>> it is now. in fact when i went to stay i took with me someone named sean mccormack of the white house was interested in and what was an emerging kind of social media. there wasn't any facebook or twitter but people were on the internet sites all the time and chat rooms and so we started to understand better what was going on there. i also asked former student of mine, a gentleman named jericho and who would later go on to work for secretary clinton to go and start thinking about do we want to even try to help people to use social media to democratize. so he created a group of friends who would for instance people who would help to overthrow terrorism in colombia who could chat with people in the middle east were trying to deal with terrorism. so we were starting to use social media. but i began to understand now of

course the media is an accelerant. it's not the cause of the trend is that it is an excellent. but what is very interesting is what's happening with social media in china. .. but eventually, they will vent and want to work at night to do

some in about a. and so, social media will continue to have a huge impact on how revolutions, how reforms, how democratization takes place. so foreign-policy experts in the years ahead will follow social media. see that press our intelligence. >> will be one the most important sources of understanding the pulse of what is going on beneath government because governments are not irrelevant by any means should this but populations are more empowered than they've ever been a social media. >> i have to ask you about iraq is one of the things you do this but a broader context of broader justification of the reasons to go into iraq. he described it as an imminent security risk. my question is, first, how did you change the collection of

intelligence information after your experience in iraq? clearly there will questions about how accurate the information was. the most important thing we did was to reorganize the intelligence agencies. and by the way, has resulted the intelligence part of 9/11 and the intelligence failure in iraq because then the prior case, we had a wall between domestic intelligence, which the fbi did an extra intelligence, which the cia did. in 9/11 they couldn't talk to one another. and iraq, -- >> would you explain because many students may not understand why we have that gap between the fbi and the cia. >> the wall as i like to call it was therefore very legitimate reasons, which ways we did not

want foreign intelligence seek the cia read act event guide the country and spying, to use that word, on domestic events on american citizens is so forth. so the cia was kept to a foreign intelligence agency. the fbi, which operated under rules and laws like law and order, the fbi was the internal intelligence agency. well, just to give you one example, a few nights before 9/11, a telephone call was made san diego by one of the men who would ultimately be one of the suicide hijackers to afghanistan. but we couldn't track or cross that boundary because we didn't want the tracking of phone calls inside the united states by foreign intelligence. so what i'd like to have nobody said a couple days before 9/11? when we realized that of course

we had an internal security problem of the attack on internal security, we have two so if the gaps of the cia and what they knew about was going on outside the country and the fbi and what they knew inside the country could talk to one another. and that is that the so-called patriot act that she read about in close that scene. so that was one intelligence problem. the iraq intelligence problem with different, but also structural. we had this many, depending on how you count them between 15 and 17 different intelligence agencies. defense department has one. energy department have one. the cia has one, and better. the person who was in charge of all of those is the director of central intelligence was also the head of the cia. so we had this strange situation in which we thought this different intelligence

reporting, but obviously the director of the cia was human. he trusted his own intelligence agency more than all of these others that are supposed to be over. and we found that some of the counteracted and about what was going on in iraq, weapons of mass destruction programs probably didn't get the airing in the hearing of playing a period so we created the director of national intelligence, who is not the director of the cia. he's a separate person, to call the intelligence, helped the president understand when their disagreements and intelligence agents the end give more of a total picture of what's going on with intelligence. so that the civic reform reform that was made. >> you also have talked to in at least one speech that i know about in self defense as part the contest for making the decision to go into iraq. and they really want to ask you

when you examine the iraq situation and there is a discussion, and did you look at other countries as well? because if you look at the list of justifications, you could put those on iran as well. and so why iraq rather than iran? and did you look at more than one country? >> iraq with unique. and it was unique because we had been to war against saddam hussein in 1991. he signed an armistice. he was systematic way that armistice. he was found to have been one year from a crude nuclear device. he had used weapons of mass destruction against the iranians and against his own people. the constraints that were put on him were starting to break down, including by the way, the fact we're flying the so-called

