state department administer. but there is a bigger question, why is it the u.s. military has more money than they can spend and the state department is starved forre resources and they are so constrained that we don't have the freedom to apply? that is a fundamental questionn that i think it would be healthy and i think

part of it is there are stereotypes in this town and myths and simple explanations and one of them is the military is always effective, u.s. aid is ve always an effective. -- in the effective. i think we need to address those stereotypes to provide the legislatures, the americanis public and media some very graphic examples of how these other agencies use resources effectively and efficiently and responsibly and in theh interest of the american people not only effectively

but cost-effective. and asci said in my opening remarks, one of the ambitions it shows a little bit of resources properly with the right strategy went a long way at least for that period precluded massive investment in terms of military presence. >> mr. ambassador, foreign servicee officer and correspondent, i get the impression from your presentation of veryd negative prospects. on the one hand you say yes there is likely domestic instability and civilian

authorities and second you agree probably there will not be government u.s. resources necessary to carry out this development operations you would like to see. for 10 years we try to define win in afghanistan. the detail is the reasonable expectations are what we could do. >> first of all, let me correct, i am a big fan of u.s. media and foreignr correspondents particularly and we could noti have done what we needed to do it in yemen except people from the and "lostimes angeles times" and "wall street journal" payingeles attention to us and writing about theal problems. okay. i want the record to be

clear. yes. if you let this situation go and if we don't dedicate attention and resources and look at these policies of the situation, let me just make clear i think the obama administration has paid attention. i do think they have devised a rather impressive strategy and are dedicating resources. the issue is being addressed by the administration but the question now is thes implementation of the strategy.

but, it is the situation like a greek tragedy that will go forward that we cannot do anything about? and no. the argument in the book is that we can effect theen t situations with the righth strategy your resources. what needs to be done in yemen is doable and doable without massive american presence, but it will take an active effort that a relatively high level of our government and other governments and i think our chances of success are greater if we act sooner

than later. time is not on our side. it is at risk for us. i am not by any meansa hopeless but it in the book this is the optimistic underlying issue in difficult situations we found ways of impacting the situation and i have no doubt the current generation and other development experts also find ways to effect the situation if we are attending to it and

given the resources. >> i have one question before we close parker regarding your remarks on pakistan where a the military gets it and the american public does not get to it, and the congress understands military. they don't understand diplomacy and development. they don't know what that isen when you talk about development large numbers of the public think 25% the we have that of the gdp. i wonder if the second proposition to invade ne effective counterterrorism strategy. do you think the stated department has a lead role

to develop that strategy to coordinate the implementation or not right now? that is my question. >> i think it depends on the situation i think john brennan in the white house develops those strategies and resources i think for a long while and iraq thet is military have believe it think that will change with our drawdown. it is very much case specific. but common the other thing i t want to say is wants you goo ou out of washington and into the field

, -- come into baghdad or into kabul and then the role of the ambassador becomes critical.c the role becomes that of the ambassador. . . >> it's to delegate this to your chief of station or to your defense establishment. there's going to be no substitute for the ambassador

for herself or himself taking the lead op this broad effort that is going to be required. >> well, my follow-up question to that was that i thought there might be an opportunity that if deploam sigh was -- diplomacy was understood to be critical to counter terrorism, this might be a way to make this relevant to the american people, but you mentioned at the end of the importance of developing better stories, i guess, of how it is that we actually use resources in development, in diplomacy to advance u.s. interests and do so in a way that's very cost effective for the american taxpayer, and i mention this in closing because i'm very pleased that this is an issue you sort of addressed throughout your book and experience, by also it's central to the mission of afsa. we are we thinking how we can

better be a better voice for the foreign services, and everything they do, and both this terms of mobilizing more of our members, active duty and retirees to be involved in it, but also rethinking our outreach program and how we do them and who we reach out to and on what terms, so we're embarking on this and building on a lot of work done in the past and collecting enormous amounts of information that we sense is already available in our member agencies, commerce, agriculture, states, you mentioned, sir, the lessons learned projects there, and i think there's a lot of information that we can just -- we can access this package and find ways to use it could really help us. i'm one who believes that it is possible to develop a constituency for diplomacy and development, but i have been

told my, i think many very experienced practitioners of diplomacy that it's a hopeless task and it will not happen and there's no net drill constituency, and in the end it depends on the president and the office of the presidency to see a diplomatic service as critical instruments of national power that go along with defense, and it's up to that office to defend and procure resources needed to do the job that you're talking about out there. anyway, that was any opportunity to say something, but in the context very much truly welcoming this book, and welcoming the fact that you've come here to share both the book and some of your insights. i think the audience appreciated it, so i want to invite you all to join in a round of applause for the ambassador