[inaudible conversations] ..

but that might, but it wasn't three sandbags it was reagan filling sandbags with his shirt off. next a discussion on the planned closure of the camp and iran's nuclear threat. the compound located in iraq is home to thousands of members and supporters of the opposition group the peoples in the

organization of iran also known as the m ek. the schedule to be closed by the end of the year speakers include former homeland security secretary tom ridge, harvard law professor alan dershowitz, former vermont governor and the dnc chairman howard dean posted by the american command of northern california this runs for two hours. the moderator is former congressman practicality the honor of hearing from someone before. if you want to know about the history of the terrorism museum it is perhaps best to listen to the man who was the first homeland security secretary for our country after 9/11. tom ridge former tiffin of pennsylvania has distinguished himself and service to our nation and can speak more eloquently than almost anybody else on whether this is a terrorist organization or

whether the true terrorists are the people who are terrorizing the people of the camp. governor tom ridge. [applause] >> thank you. first call, thank you very much for that warm and gracious greeting. thank you very much. i don't know who's responsible for the cameras in the back, but i'm going to make a simple request of one of two or all of you when you get done filming all of this send a copy over to the white house and to the department state, it might help them better understand what we are all about today. [applause] i would appreciate very much. >> it has been a great honor and privilege to be associated with many of my colleagues to all of

those who gather and frankly have gathered and continue to gather in many places around the world this is significant, and around the world we gather from time to time to beg and plead what ever is necessary to make sure that of the human rights, the lives of the men and women, the residents of the camp to protect it that they would be ultimately free to enjoy the freedom and the dignity and the opportunity so consistent with not only their ambitions but the tradition of a great culture and a great country. it's become very personal to me i spent a lot of time looking over the shoulders of mothers have shown me pictures of husbands and sons and daughters that have been killed in iran or tragically the two versions from the maliki government in to camp

ashraf. they've received many letters of thanks and deserving letters of course things because i've tried so many of my colleagues and the delisting of the pmi and return to safety and freedom in the residence of camp ashraf. it's become very personal to me. i have on my desk in my office the first volume called fallen for freedom, 20,000, 20,000 pmi murders. so the opportunity that has been afforded me this morning i thought i would just share with you through a couple of different prisons my strong support of you and your family come extended family you care about and love at camp ashraf.

the first is through the prism of a way that is not personal tall if you think about it. it's cold, it's calculating, it's probably as in personal as you can get. but there's an exhibition in that part of the world that speaks to that and says the enemy of my enemy is my friend. iran is the enemy not of the united states but the modern civilized world so if you are an enemy of iran, you must be considered a friend of the western world and certainly a friend of the united states. yet we don't quite seem to understand that. so, with the hope you will send the documentary to the white house and the department of state let's run through the lessons we've learned of the past couple of years with regard to iran.

they are, have been and continue to be the number one terrorist state in the world. if you are looking for this instability in lebanon particularly southern lebanon and hesla you can chase the line back to iran if you are looking for the instability in israel, the west bank, hamas might work. the bottom line goes right back to iran. if you're looking for individuals in the country responsible for killing american soldiers in iraq and afghanistan , the line goes back to iran. it is an absolutely amazing to me that after perhaps a well intentioned, perhaps appropriated but 97 several administrations ago of harvey mek as a terrorist

organization we look at the history as what transpired thinking that may have improved diplomatic relations and open the door a little but to reconciliation to change. so, if this effort has led to the international atomic energy report concluded it has shown sanctions haven't stopped iran from maintaining a secret well structured nuclear weapons program since 2004 from establishing eye quote a hidden weapons program disguised with social programs the nuclear arms capability than they have ever been, they continue to killian are responsible for the death of american soldiers, continue at the heart of the instability

death in the middle east and continue to be the number one terrorist state and all we've asked this administration to do and frankly the previous administration failed to do this as well is delist the mek, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. the second prez on i think that we should and can look at the challenges confronting us is to do with iraq. many of you know i was a soldier in a different war in a different place and a different time. there's a wall that has 50,000 names and over 50,000 gold star mothers and goldstar dad's. we have at least 4400 who serve their country, have lost their

lives in iraq. we had thousands and thousands more coming home with a visible and invisible wounds we spend half a trillion to a trillion dollars with the hope of the aspiration, with the goal that once we rid ourselves is what these qassam hussain the emerging leadership in its own unique way consistent with their culture but in its own unique way embrace the notion of self-government, human rights, tolerance, free-speech, all of those values associated with the american brand. think about that sacrifice. and think about the notion that having made that sacrifice of both blood and treasure we elevate to leadership a group of individuals in the maliki administration that turned a deaf ear to the european union, european parliament, hundreds of european legislatures who have

denied or rather yet unwilling to accept the ad adjudication of the european union and the u.k. that they are not a terrorist organization. have repeatedly used and i am glad that my friend, patrick kennedy brought it up continue to use this is the irony, the tragic irony, continue to use americans, our designation of the mek as justification for murder and innocent men and women on two occasions and 09 and in 11. fascinating. in the hopes you are going to send this tape over to the white house and the department of state they are going to look at the letter the government sends. to the european commission.

in this very letter at the top organization has already been classified by the international community as a terrorist organization. there's only one reason it's there. we held this government put it there. such a certain extent i will defer to my id distinguished colleagues on the diocese it seems to me there might be the conspiracy here and intended perhaps it does look like we're inclusion and as long as we continue to designated as a terrorist organization they can send these documents around a little just to find a gradual rise and explain the murder of innocent people on the two locations in camp ashraf. i had the occasion to be talking to the u.n. high commissioner for refugees about two weeks ago

, expressed grave disappointment and frustration in the maliki government, but i'm going to get this through the third lens expressed frustration, perhaps even surprise with the united states to act because the continue designation has frustrated their limited efforts because they know even if the excess ins for the iraqi government has denied them access we pointed out today if patrick kennedy pointed out to you even today martin was told you've got to move by the iraqi government you must move these men and women to another location in iraq beginning to wonder why we are so docile, why

we are so submissive, why we are of lives and that's far more important of the treasure but significant treasury to tell us what to do with consistent to our broader obligation to support humanitarian human rights and to keep our promise which we gave individuals to every member of the camp ashraf when we also guarantee them under the geneva convention that is the other interesting piece of revelation over the past several days not only is the iraqi government say they are not going to continue to do and treat them as a terrorist organization that they are not protected by the geneva convention, a rather remarkable statement for someone who wants to be accepted in the broader world community.

it's remarkable be influenced that the iranian government seems to have in iraq. let's remind ourselves ladies and gentlemen that the maliki government didn't win an overwhelming victory and yet to form a coalition government, and we all know who he turned to in order to form a coalition the same individual our military and social forces had sought when he was leading the militias of all solder to of course when he left iraq of peace and comfort and support in iran. only to bring himself back, but he brought a disproportionate amount of influence back. every single day when i was privileged to serve my country and the president as the first few assistance to the president homeland security and secretary of homeland security we called it a threat matrix.

sometimes a was a couple dozen pages long, and to a variety of those of the agencies to get intelligence from a variety of different sources the list of threats against the united states of course you don't take them all seriously. many of them are not credible but you look at them, some more serious come samore acted upon and we waited to see if something would happen and if we could get more information and some were discounted but the bottom line in my time both in the white house and as the first secretary for the department of homeland security not one single time that i ever see a threat directed to the united states and any resident of for a supporter of the mek but we for whatever reason for whatever

reason continue. so i've got an idea, i've got an idea. maliki is coming to this country on december 12th and i really hope this tickets to the white house this the department issues visas and the department of homeland security, although the visa has been issued, has the right to deny you access in this country and it's an interesting position one issues the visa and the other opens the door and lets you in. i've got an idea. a cyclical conditions before we open the door how about delisting the m ek? [applause]

i appreciate that, but there's a lot more. we are going to the list and insist they cooperate with the commission on refugees. we are going to insist that the initial interviews take place in can't ashraf. [applause] we are going to insist the united states provide security for both the commissioner and his team as well as the residence of can't ashraf and insist the united states taking a leading role model the in the form of the united nations but with our friends around the world to see to it that these

men and women by the we have given us as much information about iraq's nuclear capability than our own intelligence organization we must think about that and recognize it as well. those ought to be the conditions the list, to operate with the u.n., keep them at camp ashraf come support the men and women with blue helmets as the u.s. high commissioner and a leadership role in getting these men and women resettled in companies who will raise them, their families and their belief in the non-nuclear peaceful tolerant iran. [applause] one final thought. you know, there's been a lot of

discussion about the term used describing president obama's leadership with regard to libya. some say it was effective means the broader humanitarian interest and building a coalition. of assault as supportive but you talking about the expression was the president was able to leave from behind to mr. president, this is a time you must leave from the front. [applause] he can ask any soldier and marine one of the most difficult tasks as a walking point because

sometimes the individual walking point to the initial hit, they take the flak they are the ones that encountered the enemy but right now on this issue mr. president, you have to. delist mek and provide them the protection and all the rest of the world can welcome them with open arms to promote a free and independent non-nuclear iran. we need a regime change in the first place to start is to delist the mek. [applause] >> thank you, mr. secretary. governor, former member of the house but also veteran of the united states of america thank you for your service to the

country. now i have the honor to introduce another individual who has a distinguished record not only as the chairman of the democratic national committee as a governor, as a presidential candidate, but i wanted to highlight another thing, another title that he has won and that is physician, medical doctor because all of those that are familiar with the service of medicine know the hipaa craddock both -- to the oath. i think it's appropriate today that he speak to us as he has eloquently on occasions before about how we take the hit the credit growth in medicine and apply it to public policy. first, let's do no harm that's not allow another assault and massacre at the camp, let's hear

from a real human rights leader howard dean. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. patrick, tom, thank you for your long help on this issue. i started this in january of this year never imagining that we would be here 41 days from the exploration of the guarantee from prime minister maliki has given us. 41 days from the potential execution of the 3500 unarmed people the united states has promised to defend. 41 days. we've wasted nearly 300 days that the government of the united states of america could not get off its butt and figure

out what the stood for as a country, and that is fundamentally wrong. i want to talk first about the united nations. the united nations made in my view a courageous and ionesco at met the palestinians as a member nation. for that, the lobby in the united states demand that they be prevented from any contributions. there's about 20% of their budget. i think the united states as an institution that is important in the world and i think it is a mistake to defund them. but yesterday the president of the united nations made the ridiculous suggestion that the people be redistributed in side of iraq and that somehow without any guarantee of protection

either from the united states or the united nations they would be fined. how could i go to the congress of the united states and ask them to restore the money for the united nations if this kind toward the policy is what we get in return for the united nations and i ask the representatives in the united nations to think about what they are doing. [applause] we expect in return for our investment in the united nations we expect courage, and we've seen virtually none of it from the u.n. and protecting these 3500 individuals in ashraf who have written guarantees every single one of them from the united states government that we would protect them and who have been screened by the federal bureau of investigation of anti-terrorist squad and not in either of them has been found to have terrorist connections. explain to me, martin, what

rationale you gave for what you have done which is essentially to sign the execution okay for 3500 unarmed civilians. that is not with the united nations is supposed to be doing. now, both representative kennedy and ridge talked about the visit of the prime minister maliki to occur in the white house. i understood white house visits were a status symbol something important to the people getting them a sign of recognition these were important countries with and mentioned the prime minister is under investigation by the spanish judiciary for a war crime which occurred in ashraf in april of 2011. how is it that the president of the united states is now inviting a person who is being invested in investigated for war

crimes to sit in the oval office that oval office does not belong to the president of the united states it belongs to every one of those americans and we need to be proud of the people that sit in that. [applause] i don't believe we create verdicts with people before they get tried and the prime minister has not been tried for the war crimes but there is not any question the prime minister sent the iraqi troops into ashraf in april 11 -- of 2011 and that 46 actually 38 because two of them white leader medical care was withheld those people were murdered in cold blood by the troops that were sent by prime minister maliki.

that means is that evidence turns out to be true, and i believe it is true that he will in fact be convicted in the spanish courts of the war crime i believe foot nouri al-maliki tecum the man that we enabled to be elected prime minister of iraq is a war criminal, and i believe that we do not as an american people or as an american government consort with war criminals. we may have to talk from time to time we should be talking about how we are going to save lives and we have an obligation to save those lives. the united states government needs to pay attention. we get reassured that they are paying attention. it is not enough to say that you are paying attention. we have 41 days left and when we started we had 341 days left. 300 days have gone by people have been paying attention.