no-fly zone to keep this air force on the ground. he was shooting at our aircraft practically every day. i could remember the president asking bouncer and child, what do we do if he gets a lucky shot to bring some american pilot? we were really in a state of suspended hot totality, not in the state of peace with iraq. in 1998, president clinton had actually launched cruise missiles against iraq. and the inspector was supposed to be keeping his weapons of mass destruction programs under control or less the country. so he was different for his having direct the region into war several times, including us. the fact he was continuing, we believed him and to build weapons of mass destruction according to the intelligence agent he had reconstituted chemical weapons, reconstituted biological weapons and was on his way to reconstituting his nuclear program. you try to assassinate president george h.w. bush.

you should in an aircraft come up before hundred thousand people in masquerade. he was considered the biggest in the middle east. as bad as north korea was, is that if iran was, they were not in the category like iraq, where there were 16 security council resolutions that said that he was a threat to international security. >> does that also account for the need to focus on the israeli-palestinian issue is that they are also generous in the sense that it's unique compared to other parts of the world? the nike has come in the palestinian issue while it is not the key to peace in the middle east into a different kind of middle east of middle east, it is the key is to a different kind of middle east. any student of national politics from the time that i was your age in college, which admittedly is a long time ago, but from that time when he took a course in international politics, people started it with the most volatile region in the world is the middle east.

and that is still true today. so people have been trying to do something about that all this time. the israeli-palestinian issue is one of the core issues that needs to be resolved to get rid of that volatility in the middle east. >> every frustration i struggled with it. tuc hope out there? >> i do. i describe in the book that ehud olmert who was the prime minister and mahmoud abbas, the current president of the palestinian authority were pretty close to a deal in 2008, a very good deal put on the table by olmert. abbas did not take it up for a variety of reasons. but the reason i wrote about it if i wanted to suggest that it is not a hopeless cause. there is an answer here, a state solution that is available, but time is not in the side of either of them.

>> i think to go back to the soviet union because given your expertise about the soviet union, how do you think russia developing over the next two years? do you think their importance in the world but will continue to increase, perhaps even suppressing china? >> i think the russians are in trouble in terms of global standing and i think they know it. russia is -- the russian economy is 80% dependent on experts of oil and gas. that is not a modern economy. and i will tell you a little story about -- that shows how much the oil, gas and minerals is linked up with personal fortune, political power in the states. i was at the australian foreign minister's house one day. we were having a meeting about energy policy. he was going around asking people about their energy policy. so the russians says, we understand that our oil and gas field are technologically behind, but no foreigner will

have her own russian oil and gas he said. he says that we are going to buy the technology from western oil companies. so i've been a director of the chevron corporation and i said, so don't you understand that their advantages actually in there to elegy. they are not going to sell you technology to make you a better competitor. he said that's a really good point. and then he said, are you still a director of chevron? i was the secretary of state. but in russia, dmitry mizer who is the deputy prime minister results also the chairman of gas pro. so states in economy and politics i'll link it together. either way, with a fair amount of political violence, too. now that mr. putin has decided that he was the one future president of russia, i think the chances that russia is going to break out of that and told my

mother strikes that it might have path, including a very smart population. those have receded. and i think unfortunately russia will not find greater strength in the international economy. it's an economy dependent on the price of oil as well. >> patchy beard spring, what do you think the lessons are? >> authoritarianism is not stable. it's simply not stable. as men, women and children don't have a way to change the circumstances and change their government peacefully, they will do a violently. when we ran romania, we learned something i've now called disk at tuscaloosa, dictator of romania. in 1989 the revolution in poland and hungary and czechoslovakia he went into a square in bucharest and was the romanian