3500 unarmed people in the desert and iraq charged told by the american people they are going to be protected in writing. we have an obligation. i understand the ambassador has said we want to be helpful but we don't have a responsibility. mr. ambassador and mr. president, we do have a responsibility. we gave our word and gave our riding we have a responsibility i do not want my country to become possessed in the carrying out of war crimes. as the dutch found out people who turn the other way our complicity, which brings me to the planned i don't know why it is still in the terrorist list. there are lawyers here who i

don't think it should be but i'm not a lawyer, you can debate or not whether i'm smart, but i do know that there is not much evidence that i can see. no one has presented evidence to the congress, no one has presented evidence to the intelligence committees behind closed doors. no one has presented any evidence in the public or private as understand from members of the intelligence committee that the terrorist justification is either justified or legal so there is one explanation which is that somehow the administration believes if we keep them on the terrorist list that the law will be nice to us. first of all this is a field apart. the state department has a long history of defending their mistakes, there 15-years-old and this is another example of it.

somehow in 1997 we thought they might not send them and blow up our troops and create atomic weapons subsidize terrorism in the middle east and all for the rest of the world somehow we thought if only we will designate these folks to put them on the list, maybe they will be nice. it is 14 years later i don't detect any of niceness and in fact we've seen the creation of our foreign policy toward the nation of iran to those who run the iran instead of the people who want to be designing the state department which is the president or the state policy, foreign policy which is the president of the state department. the glove appear to be running the foreign policy of the united states of america. now, i in this for two reasons, and in this because i think a

terrible injustice is being done to people who we promised to keep safe and i believe the united states is a great nation and that we have to keep our word. but i did this for a bigger reason than that. the real reason i'm in this does not have much to do or as much to do with the mek. it has to do with the united states of america. this country was founded on the notion that we are raising the bar on the expectations of what human beings were all about 235 years ago. if you look at the i'm not a big fan of this american exceptional was some stuff i don't think americans are better than or asians or south americans or africans or anybody else, but i do think we are an exceptional nation because of the content of our founding documents, the declaration of independence and the constitution because those

documents set forth something that had never been done at that time and there are still some things in the constitution that protect people that aren't in any other constitution of the world of the political minorities so that is in a lot of other constitutions. what that means is the united states of america has stood as a beacon for the rest of the world. we don't even always look to our own standards, but we have a high standard of what our obligation is to our fellow man. the reason people have even amidst our feelings admired the united states is because we were willing to expect more of ourselves as a nation. that is is what stake here. how we are willing to act on what we can expect for ourselves. i'm sure when the 41 days past

if harm comes to the people of ashraf, you will get people in political places that will say well, we didn't have enough time. we started this 341 days ago at least when i got involved and you started long before that. we had enough time but we have allowed the time to trickle to our figures and it is not acceptable. mr. president, we need to act now not just for the people in ashraf, not just because we are to stand up and have regime change in iran, we need to act now because we are standing up for our own country when we stand up for the people in ashraf and if we fail to do that are not just the opposite in the murder of the people we promised to defend, but we are complicity and basing our own country, and i do not believe that any american president ever should be part of that. [applause]

>> malae of the great honor of introducing somebody who can address not only the legal elements and the underpinnings of the situation, but the moral underpinnings of the situation because the professor has spent his career making sure that we stay true to the truth whether it's reflected in bill law or in our conscience that is why he has become known as the top lawyer for civil liberties and human rights and and here to֖ talk to us today is professor alan dershowitz. [applause] >> thank you, con gutzman.

thank you. thank you. >> what a personal honor it is for me to be addressing you here today, not only because of the distinguished company i am in on this podium, but because all of you out there but for another very personal reason as well. mauney religious tradition as well as the islamic religious tradition says he who saves and a human life whether she is saved the entire world. we are here today to say they were old, and what an honor that is for all of us. [applause] now with the regime has collapsed and the syrian regime is under fire the most repressive regime in the middle east and perhaps in the entire world as mahmoud amana sean's iran. they run over the terrorist

theocracy and the disfigurement and murder to suppress dissent. they threaten genocide against their enemies and seek to develop genocidal weapons capable of wiping out entire nations of the face of the earth. they blow of embassies and community centers with massive casualties including women and children. the target people including ambassadors based on religion and ethnicity and national affiliation. the finance and facilitate terrorism and attacks against both civilians and soldiers including so many of our own. they commit war crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide. they are international criminals and like other organized criminal groups, they tell the witnesses to their crimes in order to prevent them from giving testimony against their leaders. now they are planning the

killing of the largest concentration of witnesses to their crimes in the world today. those who are living in the camps ashraf and iraq. 3400 of armed dissidents many of them on witnesses to the worst abuse of the regime over many years, many of them but mrs. to the merger of their own family members. these are people who can give testimony or the international criminal court to invite all the ahmadinejad and others who've committed international crimes, and they should and they may well do that to read some of the most important -- [applause] i can tell you that issue is actively under consideration today. some of the most important witnesses might come from the 3400 residents of camp ashraf. that is one important reason why

the potential war criminals who run the regime are so anxious to secant ashraf shut down and the weaknesses exposed as one human rights lawyer put it to quote the iranian executioners. it's the current intention of the government to close down the camp the day that the american soldiers leave which is at the end of the year you know that the iraqi government reiterated that in a memorandum to the european union. the residents now as we all know have very, very little time to figure out a way to keep themselves out of the clutches of the iranian killers who will surely be hunting for them. all for the dozens have been killed, hundreds wounded by the iraqi soldiers who are unsympathetic. the united states military and its dissidents protect the person's status under the fourth geneva convention and the high

commissioner of the refugee has declared them asylum seekers who are entitled to international protections the there will be no one to actually protect if the campus closed down and arrangements are not earlier made to provide safe travel and safe haven. there are movements to bring the case against the leaders in the international criminal court as i mentioned. efforts are underway to try to persuade several nations that are signatories to the treaty to fight the charges including incitement to genocide and the murder of dissidents. if this were to happen the witnesses who currently reside in the camps the seven would secure the additional status of the protected witnesses and the prestige and the international criminal court might weigh in heavily on the for assuring that they were not harmed by ev calpers assigned to keep them from giving relevant testimony. i intend to communicate directly

to the chief prosecutor, the international criminal court and urge him to grant witness protected status to the potential witnesses who today are in that camp. [applause] and it is an international crime to tamper with witnesses or to murder witnesses. that is what the mafia does. it's not what civilized societies do. in any event these deserve protection on humanitarian grounds. the action of the government and those in iraq up to the law make it clear that these dissidents are potential targets of the mischief. the united states government which was responsible for disarming them as the

responsibility to protect them. we've heard from so many now about the impending visit of the iranian leader, the iraqi leader to the presidency of the united states. there was an interesting freudian slip. if the president of the united states does not demand a change in the iraqi government's commitment to close the camp, his silence will be taken as acquiescence, and that is so dangerous, silent acquiescence. one excuse as we know offered by those who wouldn't protect the inmates is that they are members of the mek, which was once a decade and a half ago designated mistakenly in my view by our government as a terrorist group. this was the first legal point listed by the iraqi government in its recent paper to the european community, the organization has already been classified by the international community is a terrorist organization but also refers to

relations with neighboring countries which of course means iran, purchased relief terrorist nation and so regarded by all reasonable people. there are several legal moral and practical reasons why this excuse of the mek being listed just doesn't work. first of all even if it were true, and it's not, that the mek as a terrorist group that designation would not deny the residence at the camp protection under international law. certainly not all the residents if any can currently be deemed. they are disarmed, they are not engaged in any activities which meet any legal definition of terrorism of them are combatants under international law either lawful or unlawful combatants. second, the designation of the terrorist groups is questionable and more so today even if an organization has once been

deemed a terrorist group it does not mean that maintains that status forever. law is clear. the status must be completely revisited, and there is no current evidence the would justify continuing the status of the terrorist group. consider and compare. [applause] consider and compare the palestinian liberation was certainly a terrorist group for many years growing up civilian buses, murdering athletes, hijacking commercial airlines to murdering students, people what prayer and diplomats. but it no longer retains that formal status. though the leaders, some of them at least skilling qtr best's by naming public squares after terrorists by paying money to the families of tourists and allowing incitement to terrorism and the government responsive media and many other ways to get

the authority no longer bear the stigma of terrorism. it follows that mek shouldn't be considered a terrorist group now even if the designation was legally and factually warranted at some point in time which is highly doubtful and was almost certainly wrong. it is undoubtedly wrong now when the former head of the fdic and the former secretary of homeland security who have seen documents that none of us have available to us can certify that there is no current threat from this organization that ought to cover an enormous amount of ground and carry an enormous amount of weight. and the president of the united states and the secretary of state must consider the current evidence and must be list this organization. in any even to -- [applause]

in any even to the thousands of women and the many children and the elderly and others who were among the 3400 residents of camp ashraf are entitled protection regardless of this anachronistic false designation still accorded to the mek. even if the iraqi government seems to concede this point and ury claiming to be dealing with the camp residents, quote, in accordance with of the human rights principles of international law enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights and the international convent on civil and political rights, but in practice the current plan to close the camp are a death warrant directed against the residence because the mek was once designated as a terrorist group by the united states government. now this stigma of a predict is going to be removed and it is going to be removed --

[applause] as soon as all the evidence is objectively considered. but it will be a victory if the residents are attacked and killed in the meantime despite the claims to be compliant with lot the government is hindering actively hindering u.n. agencies from trying to help the residents relocate to save places and now they are trying a new ploy to get some u.n. agencies and some u.n. leaders to support the policies that they are trying to implement. that is cynicism at its worst and cannot be allowed to succeed. the international community has often failed in preventing the mass murder of dissidents and perceived enemies of genocidal regime.

just remember and consider the horrible tragedies of cambodia, of rwanda, darfur, the former yugoslavia, armenia many decades ago and of eastern europe 60 years ago. we said after the second world war never again but you know what happened to never again? it has become again and again and again and again. this time we must keep our collective humanitarian promise. the world is now on notice. it has no excuse and the holocaust happened every but he said we didn't know then the genocide we didn't know. when the cambodian genocide was occurring people are telling us it was propaganda. we didn't know.

rwanda, darfur, we didn't know. we know. we have been told. we had been warned. [applause] the conscience of, we know we are on notice. we must act now to protect these 3400 vulnerable individuals. if we fail to do so, the blood of innocents will be on our collective hands and there are specific life-saving steps our government can take immediately. you've heard some of them from our distinguished speakers. we should appoint a special envoy to lead the efforts to the peace resolve to matter. we should call publicly on the iraqi government to remove the

december 31st deadline coming and we should do that before maliki comes to the united states. we should take the matter to the u.n. security council for binding decision to prevent a human catastrophe coming and we should do it immediately the state department should act immediately to eliminate this horrible excuse that's been used by the iraqi regime, buy removing the mek from its list of the foreign terrorist organizations, and the united states, we, with our beautiful statue of liberty standing in the harbor, the statue of liberty that welcomed my grandparents and my great grandparents. we must be prepared to accept a number of residents of the campus on the humanitarian grounds. bring this to your poor, those to be freed, who fits the definition better than the people today for under the shadow of the sentence of death.

so there is no time to wait. the clock of death is ticking. if not now, when? my friend who i know has been also active in this cause, once said of the lesson he learned from the holocaust is always believed the threat of your enemies more than the promises of your friends. we must make that untrue. we, the american people for all the reasons we've heard today must finally keep our promise. we must do it and we must do it now. thank you very much. [applause]

>> i don't think that ambassador robert joseph wants to follow that, but he's going to have to. professor dershowitz, what a transparent argument for all of those of both legal mind but good conscience as can follow. what a fantastic outline of what we are facing and bringing get back to the most essential element, and then she once again for the was very powerful remarks. we have with us a distinguished diplomat and ambassador who has led the cause of protecting the world from the terror of nuclear weapons. he has been united states special envoy for the nuclear proliferation under secretary

for arms control and international security and has worked his whole life to coordinate the prevention and deterrence and defending the united states and the rest of the world from weapons of mass destruction. he is here today to talk to us about the fact that not only have the mek committee pmi bin an indispensable help to his effort in intelligence gathering on the nuclear program in iran, but he's here to talk about why he is in solidarity with the threat of terrorism posed by iran not only on the camp ashraf, but on all people of the world. let's give a great round of applause to the investor ronald joseph. [applause] >> thank you very much, and good afternoon.

i tell you it is a hard act to follow. it would be hard act to follow any of the speakers today, but that is my task. so first i would like to death our sponsors for the opportunity to present to you today my thoughts on a fee iranian nuclear program. the american community of northern california and association with other groups that help to promote a space and secular republic in iran has on a believe a very important role to play and ultimately determining the outcome of the nuclear issue. having worked for the past ten years on trying to stop kuran's committed quest for a nuclear weapons capability at the white house, at the state department, and now other government, i am convinced that until the current repressive regime in tehran is replaced through the resistance of the iranian people, we will

not permanently succeed in ending the nuclear program. there are of course a number of approaches that the united states and other countries are pursuing. economic sanctions through the united nations come even more sweeping financial measures under our own international law and covert activities such as the reported attack on the computers that operate iran's nuclear complex. in the future, and i will talk about this as well, there's also the possibility of the use of military force against the known nuclear facilities. but at the end of today, while all of these measures have and will likely continue to slow down the nuclear program, and while bodying time can be strategically important, they will not in the program. they will not persuade or compel the current leaders in iran to reverse course. only true internal political change can we achieve that outcome. so having already given you my

bottom line, let me back up and try to explain how i've come to this conclusion. i will start with an overview of iran's nuclear program, highlighting what are the most disturbing aspects of the latest on aiea report which received worldwide attention from the media after its release last week. following that, i will try to put the nuclear program in context. what does it mean for u.s. security? what does it mean for the security of the gulf region? why does iran want nuclear weapons, and how would such weapons effective regime's policies and ambitions? finally, i would like to talk about alternative policy options including the use of force. for each of these i will try to identify the strengths and weaknesses, the benefits cut costs and risks. so to begin, let me briefly summarize the iaea report, which is based on what the agency says is credible evidence gathered on the ground in iran as well as information from ten other

states. the report is rather technical, so i will translate the findings and to lay terms on here on's and richmond activity, the report can emphasize its continued progress in the key areas including operating more centrifuges than ever before and nearing the start of production the previously secret facility producing low-enriched uranium twice as fast as before in 2010, and 2 million now a stockpile of enriched uranium which could provide enough fissile material for the nuclear weapons, and to plan the production of enriched uranium for the 20% level that would shorten the time to reach weapons-grade level with additional processing. while these assessments of enrichment are of concern, the most alarming judgments contained in the report deal with what the agency describes

as research development and testing activities the would be useful in designing a nuclear weapon. in other words, iran is working on the building blocks for making atomic bombs. the report does not complain that iran or claim that iran has constructed a nuclear weapon or even that it has overcome all of the technological hurdles the would be required. it does not speculate on how long it will take iran to build a nuclear weapon is but what it does do is for the very first time lay out what it calls strong indicators of possible weapons development. for an agency as cautious as the iaea is. that is a major step forward. these indicators include creating computer models of nuclear explosions and work involving the neutron initiation, triggering systems and implosion exclusions the iaea also states that it has

acquired documentation suggesting that iran has been provided presumably through the a.q. khan at work with nuclear explosive design information and that its work on experiments with conventional explosives to compress metal into a mass suitable to initiate chain reaction. finally, the report points to evidence that indicates a bond has been pursuing a number of weapons for a warhead to deliver a nuclear weapon hitting such a war had on its longer range. unlike the 2007 u.s. intelligence estimate, that iran stopped work on a nuclear weapon in 2003 the iaea found that significant work of the military dimension has been conducted since that time including some work recently. ..

>> iran moved forward in a way to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. whether or not a final decision cannot proved or disproved, but they will in the near future have the option available to it if it so chooses. why do we care, or why should we care both the development?

both president obama and president bush said the united states can want and will not permit iran to acquire nuclear weapons. there's many reasons for this. let me mention just a few. a nuclear armed iran could promote ambitions in and outside the region more aggressively whether in afghanistan, iraq, or in the gulf or beyond. this could take the form of support of terrorism or fermenting political unrest to overthrow leaders supportive of the united states. this would threaten stability and the security of u.s. friends and allies in a vital region of interest. a nuclear armed iran is a direct threat to u.s. forces and allies in the gulf as well as the greatest middle east, europe, and eventually to the united states itself. the likelihood of iran using military and other means of force would, i believe, increase if teheran believed its nuclear capability protected it from

retaliation. iran would seek to use the possession of nuclear weapons as a powerful tool of intimidation and blackmail. a nuclear armed iran could lead to the end of the nuclear non proliferation views as we know it because countries responding to what they see as a great threat that must be detoured by their own possession of nuclear weapons and that include saudi arabia, turkey, egypt, and others. along a with a nuclear armed israel, this is a reason for a global disaster. nuclear armed iran is at the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. pursuing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism. if iran has these weapons and fits all material, the likelihood of their transfer to third parties would increase by design or diversion. finally, a nuclear armed iran

would feel more secure from foreign, outside interference and more confident that it could act without concern of repercussions to repress its own people, those who are, in fact, the greatest threat to the regime's survival. in other words, if iran achieves its goal of nuclear weapons, it's a true game changer. just imagine if it seems difficult today to deal with the current iranian regime. what would it be like if those leaders had nuclear weapons? what do we do to stop it? as i mentioned, and as all of you know, we sought to apply economic and financial sanctions against the regime, especially individuals associated with the nuclear program and entities like the revolutionary guards. since twx, there have been four u.n. security solutions imposing

cost penalties on iran for its activities, but these penalties have always been less than what the u.s. sought. they've always been negotiated down by russia and china who have been reluctant to impose harsh measures for political and commercial regions. the united states working with other willing countries in europe and in asia have also added sanctions through national laws. our congress has been and remains very supportive of these measures, and together, international and national sanctions have reportedly had a significant impact on iran's government and on its economy. president obama recently stated that the sanctions were taking a severe toll on iran. the problem is causing economic pain through sanctions has not stopped the process or the march to acquire a nuclear weapon. what do we do? one course is to impose more sanctions, something we're trying to do on the international level as we

speak. however, as before, russia and china say no even now as the release of the iaea report last week. that leaves us with additional national sanctions, but that seems a self-imposed limit as recent discussions regard possible sanctions against the bank of iran. after raising prospects of sanctions on the central bank on the oil sales globally, u.s. officials seem to move away from such action out of fear it could be too disruptive economically if it rose energy prices at home. there's apparently a price we're not willing to pay economically. as for covert action, there have been press reports of u.s. and israeli efforts to disrupt want program through computer attacks and other means of sabotage, but while the attempts have likely caused operational disruption

like sanctions, they have not accomplished their goal, and the iaea report makes that clear. we can do more sanctions and presumably more coverse actions, and we should, but given our experiences over the past five years we should not, i believe, expect them to work to end the program. time is running out. whether we have one year or two years, we can't be confident an incremental policy of more of the same would be successful. one has to conclude based on our experience to date that we will fail in our task if we don't take an alternative path. put bluntly, we're at a critical juncture faced with very hard choices and huge risks. because we are now at the cross roads, we have to consider the benefits, cost, and risks of using force. not an invasion or large scale bombing of cities and plants,

but attacks to destroy known facilities or at least the main known facilities of the program. no unwants to have to use force, but it's a challenge in which there's no easy policy choices. this is a very sensitive issue, and it should be. i can already hear the chorus that we need to give time for sanctions and covert activities. my reading of the iaea report is that we're out of time. this is no longer a viable option. we can decide not to use force and stick with the current policy, but if we do, we have to face up to the fact we're likely accepting a nuclear armed iran, and this may be acceptable to some, and we're already from a number of quarters in and out of government that instead of using force, we have to adopt a policy of detouring and containing a nuclear armed iran, a policy i argue is fraught with risks. while the obama administration has stated that all options are

on the table, it is also made clear that it does not want to use force. former secretary of defense, bob gates said the use of force against iran would be, in his word, insane, and i'm confident that almost other every country would prefer a diplomatic peaceful outcome. the problem is there's no reason to believe that the regime would ever abandon the nuclear program with one possible exception -- that it believed that force would be used against it. this was the case with libya, and this is the case with iran. for those who might be willing to use force, it would, as it should be, an act of last resort. in this context, consider the likely costs and benefits if cost is used, most likely not by the united states, but by ease real, a country that perceives weapons of mass corruption as an existential threat to its very existence, but have no doubt, if

israel used force, the united states would be blamed and also be a target of retaliation. the cost could be substantial. iran has many avenues to strike back through ballistic missiles or the use of terrorism worldwide oh there are its proxies in iraq and afghanistan and can create economic or political disruptions an unrest, but there's limits to what iran can do and what it's willing to risk. if we were to accelerate further in response to their actions. moreover, the program would not likely will ended by the use of force, as we saw after the 1982 strike against the reactor in iraq. instead, the program would almost surely go further underground, but minute use of force would likely by time. one year, perhaps up to three years. the key question is whether and how that time could be used strategically to fundamentally change the political conditions in iran. some argue that if force is used, all iranians will rally

around the regime as a nationalistic impulse. others challenge that wisdom noting the limited use of force would not alter the deep am -- animosity towards any or all of the regime. i don't know the answer, so let me leave you with that question for you to answer. allow me to make just two concluding thoughts. the first briefly as i said at the outset is the only sustainable solution to the iranian nuclear threat the is emergence of the free and democratic iran. second, and this is more of a personal note, i was asked here today to talk to you about iran's nuclear program, and i hope my remarks have been informative, but i want to say over the past few days as i prepared my comments, and today, as i have listened to the other speakers, i have learned a great deal about the mek, which i had

known before only as a source, perhaps the best source of information on iran's nuclear program, and i can now say une qif click i'm not only a supporter of delistening, but also of the other steps that governor ridge and others on the panel put forth. thank you very much. [applause] >> fantastic. [applause] thank you. [applause] >> thank you, ambassador joseph. [applause] we are very grateful to you and your leadership and not only for our country, but for all the world as these nuclear weapons pose a threat to all humanity, and it's so -- we're all so grateful for your service and also today to make such a transparent outline doesn't is sound familiar?