people what he got for them. all of a sudden one of lady yells liar. then 10 people, then 100 people, than a thousand people come in than 100,000 people are yelling fire. all of a sudden he realizes he better get out of there. something is done wrong. instead of delivering him freedom, be it military officer delivers him to the resolution he and his wife were executed. such a task and moment is when fewer breaks down. either an old lady yells liar or a soldier turned his gun away from the crowd, refuses to fire or is turned away the crowd. and i'm all that is left between the dictator and his people his anger. and that's what you got any arab spring now. that is why kerry and his son is single. >> what do you think about leaking from behind a multilateral coalition? >> out of my multi-collateral

coalition. leading from behind is an oxymoron. you don't wait from behind. [applause] and i actually think some in the white house may use that phrase. >> let me ask you about a domestic issue because i actually share your view and had conversations to present a bush about immigration reform and how serious do you think that issue is for the next presidential debate that we have? >> it is essential. when you're secretary of state can you get caught on the road and be what people admire about the united states. there are a lot of things that might come up at the one thing overwhelmingly tired is what i call our great national myth. you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. doesn't matter where you came from. matters are going. that is cause people from around the world to be a part of that.

it is why we have asian asian americans and mexican americans and german americans and indian americans. it is because people come in the most ambitious people have wanted to be a part of that. now, i don't know when immigrants became the enemy, but if we don't fix this, we are going to undo one of the greatest strengths of the united states because the only thing that keeps us from the sclerotic demographics of europe and japan is immigration. and so, i am a major proponent of comprehensive immigration reform [applause] first and foremost recognizes that we people living in the shadows and we've got to do with that. we are not a country that actually wants people to be afraid to go and take their sick child to a hospital. that's not the kind of country

we are. i worry that the states because the federal government does not act that are starting a patchwork now but immigration policy, when really what we need is a federal policy that is true to ourselves, true to our laws, but also true to the absolute fact that the united states of america is well served by the great the launch of people we have. >> three quick questions to wind -- [applause] wind this up. next fall let's pretend, you've been invited to be the moderator of a presidential debate. the debate team is foreign policy. what is the first question you ask both candidates? >> do you believe that america has an exceptional and unique role to play in the world or is

america just any other country? because if america is just any other country, then you have no right to ask the american people to sustain the sacrifices that we have had to play the role that we have on behalf of the international community for now better than 60 years. so why is america exceptional? [applause] >> second question is, even though you are not responsible and we can't officially wake you up anymore, what keeps you up at night and foreign policy? what are the things you worry about that we had to worry about? >> well, i worry about the list of terribles. iran, pakistan. i worry about mexico. i think we don't pay enough attention to attack in america's

southern border. if you live in california or new mexico commune of the drug cartels on a lot of that space between the new mexico in the southern border of the united states that's very dangerous. two years ago there were 5000 kidnappings and murders of officials -- mexican officials, probably twice that in the last couple of years. so very dangerous. but what mostly keeps me up at night is the question of whether the united states is going to reaffirm that somehow do the internal repair that we need to do to the. i worry that we can't seem to get our entitlements under control. i worry we can't get our budget deficits under control. i worry about immigration policy. i worry that nk child education i can look at your zip code and tell whether or not to get a good education. and that is not just wrong. it is actually probably going to undo us more quickly than anything the chinese could ever do to us.

because if we have people who are unemployable, they'll have to live on the dole because so have no other choice. we will continue to have a situation which only 30% of people who take the basic skills test to get into the military can pass it. it will indeed pull us apart is a country faster than anything else. and if we are not competent and optimistic and country, we won't be. and so, that is probably the one that really keeps me up at night. >> here's my final question. if you have a choice between running for the senate in california, being a university president were being head of the national football league -- [laughter] >> that's no contest. >> well, used to want to be the commissioner of the nfl, but i told roger caddell, when i was struggling with the iranians and

russians every day, your job looked pretty good. it actually from northern california, it doesn't look so good anymore. and these days i have to say it, these days being a university professor at stanford university, where the stanford cardinal having quite a special season, you know, come on, you know what the special seasons are like you've got an event. let us have one. that's really the greatest job in the world. >> thank you, madam secretary. [applause]