all of these denials by the iranian regime on weapons of mass destruction, doesn't it sound familiar? violating international law over and over again with respect to weapons of mass destruction, and at the same time, violating international law with respect to human rights. this is not a good group that's running iran. they threaten international security with weapons of mass destruction and the creation of a nuclear bomb. at the same time, they threat our very principles and human rights with their attacks against innocent, unarmed people. you said it over and over again that we do not need more of the same policies of acquiescence

and appeasement. that's what's gotten us this far with very few results of the this regime whether it's their suspension of pursuing nuclear weapons or suspension on their own people. this is a pattern. we've seen it over and over again as alan said, so perhaps now it is a good segue to introduce an individual who spent his career uncovering patterns of corruption and immorality, not only as richard has been on the commission to investigate one of the greatest crimes against the united states, the 9/11 attacks, but he distinguished himself as the

lead period of time on the watergate task force investigating corruption at the highest levels of government in our own country, and he has been tasked with the job of investigating the historic record in world war ii towards germany and japan and war crimes of that era, so this is a gentleman who has seen patterns of behavior whether it was the holocaust or whether it was japan with the imperialist regime or our own country or the 9/11 commission. we have someone who can speak to patterns of behavior of those who are corrupt throughout not

only american history, but history of the world. it's my honor to introduce to you richard ben-venesi. [applause] >> good afternoon, and thank you very much for that introduction, patrick kennedy. the bipartisan national commission on terrorist acts against the united states, better known as the 9/11 commission made a number of recommendations to congress and to the president as part of our final report. among the most significant from a security standpoint was the recognition to maximize counter

proliferation efforts targeting weapons of mass destruction, expanding the proliferation security initiative and supporting the cooperative threat reduction program. in another important recommendation, the commission called upon america to stand up for its values aggressively and define itself in the islamic world. both of those recommendations are central to my remarks today. the arab spring movement provided america with the opportunity to allow our values to define us in the middle east. for two long, we have followed a simple short sided goal of expediency in dealing with autocratic repressive regimes rather than trusting that the principles upon which our nation was founded and on which it has

flourished as a beacon for all freedom loving people to see. could this replace the demagogues and dictators and regimes that have long ruled those countries? let no one jurpt estimate the long slog ahead. debt pias our natural enthusiasm for those in the world who through off the yolk of oppression, there's little reason to believe that democracy or even stability will take root, much less flourish in the short term. this will be a discouraging period in my view fraught with a variety of challenges to security as various factions vow for power or vie for power

rather in countries where tyrants rule for decades. armed conflict, riots, and civil unrest will be fueled by political, civil, tribal, religious, and criminal elements while jihaddists of various stripes attempt to exploit the chaos for their own benefit. by the way, i commend to those who have not seen it, the cogent testimony on this subject by brian jacobs. rand corporation earlier this month before the house armed services subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. al-qaeda quickly attempted to align itself in uprising suiting events to its own narrative as defeats of u.s.-backed tyrants like mubarak, gadhafi, and

salah. at least they will be deprived of that argument when they fall in syria, and the mulahs are eventually turned down in iran which brings us to the second topic of my remarks, the far more vexing state of affairs that iran's bo -- belligerent actions brought into sharp focus. two events form my view of strong coalition action of the united states and our allies must be applied to condemn the reckless and reprehenceble activities of the iranian regime. the first, obviously, is the report released on november 8, 20 #11 -- 2011 by the iaea to the board of

governors and u.n. security counsel. the report plainly puts to the lie to the consistent denials by the regime of any interest, much less action in developing nuclear weapons. to the contrary. the report details a well structured and carefully organized nuclear weapons programs specifying there's indications that iran is preparing to produce weapons grade material some point in the future, that iran has the technology to prepare such material to use in a weapon, that iran also is acquiring or has already acquired the specialized detonators and technology needed for a weapon, that iran may now be able to fully integrate those technologies into a bomb, that iran may be conducting

simultaneous simulations of key aspects of nuclear weapons development, that new data indicate that iran is moving towards modeling weapons designs, that there now is further evidence that iran is developing neutron initiators needed to sustain a fissle reactions and form a high yield, that iran seems to be actively developing nuclear missile warheads, and that in a new development the iaea reports that iran may be reporting for future testing. the second recent development regarding and warranting

reassessment of the situation is the alleged plot to assassinate the saudi saudi arabia ambassador here in the united states under circumstances that would also involve the loss of american lives. obviously, i'm not privy to classified intelligence on the subject, but it appears the plot was real begging the question of how high up in the iranian regime planning, support, and authority was provided. was this a rogue operation sanctioned by the faction of the revolutionary guard, or was this is a plot authorized by higher ups in the regime? either way, a very disquieting indication of criminal activity

by a would be be nuclear power. there is no disputing the regimes long history of profound disrespect for the norms of international law and human rights. it's president ahmadinejad, half crown, half thug, denies the holocaust from one side of his mouth while pledging to wipe israel off the map from the other. at the same time, iranians, including ahmadinejad, have engaged in apock littic end of times rhetoric making reference to the return of the 12th emaum and the like. what should we ask of our staunch ally the state of israel? for a nation founded in part on

the very painful lesson learned never again, how much fore bear can we reasonably ask as iran moves towards the development of nuclear weapons and overtly threatens the very existence of israel? the prospect of a nuclear bully in the middle east willing to engage in criminal and reckless behavior is reflected in the saudi ambassador assassination plot, talking up apocalypse and suicidal end of times rhetoric resets the level of bellicosity on all sides. it may well be in ahmadinejad's short term parochial interest to spew the kind of rhetoric for

which he has become infamous, but he, and those who truly make the decisions in iran today, such as iatola, must be made to understand the danger of playing a half court game in a full court world. in my view, the only kind of sanctions that truly jeopardize the regime will have a chance of success in curbing iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. no option, including a military option should be off the table. our allies must understand that iran should not be allowed to delay and barricade until it's achieved its quest for a fissle

device. while iran now does not provide a threat to america, it could one day provide such to a small neighboring nation like israel, and there is no doubt that israel would respond to such an attack with a countervalue attack against iran, not just against its military and nuclear facilities, but essentially destroying the country and its entirety. it is in our interest, in the interest of our planet, to avoid such a horrendous scenario, by taking strong purposeful action to curb the bellicosity and tamp down the ambitions of the iranian regime. sanctions and boycotts of

refined gasoline sold in europe accounting for significant hard cirn sigh should be employed -- currency should be employed. certainly french satellite transmissions relied upon by iran can be denied given president car cozy's view that an iranian nuclear bomb is the single greatest threat to world security certainly the covert campaign of sabotage against iran's nuclear weapon development program like targeted violence can and should be rached up. finally, the iranian banking system and iran's i believe to conduct international business can be targeted at our disposal. the key in the use of harsh sanctions is to project to the

iranian people who are not our enemies, that there's clear reasons for these sanctions, reasons entirely the result of the leaders' threatening activities. they must guard against resuscitating a failed resolution by inspiring a call to national unity. this will require skill and strong determination. failure here is not an option. the obama administration has welcomed the iaea findings and has declined the hypocrisy and outright lies of the regimes continuing denials. in my view, we must support the

continuing efforts to ratchet up sanctions and building consensus while walking the difficult line created by the harsh economic circumstances that confront us all today and how those circumstances may be exacerbated by new sanctions. this process will require great skill and judgment, but in the end, we must not waiver from using the great power that we possess to achieve the just ends we seek. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> general john kean is someone

who, throughout his life, has worn the uniform of the american soldier. when it comes to implementing policy, whether that policy, as richard said, is the policy of expediency or the policy of principle, we've always been fortunate in our country to have people who richard talked about in the 9/11 commission to have people willing to stand up for american values, aggressively. jack kean, as a retired four-star general and vice chief of staff to the united states army, among his many duties and litany of accomplishments, i think we only need to name two.

the recipient of the silver star and the bronze star for heroism under fire. this is a man who doesn't just talk the talk, but he walks the walk, and that's why it's so appropriate that we have him here today. please give him a great round of applause and welcome him to the podium. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] thank you very much, for that warm reception. i know you are probably getting weary and want to jump around a little bit. my sympathies to you. i'll be brief as i can, but let me associate my remarks with my distinguished colleagues here in terms of your issue, the challenges that you face, and also how well they outline the solutions. my contribution today is an

attempt -- in attempt to be brief is to focus on iran and united states policy because if we can resolve that issue, many of the other problems in the middle east can be resolved to include the mek. the iranian bungled operation to use proxies to assassinate the saudi arabia ambassador to the united states and to purposely plan the operation in the united states is a stopping rebuke to the obama administration's policy of negotiation and isolation with the iranians. i provided the remarks you're about to here to congress two weeks ago in a combined committee dealing with our issues with iran. indeed, republican and democratic administrations, since 1980, have failed to deal

effectively with the harsh reality that iran is our number one strategic enemy in the world m frankly, the iranian stated as much in 1980 that the united states was the enemy of the islamic revolution, and there intent was to drive the united states out of the region. therefore, they have been the systematically killing us for over 30 years. in 1983, their proxies, the hezbollah, blew up the u.s. embassy and the annex a following year with a total of almost 500 lives lost. we only had no response to this tramming di, but we -- tragedy, but we pulled our troops out of lebanon. in 1983, the iranian backed extremist group blew up the united states embassy in kuwait and attacked a residential area killing and wounding over 80. in 1984, the station chief in

lebanon wastured and eventually killed, which was the beginning of an iranian backed campaign to take high profile hostages over a ten year period that led to the poorly conceived and ill-fated operation by the reagan administration to exchange arms for hostages with the iranians. in 1985, twa flight 847 was seized on a route to rome, forced to land in beirut, leading to the killing of a u.s. navy diver and dumping his body, and eventually the hostages taming -- were released. in 1996, the u.s. air force towers and barracks in saudi saudi arabia was blown up by hezbollah killing 19 and wounding almost 400. again, although our intelligence apparatus identified the culprits as iranian backed

hezbollah, we had no response, and we eventually shut down the united states military bases in saudi arabia. since 2003, in iraq, the iranians have provided rockets, mortars, improved explosive devices and money to the shia militia directly involved in killing u.s. troops in iraq. moreover, the iraq sheer militia were trained by the iranian special operation force the quds force, and while they were defeated in 2009, the president's recent decide to withdraw all troops from iraq puts our hard fought gains in iraq at risk and plays into the hands of the iranians. malawki as we speak is

underminding his political opponents driving key sunni leaders out of the military, and he's consolidating his power base. the attack on camp is part of the strategy, and with the iranian finger prints all over it. several iranians are supporting the taliban in afghanistan with money and am knew in addition. the action arm for iran state sponsorship of terrorism outside their border is led by general kasime who's been in charge for over 15 years. general has no military or political boss. he answers to only one perp, the supreme -- person, the supreme leader in iran. we must conclude that for this general, the plan and operation inside the united states that would result in americans being killed, surely the supreme

leader at a minimum approves that and may have erected it. why did they want to do such a thing? well, simply because they can. not only that, but they believe we are weak and they would frankly get away with it moreover, we must ask ourselves has the united states policy with respect to iran been working? we appear to have a policy of rhetorical condemnation when iran behaves in behavior adverse to the united states interest and we engage in efforts that are on again and off again while iran can continues to pursue nuclear weapons. we have some isolations on them in the world which has best as we can tell also has had no impalgt on their pursuit of nuclear weapons or sponsorship

of terrorism. we also must admit that the iranians are not without their own challenges. having two fledging democracies on their border in iraq and afghanistan is a huge geothreat to the preservation of the regime. the arab spring is a repudiation of radical islam. indeed the people in the streets are seeking political reform, social justice, and economic opportunities which are the pain stream of western democracies. suddenly, iranians are taking advantage of the opportunities, the social unrest that the arab spring provides, but no one demonstrated on behalf of their flawed values. losing a state sponsored terrorist like gadhafi is a set back as is the upheaval in syria, the thurm one al -- number one ally in the region. all that said, it is time to review our strategy for iran against the harsh reality

despite res rick, attempts to negotiate, isolate, and sanction, the fact is the iranians continue to use their proxy against the united states interest and continue to pursue nuclear weapons. therefore, one must conclude the obvious, that our policy has failed, and it has failed miserably. what can we do? first and foremost, begin to treat iran as the stray teemingic enemy they truly are, and that our strategic objective is regime change. therefore, use all elements of national power against them and as such, develop a stray strategic competitive frame work that counters every major interest the iranian regem engages in, and, yes, of course, seek international support and cooperation, but regardless of the amount of support we receive

from the ic, we must act. for example, just to name a few -- seize the financial interest that are outside of iran. as many of you know, when the mullas took over in iran, they seized the shah's interests and are now operating thm and are multibillionaires now as a result of it. we know where the interests are, and we can seize them as we have successfully done with the al-qaeda's financial interest around the world. limit their ability to trade by denying their ships entry to ports around the world. stop the refining operation that others in the world are assisting the iranians with, limit the ability of the central bank to operate effectively. we have the number of one cyberattack capability in the

world, and nobody's close to it. conduct cyber campaign, conduct covert operations led by the central intelligence agency in cooperation with other agencies to target the quds force and frox sighs and -- proxies and certainly to pursue nuclear weapons and to provide encouragement that leaders in iran use the population to put pressure on the regime. one lost opportunity we had in the summer of 2009, the persian spring, when we did not speak up and support what the people of iran were doing. in my view, these measures have some chance to compel a behavior change or possibly even the regime to fall because you want

these sanctions and targeted operations to have a major impact on the people. this much i do know -- if we continue the half measures of the past, the iranians will continue to kill us, will continue to sponsor terrorism, and use their proxies against our interest and will continue to pursue nuclear weapons. the next nightmare for the world is around the corner, an unchecked iran with nuclear weapons. this will lead to a nuclear arms race in the middle east, and as my fellow defense policy board member, henry kissinger stated publicly, it is inevitable there will be a nuclear exchange in the middle east, and the world will change forever. this is unacceptable. if all of the measures that i mentioned and they are just a few of what can be done, if all

of those measures fail to stop the iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons, then we must attack that capability militarily, to shut is down, and delay the program and buy time for the iranian people. what other choice do we have? what other choice do we have? to attempt to contain a nuclear iran? i think not. that risk is far too great for the world. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, general. [applause] >> thank you very much k -- thank you very much, general. as we conclude today, as i introduce our final speaker, what should we do, the general says? when we listen to our final speaker, we have someone who was worked to develop u.s. policy

with respect to another per rye ya internationally, and that's north korea, so christian is somebody at the u.s. department of state who led the efforts to develop a strategic review of u.s. foreign policy as it related to north korea, also who was pursuing nuclear weaponed and so today, he gives us a very unique perspective in how and what lessons we can take from the way we treated north creigh, ya whether we pursue policies from negotiation which was done, isolation or sanction, and how the policies shall be pursued with a number of one strategic eenmy of the united states -- enemy of the united states as the regime said, iran, and now to give us this commentary is

christian wyden, former u.s. director on u.s. policy at the department of state. [applause] >> thank you, thank you. , well thank you, congressman kennedy, for that introduction, and it's an honor to be here with distinguished company to talk about really one of the most severe and serious threats facing the united states which, of course, is the government iran and its proxies and the work they do throughout the world. it's certainly by a busy couple of months for the tyrants who govern iran. as we heard from a number of people, and as you are all too familiar, you know, we see what iran's doing with the mek. you also know, and we heard from ambassador joseph and others that last week the iaea reported that iran continued to work on a nuclear weapons program, and their findings are unambiguous and reflected a dramatic turn for the iaea of which no one can

credibly say teheran is not pursuing a nuclear weaponing capability, and we were reminded a month earlier, the u.s. exposed a plot by iranian agents to kill an ambassador, a credit to the united states, right here in the washington, d.c., a plot involving hiring operatives of mexican drug cartels to strike us here, and a plot that would have possibly included the collateral death of congressmen and other notables. there was a litany of other egregious offenses against americans by this government. these activities probably come as no surprise to those who gathered here. more than 30 years after the past power, the teheran regime uses terrorists as instruments of national policy. than spend tireless and seeking to expand influence around the world and continues to be the primary adversary of freedom in

the middle east. teheran is also been particularly effective at waging political warfare, and that's why i want to focus my remarks on lessoned learned from north korea and other places where we seek to help those seeking freedom. political warfare is the spectrum of national power tools that fall between diplomacy and outright war with the idea to get a political outcome to get what a government wants to achieve somewhere beyond its border and do so by using means more effective than just talking as diplomats do but less costly than going to war involving financial, military, intelligence related, information related activities. teheran understands this. it understands political warfare. it's been using this more or less since the inception of the islamic republic. it's the main nation state of the islamist ideology, the iranian government is interested in the export of islamism and

supporting governments friendly to the many no fair yows ambitions abroad. it's an important element to grasp p for policymakers in the united states. by necessity here, analysts focus most of their attention on the iranian nuclear program. it's obviously an issue of extreme concern, and it's a national security challenge for which neither the current administration in the white house nor its predecessor has developed adequate policy, but i believe from the per perspective of u.s. disiewrt,s grattest likely threat is no a possible iranian first strike or the proliferation of a nuclear weapon to a terrorist network either of which would be suicidal to the regime of teheran, but frankly, a greater thet or more significant one is in the added impunity that a nuclear arsenal provides the regime to engage in subversion and the other activities at which it's proven itself so adapt. fortunately for us, a nuclear

breakout would be, i think, a wind fall for the teheran regime at a time they should be feeling insecure about its future. outside of iran, arab spring shows the clerical rule practiced inside the republic expoing the lie that residents of the middle east did not desire freedom and accountable government in the same way we do in the west and should signal policymakers in washington, and capitals that in the middle east there's not just a choice between dictator on the one hand and islamists on the other. in fact, there's a wide body of reformers, liberals, moderates, call them what you like, that constitute the more liberal alternative to what we have seen per vail in so many parts of the middle east these last several decades. then, of course, there's the movement inside iran which you know represents a new and broader level of intensity in the opposition to the incumbent government.

together, they constitute building blocks that could roll back teheran's regime and rot it from within. history now provided us with an opportunity to take friends away from the iranian regem and expedite its decline here at home. it would be iraq ironic if they should be fearing for their longevity and this gives them a lease on life allowing them to do more what it already does, but without impunity. there's been a preview already. you all know this. through various means, the alis managed to use political transitions in the dawning of democracy in various places to undermind democracy. recent exarchals include government's compromised be hamas and the authority and soughter block in iraq.

they have done work in using democracy to poisen democracy. in that will not be the end if they intimidate the allies and have a new lease on life at home, expect teheran to attempt repeat performances as other political transformations occur, and seminal elections are on the horizon in egypt and libya, just occurred, and the battle between reformers and islamists is taking place and likely to be the major political feature of this decade. it's my, suggestion, of course, that free nations fight back, counter political warfare with political warfare. we should push back on teheran using peaceful means, in football, in order to advance the national interest in expediting the internal decay of the regime as well as helping those in iran who share our values and desire for a civilized order. this is something in which the u.s. used to excel. during the cold war, we helped indigenous political movements

and voices appeal to their countrymen or free captive nations. the bad guys helped their friends. so american presidents of both parties thought it important to help ours. perhaps most active was the democratic president at the beginning of the cold war and the republican president near the end, ronald reagan. what would be peaceful, political warfare against the current iranian regime? some features -- there's been good ideas, but features could include first helping disdense inside iran and free iranians outside iran such as yourselves with communication tools and other resources critical to any political movement or link them with others who dealt with political organization and repressive situations before, like the eastern block behind the iron curtain in the 1970s.

secondly, apply stronger financial actions against banks and companies doing business with the regime including the fatal blow of fencing the banks off. actions like this put a crimp on north korea's money operation, and they were turned off, but extremely effective while they existed. third, we can make the disruption of telecommunications work for those who are actually seeking freedom rather than those who are working against it. it's almost certain, general keane eluded, they have cyber war fearp against us, and the free world could return the favorly empowering the friendlies to turn activities like this back on the regime at moments of democratic opportunity when political turbulence erupts. fourth, let's take similar non-violent steps to help syria opposition with our turkey and jordan allies who have been very

good on this. a free syria denies teheran, best ally, and deeply impair communications with hezbollah and other islamists. the last point and while it's nonviability warfare, it's augmented our undermind by military posturing. they are undoubtedly pleased they part neighboring iraq by the end of the weir and look for ways to offset the ability to teheran is no better off. i note in closing that many of the capabilities i described today. tools of the information are long gone, the intelligence agencies are out of business of kerning themselveses with foreign political out comes or influencing the outcomes. the cia is on the way to being a secondary force, and the instruments originally meant to support liberal ideas in government like the endowment for democracy do little today to support front line like those

working for freedom inside iran. especially as the efforts of the current and past administration to talk around at the program and founder amid the demand on display in the middle east, there's an opportunity to reconsider our approach, and improve our policy. just as we have the opportunity now to reconsider our policy towards the mek and the camp. as winston churchill said, "americans can be counted on to do the right thing after they've exhausted all other possibilities. now is the time for us to do the right thing on iran policy, so with that, i thank you very much. thank you for having me today. [applause]