>> next, an interview with farmer defense secretary donald rumsfeld about his response publish memoirs titled "known and unknown." he sat down with historian, michael beschloss at the national constitution center in philadelphia. this is an hour and 10 minutes. >> we thought we would have this little gathering becauseuld have secretary rumsfeldspoke has notc been getting much attention, so

we thought we'd make up for tha. baileys having one of that.n i know you're not doing anything else to make sureyke the book ga the attention itt deserves. des. it is appropriate that we are doing this here at the national constitution center because one of the things the founders were serious about unlike regimes in europe but they were starting this country to be unlike, they wanted to make sure we had a record of our leader is, what they thought about what they did in office and also they hoped that record would be open as soon as possible. [inaudible] >> can everyone here? >> there so much noise over to the right. [inaudible] is that what it is? >> it's a big crowd of people trying to get upstairs, which for an author is news you like to year, so will speak louder. nne caius, they hope that we

have hope for what the leaders thought as soon as possible so we can learn from successes and shortcomings. as i would say, donald rumsfeld's book is in that tradition. i'm glad it's published. i think you are, too. >> thank you or >> the book is on mr. rumsfeld's entire life. i thought we'd begin by talking about iraq and work backwards. a great deal of the book is about iraq. i guess maybe the way to get into this as here we are in the constitution center. we just passed by a statute madison in the other room. as you know, madison gave a lot of thought to warn the president should do and how often americans who get into war. if he came back and ask you to tell him, why do we go to war in iraq, what would you say it? >> the answer would be that the

congress that the united states passed a resolution overwhelmingly favoring regime change in iraq. in the night t. 90s. by an overwhelming vote. it was signed by president clinton. the united nations issued some 17 different resolutions, advising iraq that they should conform to the resolutions, the request of the u.n. security council to allow the resent their country to provide the aspect there is the information on their weapons of mass destruction. and the united nations had then repeatedly rebuffed. president george w. bush made a decision when he first came into office that he was concerned about the fact that iraq was firing regularly at the united states and united kingdom

aircraft that were supporting the united nations no flies on them patrolling in the northern and southern portion of iraq. those plans are being shot at almost every day. the only country in the world they were shooting at american and british aircraft over 2000 times they were fired on. the joint chiefs of staff advise me in the president they were concerned about the fact that eventually one of our planes in a british plane or planes would be shut down and the crews would be killed or taken hostage. third, the united states department of state had listed iraq is one of the countries on the terrorist list. so there were a series of things like that by way of background. next come in the united states intelligence agencies spend a great deal of time and determined that they were

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

allowed them to someone who has demonstrated willingness to use them as well as proliferate them, the danger of the lethality was so great that president bush went to the congress and told the congress what they believed. >> was there every thought of a war declaration instead of going through resolution? >> no. i don't know. that would've been something the department of state would've done with the president. >> we have not had a declaration of war since 1991. >> not korean war, not vietnam, not the incursions president clinton was involved in. >> would it have brought american foreign to this? >> i doubt it. i think that -- you never know. that is a road they didn't travel and i can't really say. but i think the resolution passed by congress and in the resolutions by the united nations provided an underpinning

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

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

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

is always smoother than one looks at him and thinks, what if and when this? i think a little known fact is that gadhafi, the head of libya at that point at a very aggressive nuclear program underway. and when the united states went in and change the regime in iraq, gadhafi who had been working very hard on a nuclear program very high in the terrorist was decided that he would forgo his nuclear program. he contacted some western leaders had indicated, look, i do have this nuclear program. i'm willing to stop it. i'm willing to have it inspected that i stop it because i do not want to suffer the same fate as saddam hussein. so if you look at the region, there is some disadvantages that linger from the conflict. at the same token, you have a country of iraq that no longer

has a truly vicious, brutal regime, that it used chemical weapons against its own people and its neighbors. it's gone. the iraqi people have fashioned a constitution, have elections under the const dictations and are finding their way towards away from their oppressive system towards a freer political and freer economic system. in other countries in the region, such as libya are engaged in a behavior pattern that is vastly better for the world and for the region. so there are minuses, is and there are some pluses. and i think you're an outstanding historian and i think it will be people like you who overtime will play all those things and with the benefit is some distance, make some judgments.

>> a little while from now. let's go back to the beginning. you were born in chicago, groping winnetka, illinois, which is not quite as prosperous as it is today. a little villages you read about and what to high school, went on to princeton. is that a bit of a culture shock coming from the midwest? >> my goodness, it was indeed. i was still going to a big 10 school and wrestled genovese said no, no, we've got to go to princeton. why? he said that's where you belong. i said i can't go there. at about the money. he set a date with scholarship,, which he did. so i went and of course most of the people going to private schools. they've taken a course is before and i got there and i worked my head off. i spent a lot of time in the library for playing football or

wrestling and never did much other than not. there were no women in the school. it rains a lot. [laughter] not my first choice. and my wife here was off at the university of colorado comiskey in her way through college and it was a totally different experience for me. >> you've also heard a little talk by princetonians would run for president who had been nominated once. i found the book, but i'm told you actually know some of those words almost by heart. >> it was in a senior banquet 1954 and the former governor of illinois was at the stevenson had lost to dwight eisenhower in 52 and later lost and 56. it is a senior banquet in college and he came to speak at princeton. and he gave the most eloquent

and persuasive speech about public service that i had ever heard or will ever hear. it was an evening event and all of us just sat there listening to this brilliant, he caught an egghead. and he himself used to say -- what is it, something about -- >> you have nothing to lose but your yolks. >> yes, exactly. i think all of it who were getting ready to go in the military, all of us came away with a sense of responsibility. and one of the things he said was that young people in our country have a responsibility to help guide and current the course of our country and the

power of the american political system is virtually without measurement. if america were to stumble, the world would follow. and it had an impact on me. i have put up a website with hundreds of memos that i believe support the book that we've got here. you can go to an end note and go to the website and actually see the entire memo if i quoted paragraph. but i'm also positively but at least the stevenson's speech on my website and i highly recommend it. it is a wonderfully inspiring speech. >> although he did not venture to become a democrat obviously, was there any point in your early life he would've been anything but a republican? >> i goodness, yes. during world war ii as a young man, my father was in the navy.

franklin roosevelt was about the only president in my lifetime between 1932 and i guess he was sworn in and dirty three and i was born in july of 32, but i never knew herbert hoover personally. but franklin roosevelt was the president. he represented the united states of america have more time. and my parents, i never want my new would look to him as the leader of our country. it was enormously important for young man. >> and you were so taken the stevenson and what he said that a sin that has some influence over the fact that he ran for congress at the age of 29, very dark horse 1962. most people don't run for congress utterly. at least they did in those days. as he said, is younger than it

is nowadays. what moved you to get answers to? >> well, i was the longest of long shots. i had been away from my home district for a decade. i've done for your sick college cometh reenactors in the navy and then worked in washing 10 for two congressmen. one from ohio one from michigan. i've never met a congressman before in my life and then i'd come to chicago, home. and suddenly out of the blue, a woman who was a congresswoman, who had succeeded her husband and they had occupied the congressional district from 1932 until 1960. and she announced she wasn't going to run for reelection. and i thought to myself, my goodness, that same family had owned by district for the entire lifetime. >> you may not get another chance. >> so i talked to choice and choose game she said we got a whole bunch of friends from high school and college and god bless

them, they went out there informed i think some in like 1500 volunteers helping and people running around with car tabs on their cars saying rumsfeld for congress with earrings, but, bumper stickers. and sure enough i was fortunate. one of the thing that might have hoped, michael, if president kennedy had gotten elected two years before. >> he ran for congress the 29th eared >> he had served in the senate for part of a turban and a run for president. he was a young president and he had been elected and he was so charming and humorous. >> in the first president so you post for a picture during the campaign and as a new congressmen, i think within your first couple months went to the white house and that kennedy. >> i did indeed. but the fact we had such an attract the young president