>> thank you, all, once again for being here today. perhaps it's time for us to review a few of the things that we've heard today and recommit ourselves to changing our response. malawki, the head of the iraqi government is coming to the united states on december 12th. he's under investigation for war crimes he has disenvowed the united nations law that says they must allow to do their job in order to ensure those at camp can be processed as refugees and resettled. the message today has been clear.

the united nations policy of relocation and dispersal in iraq of those residents of the camp is a tenamount to a death warrant. [applause] so before he can come to this country, he must make clear that the deadline for camp should be rejected, and the u.n. should be allowed to do their job. [applause] that he makes sure that not only are those residents treated with dignity and respect, but hop

norredded the international law that applies to them. the other message today is what culpability the united states of america has in all of this, and as we've heard from not only generals, the former u.s. secretaries, and leaders of both military and public policy in our country state so clearly, and that is u.s. credibility is also on the line here. it's not simply important that malawki honor international law, but it's important that the united states, which has been on the side of human rights and justice around the world on so many occasions continue to stand

up for its principles and also to stand against those that threaten world peace like the mullahs in teheran. this december 12th is a moment for the united states to set clear for the rest of the world where it stands on iran's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and its terrorism throughout the world and its terrorism of the people. through its proxy malawki. time is running out. the time for talking is over. the time for action is now.

[applause] .. [applause] and as our friends, not only should the united states appoint a special on way to make sure that they have resettled if

resettled they must be, around the world in friendly countries. but those countries ought to include our own country. [applause] they are not only witnesses to crimes that tehran and ultimately could be witnesses in an actual international court tribunal that the leaders of iran, they said they are important to all human beings who care about the respect and dignity of human rights. we are to be doing everything we can to protect those who have been there to protect us by one

and ask him if i peter nehr to testify against our mortal enemies, the iranian regime. this should not even be a close call for the department of state. this is the time for action. this is a time for the united states to stand up for what it stands for and justice and human rights in the protection of liberties for all peoples, no matter where they may live. and so, i want all of you. [applause] and most of all, once again, thank our distinguished panelists who once again have spoken so eloquently today. thank you all very, very much. [applause]

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

[applause]

>> next time i look at the 10th anniversary of the collapse of enron. we would hear would hear from journalists and former enron vice president. at the university of southern california's annenberg school for communication and journalism hosted this one-hour forum. it took place earlier this month in los angeles. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> folks come to thank you so much for coming this afternoon to this event. i'm very excited about this. we have two very distinguished panelists here. of course 2011 is an incredibly opportune an appropriate time to talk about corporate america and corporate collapse and we have a very important lesson which we can look at here, which is in fact exactly 10 years old. so it's kind of sign to some of us tenures have transpired since

enron's collapse. certainly a lot of lessons for us to learn from not collapse into apply today. we've got two people here who are really kind of front row protagonists in enron's collapse from two different perspectives. john emshwiller is an investigative reporter at "the wall street journal" who documented a lot of the issues that led to some of the investigations are bad and wrong and did a lot of reporting that brought to light some of the practices, the accounting practices at enron. karen denne isn't an annenberg graduate and a former adjunct professor here as well with the vice president of public relations at enron and saw this transpire from a completely different perspectives. so we are here today to contrast these two points and look at the same event two different angles. i just want to very quickly

review details of enron because i realized that the tenures might seem like a blink of an eye for some of us, for some of you it isn't quite as prominent in your memory. so enron was really corporate darling for so long. got tremendous press coverage and had this amazing growth. it was formed in 1985 by a merger of two other companies in may 2010 over 22,000 employees pikers and row fortune magazine rated as the most innovative come in america and acclaimed revenue of over 100. in 2000 at market value if in 10 billion in 1995 to around 70 billion in 2000. and that ended very quickly. as john will tell you about. and its stock went from $90 very briefly $90 to potentially nothing in one year.

any of the major executives are doing time for completed their sentences now. one of them cheated jail by dying and it also guide to the dissolution of arthur andersen among other things. it led to new legislation. and some of the reporting on an outcome which i think just you wait for so long quickly turned and john was one of the people who post them in the early stories that really questioned the accounting at enron. and of course this was some of the final chat is that the press wrote about enron. so we are going to have time for questions at about 45 minutes after the hour. but i first want to just ask karen who worked at enron for seven years. it must've been a wonderful place to work for so many years.

at that wonderful news stories one after the other. or was it like to work there in the beginning? >> i can say it was a great place to work. i absolutely loved it and even knowing how things turned out, i would do the entire experience again in a heartbeat. it was incredible energy at the company. there were the smartest people i ever had the good fortune of working with. incredibly dedicated, hard-working, talented. it was amazing. it was a lot of fun. when i started i was at enron from 1997 to 2004. so when i started at the company, no one had really heard about enron. i was originally from southern town and started as a newspaper writer and i was recruited to enron and the corporate generalist. and when i took the job and moved to houston, all of my friends at enron, what's that?

no one even knew what the energy come he was. and the media coverage at the time is contained to industry stories. it is a megawatt daily and electricity daily. it wasn't really a company covered in the mainstream press. as the company took off in the revenues increased, as the stock price grew and as we expand into new lines of business like internet trading, like rod fan, like weather derivatives in free trading, the media coverage in the media interest in the increased. and because the media department of public relations department and the whole company with some metric driven and result oriented we have to quantify the work that we did. by 2000 it generated so many positive stories about enron took all those cover stories. it wasn't just enough to generate a positive story. we want to cover stories and we are able to deliver on that, too. in 2000, 2001, the sequence of

events started. >> to want to talk about the first on that it occurred to something what a riot? >> to be honest it was when i filed for bankruptcy. i was in such denial. what you have to realize is the enron crisis have been 10 years ago, long before any of the wall street sins that have since permeated the news pages. i mean at the time it is absolutely unheard of at the seventh largest country in america could virtually evaporate, that they could fall precipitously at the company would just go out of business. it was unheard of. said the internal perspective we're trying desperately to save the company. we are trying to turn the company around and put together a merger with the rival energy company down the street. so until we finally filed for bankruptcy, we thought we could look it.

>> i do want to mention that while john and karen worked at cross purposes in many respects, the merchant has experience with a lot of mutual respect and care neither mr. john is a reference when she was applying for her current job. and despite that she got the job. john, can you tell us about your -- this is not your primary beat at the time. you kind of got stuck into this story because of the number of sort of strange coincidences. but can you tell us your kind of first interaction with enron and the story that later led to the bankruptcy? >> well, you are right. i did not cover enron and i had a few experiences in the middle of 2001. i have been sort of crooned into covering the california energy crisis, which is an eating you might remember. i've had dealings with enron, calling them up about various controversies, dealing with that

because enron and the other traitors, but to take, particularly enron was being blamed by many in the state for either causing or contributing to the electricity shortages that were ravaging large parts of california. that was my basic experience with enron. they were very friendly and basically open to talking at that point about this. so i'm fairly positive you can run to the degree that they were at least a talkative corporation . and as you mentioned i got sort of pulled and in august of 12,001 when an event happened that essentially change the future of enron i think. jeff skilling, the president cheap architecture and the architect of enron stanley cup and quit after just six months or so is the chief executive and at the time he was in his late 40s. the people thought he would be better than run for the next

decade or more. and suddenly he quits, gives the reason is family -- family reasons, which of course no reporter ever believes in the chief resigns for family reasons. we had no other alternative explanation. i was out of town that day. becky smith, the regular enron reporter was on vacation for the week. so when i got into town the next day, day after the announcement make a order to do a follow-up story, which of course reporters hate to do follow-up stories when there is nothing to say. so i called mark palmer and said can i have an interview with scaling. if you still there? he said i'll try to set it up because enron to their credit almost always got you on the line with top executives if you wanted to talk to them. in fact i sometimes almost pushed todd executives to talk to you, very different from many corporations. in preparation with this interview with skilling, i did a quick search of the most recent

sec filing because they literally knew very little about the corporation and its operations beyond the california electricity stuff. and it just so happened the day before in the day he quit, enron filed it quarterly report with the sec for the second quarter. so you know i've been taught by other older, wiser journalists how to quickly read and sec report we don't have a lot of time. one of the places you go to something called the related party transaction section, where they have two lists all the possible dealings that corporate executives had with the company outside of their regular job. so this is where you get the kind of little conflict of interest like the chairman's nephew was made of vice president of fingerpainting for $250,000 he might have to report that to the public. so i went to the enron section and i found eastern actions involving hundreds of millions of dollars to dealings between enron and i'm named entities

that were being run by some on ames senior executive, which i immediately thought with skilling your ipod okay here is what he quit. i caught a palmer and he tells me now, it was andy asked how. he tells me he was the chief financial officer of our company, which made me feel like something of an, but i didn't know. but that was our first moment when i started thinking, this sounds like an incredible conflict of interest. do not discover set us off on digging deeper into what turned out to be the so-called bulgy partnerships that andy fast at was running on behalf of himself and doing deals with enron, which later turned out are basically hating hundreds of millions of dollars of losses and cut me that otherwise would've had to report in

2,092,001. in that report and intrigued as i took asserted that to the crisis and helped trigger the crisis. >> there's many similar roman inserted the end story of enron, but one was the night before the earnings were released not over. i believe it's october 16. can you tell us about what was happening? this is basically become me i don't think it ever reported a loss. it'd been a tale of steady growth in on this day they reported a loss of several hundred $9, which i think shocked everyone. >> let me explain how corporate earnings release to place that enron. and when i started at the company, the quarterly earnings press release is generated by the pr department and we would get the numbers from financer investor relations. we released before the opening of the markets that we would have a core pr team that would stay late the night before. we would get hotel rooms. there was a hotel adjacent to the enron building.

we would basically stay up late into the night. we would like the earnings release and then we beat the next morning for it to go out on the wires. about a year before this happened, the earnings release process shifted to investor relations that we were no longer response will pour the contents of the press release. all we did was put it out on the wire. it was really a blessing in disguise because the two top investor relations executive served time. [laughter] >> could've been you. >> hopefully not. the night before that release we checked in the hotel, changed her clothes and went back to the office. and we were in the 49th floor. actually the 47 for an executive focus on the 50th recently heard were trickle-down for the 50th floor that there is a problem with the numbers. so every hour would check, where are we on numbers?

would really like to get two or three hours of sleep tonight. and finally working down at the accountants were having trouble signing off in the numbers. i think it was around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning we started talking about what would happen if we just didn't have the numbers to release before the market. finally the numbers came down. none of us into the hotel, none of us had any say. we literally put the release on the wider and i think we got its moments for before the 5:00 or 5:30 release. and i remember at the time they were sections in the press release that it makes sense that i had questions about. again my back on us as a newspaper reporter said there were phrases that were red flags, things get questions about that didn't make sense. as reassured, everything is fine. don't worry about that. and they were indeed the very quotes and phrases that john and rebecca picked up on. >> go ahead, john.