hadn't appealed the district and indicate 29 years old running for congress look like maybe he could actually be a congressman. >> and so it proved to be. you came to washington and among the things he did in washington and you write about in the book is you attended a briefing by lyndon johnson in vietnam. a little bit about that because you actually spoke up in that briefing and away i think very few people did. >> well, this wonderful vice president, hubert humphrey was called a happy warrior and just a wonderfully energetic and appealing person. he was vice president india just had just come back from vietnam. vietnam was increasingly becoming a major political fact during the country. it had not been when i first ran in 62. but i tend to 64, 66, 65. so president johnson was getting complaints that members of

congress didn't feel they were being informed about the war. >> owl -- however could they said such a thing quiet >> so he invited members of congress to the white house. a large number went down. 100, 150 of us. it was winter as i recall. the invitation came late and we went in and it's not a thing for a congressman to be heading briefed by the president and vice president who had just come back from vietnam. and hubert humphrey started to get the briefing and lyndon baines johnson was commander-in-chief and he was bigger than life. you pop up every time someone would say something and answer the question and hubert would just about be ready to answer and stuff and lyndon johnson would take over. >> that's pretty much the way it usually works, too. >> yes indeed.

he was a powerful figure. >> johnson was talking about the things he was doing to win the award. you piped up and said what i mean hall's? >> he was, you know, as a congressman listening to him i was probably more critical than it would've been as a member of the executive branch being asked questions, which by then was of congress. so where you stand kind of depends on where you sit. but he was going through a period where he was trying to figure out what to do in the war in vietnam. and he would go through a heavy bombing. and then there would be a bombing pause and he would hope that that would cause a positive reaction from the north vietnamese or the vietcong and it didn't. and he, in explaining what he was doing, was asked a question by democratic congressman named john from texas about why it wasn't working. and his answer was in effect

that it would work. and of course, the fact was if you do something for you. and then stopped completely, it is confusing. it can be seen to our people. it's confusing to the enemy and i did ask a question and try to get some response from hans asked you how the combination of off and on was going to work. the way it's going to work as more of the same. and at that point he was in a bombing pause, and he had a tough job as president and he did his best. >> in retrospect, what do you think his mistakes are in vietnam and making the decision the way it was for? >> well, i wasn't in his shoes and it's hard to say for sure,

but in the last analysis come in that country was going to have to find its way itself. and the task we had was not to try to go after the north vietnamese were the vietcong alone because all they have to do was disappear. they didn't have to fight a single battle. they could just disappear in a week later show back a. they could go harvest the rice and then come back and you could have what u.s. forces from one end of the country to the other and they would've just disappeared into the countryside. and then, when he passed, they would come right back. in my view in retrospect, what the benefit of hindsight, the task was really to try to get this out vietnamese government capable of organizing and training and equipping their own forces and providing funding for the people of south vietnam and the rest of vietnam that offered

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

very path of the republicans are next and he basically wanted to dismantle it. not a great career move for you i think, but she did it. what is your rationale? >> i'd voted against the legislation when it was passed. sargent shriver recently passed away in the person who headed up the office of economic opportunity. and it started under president kennedy and he and his brother, bobby kennedy and the justice department had fashioned a program to try to assist the poor in the country and then president johnson came in with his vague texas approach and enlarged it and it became the war to eradicate poverty. if you define poverty is a certain percentage of the population and then you try to eradicate it, it is not possible because it is always going to be a certain percentage of it's in that category.

they immediately started a host of programs. there is the job corps, head start, migrant programs, health care programs, drug programs. there must've been 12 or 15 different programs under this program in the war on poverty. the design was that it would bypass governors and mayors, elected officials. and that had the effect of angering republican and democrat mayors and public officials because the money would come straight from the federal government to organizations that were described as having maximum feasible participation of the poor was the concept. in bypassing the mayors.