>> the funny thing is to report this huge lies because they took credit for what turned out to be these lousy assets at the partnerships have been hiding through various hedging transactions they had done. so it came out as a huge loss. but enron spun it in the sense that they reported one surging operating profit which is a classic corporate way of dealing with bad news. you find some part that is good news and then see the other stuff is just one time event. and the press basically on the day they announce the earnings on it. the stock price actually went to the day they announce a $600 million loss. some of the stories actually even mention the 600 odd right off. and ken lay when on all these talk shows on cnbc and staff being great quarter, you know, we are set for the future.

everything is going to be great. they're heading towards $200 million lottery revenue to report for 2001. so everybody seemed to be very happy on the face of what seemed to be terrible news, which in part says something about the company's position at that time in the corporate firmament and something about the press' view of the world in 2001 still. and the fact is people just were questioning what's this all about. and wall street wasn't. we called wall street analysts because they announced it has a loss is a quake triggered us to push what we have discovered into the paper apparently on the assumption that somebody else in the press company or times or somebody was going to say gee, we better start doing something about enron. we didn't want to get beat and we've been working steadily

since that is trying to dig into various aspects of the partnerships, talking to people coming to enough documents without waylaid by 9/11 are basically in american journalism for two or three weeks is writing about nothing but terrorism. remember the day, the earnings story. i was writing i would come out the next day. there is mining a couple other people on the possibility of terrorist setting up nuclear weapons in the united states. it was kind of a busy day. ovonic to get in while the customer started getting conflicting answers from enron for mark palmer about how much of the $600 million loss was due to this right off was due to ljm. enron came up -- i think mark was honestly trying to give me a straight answer because i don't think he had the answer.

but he gave me one number and then he came back with a much lower number. as it turned out later we found out essentially the entire 60 million right off with the ljm and the number i gave up on the record, that much, much lower number had to do with a termination fee. this is a classic corporate thing. it is also classic summers but enron, especially if they would give you very precise answers that were completely misleading. but they would say, okay company now this is precisely, you know, i remember one guy told me what things are really starting to go bad, one of the analysts called the head hired bankruptcy counsel. the guy said no, we have been hired counsel. it shows in both kirksey council

and hadn't signed the agreement. they haven't hired bankruptcy counsel yet that they were going to. >> from the internal date, we had employees that were trying to communicate with. we were putting together a merger. there were huge confidentiality issues they really precluded us from going beyond the black and white. for instance, had we been asked the question as she met with a kirksey council, we never gave an answer that we knew was not accurate. however, we didn't open the kimono and say yet, we met with them unless they can retain them in the paperwork is not signed, but go ahead and put that in the paper and we'll see how the merger goes through. >> they probably like to mark about the extent of the right off. >> palmer to have this at one point shot off match we were in the film literally screaming at each other because he was a liar. he said i never lied, i never

implied, but i think somebody did like to mark. somebody who wrote the sec filings for two years enron had aired an sec filing for the partnerships and some of the wording was exquisitely precise and misleading. >> can you give a brief description of what the ljm partnership is that we understand. >> the biggest was ljm two. ljm was the initial of the first letter of the first names of the wife and two sons, some legacy to leave them. so basically the idea was that fast dow, while he remained the cfo would become a part owner and managing part or, which could be treated as separate entities for accounting purposes so that is enron wanted to have some affect they had -- another is to protect the value of it,

they could go to a third-party who would then take on the risk theoretically of the asset. the only maker to goldman sachs and morgan stanley, someone with real money on their own. instead they went to ljm and ljm have money because andy fastow strong-armed a lot of big vendors to an estimate particularly in ljm said they had this pool of capitals. but then enron also worked a very complicated deals in which essentially enron was hedging the value of some of their asset as power plants or power deals with their own stock. so if enron -- the value of their assets in town, ljm quitted sword as losses could essentially be using enron stock to absorb the losses, which is one of the reasons the stock price became so critical to the company because of enron stock

price was 50 or 60 or $70 they could absorb the losses that were set 35 or $36 a share, which he was in october of 2001 at a time the crisis started. and that started putting enormous pressure on the ljm deal. they were set up in some group partner. entities called the rat druce, which enron had all kinds of -- in the fastow had these weird names for things. one of the partnerships is called to go name after chewbacca. >> it was definitely an extraterrestrial beast. caring, what about the relationship between the press office and the executives. i know that you've never sort of felt that you are purposely misleading reporters, but what about your relationship with senior management you're getting from them? how did that change quite >> we worked closely with top

management, both before the crisis and throughout the crisis. i think this quarter's earnings were released that access and free floating or they should. in part because there is internal chaos and upper management did know what was going on. grammar for one moment where no one could answer the question how much debt is then run out. and that was a pivotal moment that the chief financial officer are the chief accounting 30 now. at one point in this is further on in the crisis. quote lawyer to, steve kane who is our chief of staff knew that we really -- we had tried very hard to have strong media relations. the one thing i do say if it is important to establish solid relation ships to the good access accessibility long before there is a crisis. it will really pay off in spades.

and we had trouble getting information internally and everything had to be guided by a lawyer. so steep that a lawyer and said you're going to sit on the 47th floor. it was a big open room and he did nothing but sit there and that every state that we were able to release. the guidance we were given as anything you say to the media you have to be able to answer the question, what was the basis for that statement? they were incredibly cautious. they have describe everything that we were able to tell the media. but it's frustrating internally because we were so used to having a lot of accessibility. we really prided ourselves on and able to get back to reporters quickly and with answers that really helping them do their jobs. it was frustrating and we need there is a lot going on, but they were such internal chaos that we were stopped. i will tell you that the one moment that physically made me stick to my stomach was i had really done a lot -- edna mccown

in a spokesperson for the california energy crisis and we had been assured they are treating teens, a top management that we had done nothing wrong with the california electricity market. when i heard the tapes of the traders manipulating the market, it made me sick -- >> can you give a few details? >> basically was burn baby burn, or am i you don't need any electricity tonight. they have manipulated power outages, taking equipment down and caused rolling blackouts, which jacked up energy prices and again if they are treating megawatt hours and they were able to manipulate the trading process. so that was just -- it was sickening to realize that we had been on the front lines saying there nothing wrong when clearly

there is egregious behavior. >> with senior executives at one point there's a lot of pressure in the cfo was, and her fastow who basically makes the decision. how does that play out? >> tan my hide a conference call with analysts and i think media was fun as well, basically saying i have full confidence in the. he has done nothing wrong. everything is fine. and the next day he was put on leave. so again, from a company perspective you got to have credibility. you have to have reaction match what you are saying. i think one of the further problem set and he was put on leave. it took the board six months to actually fire him. >> the company anything didn't know and partly didn't know because they didn't try to know some of the key things about the ljm partnerships. the board of directors and top management approved what you

need in a corporate relationship in the history of american corporations. i once did as part of days, went through the sec filings of fortune iphone to come in a spirit all 500 just to see if there is anything like it. essentially there was nothing comparable to the ljm partnerships. so they had this incredible conflict of interest and then seemingly ignored it for two years and let it roll along. and he is doing and he is doing, and losses and cut ran a period and then we start writing about these partnerships. and suddenly they said we better find out about what's going on here. as of the board of directors and board of directors we request a meeting with andy, which i thought was incredible when the directors have to request a meeting with the cfo who works for them. so he arranged to meet with them. they asked him, how much money

have been introduced to partnerships in the last two years because supposedly and he wasn't going to spend a lot of time in these partnerships. it is going to be maybe add-on money and compensation form to add to his paycheck. so he tells them, and made $42 million. that was on the afternoon of tank after ken lay had given his bearhug of support to andy fast fastow in front of the world. he set a may $32 million. they saw their times. i think that's probably what pushed andy out. but they kept finding out these timebombs that they should've known. any competent responsible board of directors -- first of all in my humble opinion would've approved the ljm partnership. but if they had come somebody should have been on it like everyday finding out what are you doing? is the enron shall rueter getting shafted or not? they let it roll along. it was one of the most response

whelping figures in the board of directors do. >> how much of this was apparent u.s. was unfolding? he said before he felt it would be some kind of future for and run until the very and. fastow was put on leave -- >> it started about 36 on the day they jumped up to 37 on the day they announced their earnings. we started writing our stories of the next 10 straight trading days. by november it is the day they were toast. that's when when they came out with their final and basically said you can't rely on our last two years of financial statements because we made all these mistakes. >> in the readjusted earnings by six -- >> what they basically renounced their previous financial statements. they had to write off things for this shoe co. partnership. >> said karen come as the company has basically been announced for the previous five-year -- six years inferring information which he sat there

helped produce and disseminate key be relied upon, how did that impact your job and how did you kind of communicate that to the investing public? >> keep in mind we were in the eye of the storm. this is 10 years ago before any company just collapsed in the blink of an eye. and so we really didn't have any sense of the magnitude of what we were in the midst of. what did happen was the number of media calls escalated. a business crisis takes much longer to catch on publicly. ii think the journal was on a first before anyone and it really took a long time for it to escalate you but by the time he filed for bankruptcy are feeling upwards of 300, 400 media calls a day. there were four of us into assistance. we just couldn't keep up with the young lot. >> is also interested in the question of dealing with the media for companies like enron.

part of their media openness i think i think kerry will probably agree with that large measure reflection of the personality of jeff skilling and his approach to corporate affairs. jeff is a very self-confident man in anyways and believed almost with regis fervor. so he was always open much to his credit even after the crisis had been certainly suffer him about talking to the reporters. and when he left, i think there was a change at the top. ken lay was much less open to talking, especially about critical. so when we put in a call because we started digging up stuff we thought was fairly serious questions and allegations. so we called enron to have an interview with way and fastow and the chief accounting officer in any wealthy would be available could've expected he would make every beauty

available like they always did. instead i got a callback from mark palmer that sits in a sinister written questions. in my experience in becky's experience in any other journalist, no one at enron had ever asked for a list of written questions. that would thought. so we put together a very extensive list of the questions and there is apparently a large debate within enron and later found out about how to respond. andy fastow was against talking about and labor and along with that. so they sent us back a one paragraph very bland, basically restated that we haven't done anything wrong. in some ways that was my first real sense that we might be onto something big. >> out assertively here is a match where the treasure is buried response. >> they would tell us anything about it but by not talking suddenly they gave us a sense that there must be some really seriously wrong here that they

are not wanting to talk about it. >> this is still fairly early on. >> this is like late september. >> before they even announced their loss. >> a basically shut us down and it's interesting because the list of questions came back to haunt particularly ken lay because when the company collapsed in the federal justice department came in and basically scooped up every document in enron, one of the documents they speak to with a list of questions. so cuddly at the trial in 2006 basically was trying to tell understand and basically claimed i didn't notice until then so there for statements he had made publicly, which the government said he was lying about because of his knowledge. he says i did know that then. but they brought this list of questions and the things he didn't know about were being

asked by us in late september and the prosecution user list of questions they insisted on giving and helping to basically under cut credibility. >> to remember this question that john sent quite >> mark palmer was on the frontline dealing with upper management on that, but i knew that there were problems. and we're pushing because we had such an open relationship with reporters in the past. we were of the belief that any time there is negative news, get it all at once and be as upfront as possible. and there is a lot of hesitancy. again from upper management because they really didn't know what was going on. they didn't know the extent -- >> some of them did. >> a day after the eight k. when earnings were restated, kenley declared we have a pr problem.