so local city councils and state governments were constantly being aroused. as a legal services program. the office of economic opportunity then filed lawsuits against mayors and governors and city councils. all of the people, regardless of political party had nothing to do with politics. it was against the structure, so by the time they went in there, it was widely displayed. >> your ui are promising republican people. even then talking about you as a possible future president. isn't this sort of a graveyard for a career like that? >> well, joyce estate somewhat unusual sense of humor. one night i went to the icebox and there is a sign that said, he tackled a job that couldn't be done with this night we went right to it. he tackled a job that couldn't be done. and couldn't do it. [laughter]

you last. at 10:00 at night and i was reaching in for a soda pop in reading that, that slows you down i'll tell you. [laughter] >> so you did that. you and onto to the next white house. you're right in the book that she wanted to believe washington of 1972. the juicy watergate coming? >> no, i didn't know. one time someone wrote -- i ended up going over as ambassador to nato after the 1972 election and the pundits in washington couldn't believe that i would leave the seat of power. i was a member of the cabinet and the white house and suddenly i'm going off to brussels belgium doesn't like siberia to political people in the white house because in proximity to power is considered in washington what one would want. i did just the opposite. i want thousands of miles in the other direction.

some wag wrote in some magazine in washington after watergate broke, was the smartest man in washington? answer, don rumsfeld. it is not in washington. answer, that's right. and i got a reputation for being smart and set of lucky. i had no more idea what was going on. an encounter richard nixon had just been reelected by one of the biggest margins in the history of the country. he won every seat in the union except massachusetts and the district of columbia. and no one could imagine that i would want to get away. excuse me. but i would want to be away from that is the poster read in the middle of it. but we did. we took our family went to belgium and what a truly wonderful experience representing our country overseas. >> and i drove ford becomes president after the nixon resignation. you're a great friend in the

1960s came in saying he wanted a staff that would be spokes of the wheel. everyone would report directly to the president. you are brought in after a month when he thought that was not working very well. was that a time -- it's been said a lot that people who worked for president ford were very much impressed with the fact that presidential power was so much at its nadir. did you see signs of that? >> show ford was the legislator and he was a minority leader. and he functioned on the spokes of the wheel concept, where one could come to see him and he liked people. is it graciously, wonderfully warm decent man. anyone who wanted to have access to him could. has minority theater of the united states house of representatives that worked. in fact, who was positive. the president of the united states can't do that. it just doesn't work. it's dysfunctional. and he had watched the nixon white house.

and i believe he believes are part of the reason for nixon's downfall was davis love is called the berlin wall, this type white house staff system run by bob haldeman and john ehrlichman that they called the berlin wall because they both had names that sounded vaguely germanic. and so, he did not want that. and he said he'd establish this any first asked al haig to stay on and then it turned already thought he couldn't keep out and i went over as allied commander in europe. he asked me to come in and i told them i wouldn't do it. it couldn't be done. the model he designed wasn't going to work. and he said i know that now, but i want to have to get from where i am to where i want to be. just give me a little slack while we navigate over to a rational white house chief of staff system.

>> what i'm thinking a little bit is dick cheney has said that serving as chief of staff is your successor under president ford, he saw so many signs of the fact that presidents were constrained in the wake of watergate congress is moving in. when he became vice president, one of the things he hope to do was expand presidential power and move the pendulum the other way. did you feel the same way? >> when you have an embattled president functioning in a white house that at that point was deemed illegitimate, watergate had drained the reservoir of trust in our country. and for the first time in our history, a president of the united states had to resign. it was a stunning event and our country, and the world. and when you turn the reservoir of trust, which is how we govern

our country. we don't govern by command. we governed by persuasion and through leadership. you have to be able to persuade. and if there's no trust, you can't persuade. people don't respond. and the white house is in that terrible, terrible circumstance. >> the effect of that was that he had a dilemma. should he go for continuity, which would reassure the american people that he come a total unknown who had never been elected president or vice president with no campaign staff, no platform, no knowledge about the country having campaign the country, no base of support, he felt a need to reassure the country that there would be continuity in policies. the alternative would have been which i favored huge favor