what the team knew was that this was in a pr problem. that's a far deeper, but he did believe until his dying day that the collapse of the company was caused by "the wall street journal." >> that was their defense at the trial. there is that there is nothing wrong with the company. >> at the stock price not cannot -- >> always thought mr. lay and mr. skilling were modest about their own contributions to the collapse. >> they are not in hot deal he says. police just isn't. >> can you talk about managing the shape of the media, we had been open and then all of a sudden the access you had two euros senior management disappears. but the select to confront the press with his new face of enron? >> we tried to be -- we had gone relationship with a lot of reporters and we were honest. we can say you know what, i

don't know. i can't get straight answers internally. and when we did get answers, were always able to couch then it's my understanding that her what i am told is because i think we've realized that at some point we could necessarily trust the answers we were getting internally or they would change from day to day as mark found out was the amount of the ljm letdown. >> what do you think reporters picked up on but the tone of your answers in the time changes in your certainty also changes. >> they definitely knew something was going on. reporters are reporters for a reason. they ask questions that they know something is not ready. >> john, at a certain point it started to get a decent amount of information from us and enron. people started getting the tip clues about where to look for things. how did that change your reporting? >> well, we had an initial break very early on after we wrote our

first story mentioning these ljm partnerships briefly. we got a call from a source reduction of rates in effect, but was very helpful and time as there is a lot more in putting us to send documents you were hoping to start delineate the ljm relationship inactivity. but you know, we were still in the dark a lot. we didn't have a lot of ideas because enron was a complicated company. if you read their sec disclosures, they were almost indecipherable. it was like somebody got paid to make them as unintelligible as possible, especially regarding the ljm partnerships. they're almost laughable. at one point he pushed the paper early on to put an entire section from sec filing which i would never do because it's so boring, but just to show that these things make no sense to an outside reader.

even analysts. the incredible thing is many analysts who cover enron did know about the partnerships until we wrote about them. even that they did the sec filings. there for two years. here are guys getting paid half a million a year to do their jobs and they don't even bother to read the entire sec filing of one of the biggest come needs the cover. i'm thinking i was getting underpaid. [laughter] >> you actually brought up a good point, which again another one of the frustrations internally was the media had no information that we have. as more sources came forward and shared information with the journal and other reporters and they would call us, we think what is this? out of left field team to go chirico and jedi and other raptures. we looked at each other and said -- >> you have to be making these things up, right? >> early on there was clearly --

>> but he still believed in the company is a year ago -- 10 years ago today that the deal from energy was announced that its going to essentially buy enron and in a much smaller competitor basically. when that happened, one that came about, how did that change your perception of the seriousness of the problem quite >> is the saving grace in what would get us out of the crisis. dynegy was going to reject enron and i was going to shore up our their balance sheets and everything would be fine. i'm sure can't wait that we would split again or he would be head of the new enron. and so the focus became would have to say the company and this is how we do it. so he focused on internal and put together packages of internal communications. are we going to convince them this is a good name? and how are we going to communicate externally? >> so you think that can mai tais with him however much from

this impact. this is what we saw in 2008 in 2009 but wall street type this still believed that they somehow were going to get by no matter what. lehman brothers, jimmy kane at bear stearns, et cetera. you tell me, both of you, that what your impression of what kenley was thinking in how he was doing this at this time. >> i work closely with kenley and skilling and ken was really the father figure of the company. everyone loved him. he was very well respected. he had a tremendous civic identity. he was very philanthropic. and from this sense, jeff was the trader mentality. as he got to know both of them, people tended to like just more

than 10 months. he was very concerned with how things looked. there were rumors that he at one point had been a cabinet position in the white house. he was politically connected and at what point he tried to get the government to step in and out the company. >> uses 10 years too early. >> 10 years too early and alone. i don't think the bush administration could have saved them, but to kannada wasn't about the political cost of george bush to try to save a dying company run by a political crony orwell is viewed as a political crony. >> it is the one before too big to fail. again is a founder -- this is his identity. he had created this company with the merger of two pipeline companies and he was going to save it. he just wasn't going to have his reputation of the company's reputation tarnished.

>> let's talk about the very end here and will have an opportunity, but the dynegy deal and then fairly quickly falls apart. >> said the dynegy thanksgiving weekend was falling apart and that was that. and so it was a sunday night angst giving weekend we filed for bankruptcy in delaware and also sued dynegy for the failure of the merger and at that point all broke loose inside the company because employees turn on the tv, so the company was bankrupt. traders brought in case of and started partying. a lot of other employee simply started taking furniture is that they wield their chairs at the front door, took the potted plants, loaded up anything they could and headed out the front

door. i think half a dozen or satellite tracks and it was absolutely surreal. it continued going long after that. >> do you expect bankruptcy to be the way this story was going to end. >> we started this story is a corporate conflict of interest story back in august, september 2119 okay, and he someone found a way to make an extra buck. we never foresaw. i don't think they were toast until november 8 sec filing what they basically renounced but they were porting for the financial for the past two years. they probably were going to

survive as an independent entity. though it have to merger somebody on their servers are they going around they were looking for somebody. and the next day they had somebody. or they couldn't get somebody and end up in bankruptcy court because their trading operations is starting to go into vapor lock because as your stock price collapses, confidence collapses, trading partners which was the heart of enron or asking for more and more collateral cash up front. and they were caches like a sponge. they took down their entire credit line one day and used it in a week. i think they got another billion from dynegy. they used that up like nothing. and so they out of cash. so without cash coming out of many alternatives to the corporation. so by early november is clear they were going to be enron anymore. it wasn't quite clear whether they would be tying run --

>> do you remember your last day of enron? did you work past the bankruptcy? >> is actually part of the restructuring team sizer came to an half years after the bankruptcy. >> and what was that like working for essentially a carcass? >> it was much slower pace [laughter] in our messaging entries change. i mean, we are then working for the creditors. so our job became preserving value for creditors. we have made a strategic decision not to do any broadcast interviews because we didn't have confidence in the answers or information we were given and we were going to put ourselves or anyone on the pier team in a position to stand in front of a television camera and not half acceptable answers. after the bankruptcy -- [inaudible] and the fbi confiscating. but after the bankruptcy, i guess a year and a half, two

years after the bankruptcy again because we were working for the creditors, we were going to auction off the surplus item. the big e. in front of the building, access computers, boardroom furniture. at that time we made the decision that it made sense to do a broadcast interview. it was an online auction without well, will generate as much interest in that. so i went on the today show to talk about the option and missing as they aired the number of optimized out her phone lines they have for the auction at the circuit. so it just completely exceeded capacity. >> so it should've been in the business. john, you want to write a book with becky smith 24 days, which is still taught in this school and elsewhere in a secret account still available. and you continue to follow the enron story for years afterward. the court cases, jeffrey skilling appeal which went to the supreme court. is there one big lesson you took

away from this whole experience? >> i don't know. it was self-evidently i suppose it's better to be honest than to lie. and it's worse to lie and be caught in july. so i don't know. enron in some ways -- jeff skilling is to fail the time that enron was caught in a perfect storm. and oddly enough in some degrees he was right. when enron collapsed, there is still lots of things that we didn't know about the inner workings of enron that would come out through this gigantic, you know, federal investigation which i think was the largest federal investigation of a single corporation. they created the task force that is unprecedented. of course one question people could have his there have been relatively few indictments out of the 2008, 2009 meltdown of

top corporate officials. and that's maybe because there's just not the evidence they are what they are so widespread. but i suspect there was not a single corporation out of that was investigated the way enron. they had a dozen federal prosecutors cannot probably 20 to 25 fbi irs and sec investigators working full-time for four years. you know, going through every note creamy of that company. i suspect if you did that with any other corporation you'd probably find something. so you know -- [inaudible] >> ernie edwards is serving time, yes, it might not be. and so, enron i think -- they did some outrageous things, you know, over the more outrageous

than some of the other things that one on? i am not sure. some of the mortgage-backed securities these countries were peddling were just astonishingly bad. and so i don't know. i'm not sure what lessons to draw from that, the certainly enron at the right kind of attention. >> karen, you said it was the next morning and -- going back 10 years now, what comes to mind? what is your take away from the whole chapter? >> is a couple of lessons. again it was -- the career with an experience in a very short period of time, but i would've done it again. it was such an amazing experience it would've taken notes and written a book and i would've exercised my stock options and wouldn't have been -- my four okay was 100% nonstop. >> one point on this, looking back now, do sort of see red flags you have it hard? what were those?

>> yes, there are red flags long before john and rebecca started writing the stories. there were a lot of input stock sales >> significantly enough they had to be reported. when we gathered questions they they're always good answers. they're getting a divorce. or they're buying a new house. there always explanations so that was one concern. anytime you have have odd executive behaviors as jeff skilling calls and analysts an expletive on an analyst call, that was turning. ken lay called the pr department said the hold music is to update. could we change the hold music. like that. >> for while their hold music with tina turner singing simply the best. that was during the better days. >> they were the best at

something. >> with a number of business units and the ceos were gradually dropping off is leaving the company. >> at this point i would like to open up the opportunity for members to ask our panelists about this experience and i hope there's some questions here. let me look through. i seek not share surprisingly has first question. last night and remember, it is a question. no, i'm just kidding.ç >> what we are talking about is a criminalç enterprise.óóó defined as such. and as you say, you are happy. they were smart. you would go back and do it again. no remorse. i don't quite get it if this was a mafia enterprise even on a much lower level there'd be som soul-searching. what is the damage, who got h for people lost their savings. and then we have the idea that it's not unique to enron.

the others may be even worse found corruption. and my question first of all is when you had this question with the media. yes, it is very cozy. we have deregulation including the modernization was just the enron loophole push through phil graham, the husband of wendy graham who is the head of your audit committee. it was very cozy. the question is, it was there corruption in the media. they didn't have anything to do with campaign contributions. there's a larger story of the enabling of enron and things of value that manipulated. this is not the old industrial american dream of henry ford. do you feel that you are

essentially part of something that was strong in the best part of america? >> you've got a lot of questions in there. [inaudible] >> absolutely. despite that i could still say it was a tremendous professional experience. the pr team that i worked with were among the best in the industry. they were fantastic. they were great people. as the company was collapsing and they knew they were going to lose their jobs, they slept at the office, worked around the clock. to me that's a tremendous professional. what people hurt by the company? absolutely. i was one of them. my 401(k) was 100% and ronstadt. i lost all of it. i am not here to defend the company. what i'm here to do is tell you about the experience and insight about what it was like from a pr perspective.

.. in the five years that separated the precipitation of the collapse of the criminal findings in the case could hurt if it gives market and drew even bigger, and it seemed like the development was missed by financial reporters. what explains the identification