change. my view was if that institution of the white house was deemed illegitimate and not trustworthy, then-president ford had to create sufficient changed would not be seeing is a continuum of the nixon ford white house, but as a ford white house. he made an out changes in the cabinet and staff that people would see him as stepping forward with a new change. he opted for continuity and pay the penalty. >> you think you should not? >> i don't. he should've made enough changes. he was such a decent kind man. is that i don't want to let anyone go and have it appear that they did something wrong because there were a handful of people who did something wrong in that white house. it was not a large number and there were truly wonderful people there. pat moynihan was there an alan greenspan was there and george shultz was there and a host of

dr. simon.whitman and so many people that wonderful reputations. and gerald ford just could not bring himself. he just didn't want to do it because he felt it would be a tarnish. >> unlike him. >> u. later rest in this book a story about how the elder president bush, george h.w. bush went to the cia in 1975. you want to tell us briefly the story in which you feel the real story was? >> what do you mean what i feel there will story was? >> what the real story was. total whole story and in god's truth. >> gods truth. now you're talking. george herbert walker bush came to congress in 1966. i've been elected in 62. he came in with a wonderful group of people and i knew him and served in the congress with

him. he at some point ended up running for the senate and losing. and then he went over to china as a representative. and he wanted to come back. and he told president ford that he wants come back and serve in an executive position. and i was chief of staff of the white house and periodically i would be asked by the president to send in a group of names to be attorney general or director of cia and bill colby said he wanted to leave or some other cabinet officer, department of housing and urban development or what have you. as of the staff in the white house would produce these documents if you are six or eight names of people in the pros and cons and the people who favor these, where they rank them. and in the present of a book and asked to head the fbi take a check or ask other people to that for now. and that kind of a thing when and when the president said director colby wanted to leave the cia. and bush's name is on that list

that the staff produced and people at them first, second, third, forth above the line or below the line. and for whatever reason, there is a myth created that because i had been considered for vice president when president ford pick nelson rockefeller and george bush -- herbert walker bush had been considered, that we were competitive. so then this came out that when he was sent to the cia, the senate said we won't confirm him unless you agree that he will not be vice president. so it kind of ruled him out. and i told president ford i thought he shouldn't do that, that he should definitely not allow the senate to tell him through put the country should have as a vice presidential nominee. i urge you not to agree. the facts are that george herbert walker bush bid for

president to tell them he would not be vp. he wanted to be director of the caa. his wife wrote a book and said he was thrilled to be nominated for that. and somehow or another to miss came around i was the one who masterminded all of this and arranged for him not to be considered for vice president. >> you read in the book that he believed that. >> i don't know that he believed it. i know that the myth persisted. i finally was tired of it and i wrote president ford and said, give me a letter that tells me what the facts are. he wrote back and said you're quite right. george herbert walker bush bid to be head of the caa, wanted to the head of the cia was delighted in you had nothing to do with it. do not belong in the short of it. in our world, narratives and theories get strung out over a

period of time until it is like they are chipped installed and true notwithstanding the fact that they are totally based in midair, without any roosters substance to them at all. >> so let's move the clock up since we don't have a lot of time. 2000, george bush's son is elected president and you could see him. did you have any thought you'd be you'd be asked to go in the cabinet? >> goodness, no. i was an old man. [laughter] joyce and i had gone to her 50th high school reunion and illinois and in the year 2000, i think in september. enjoys with her perception and wisdom and foresight announced to her friends that this was the beginning of our rural. this is in september of 2000. and we had no more idea and the world that i would end up back in government. had no particular desire to. we were happy in life is good. i'd been in business for a

period of years. >> and very successful. >> and served as several government commissions. on the ballistic missile said in one of space and i was contributing in the volunteer way. >> when he became secretary of defense, how it can change at the pentagon in washington in general since 1977? >> i wish i knew the actual numbers, but for one thing, congressional staffs have ballooned and had grown by a multiple of two, three or four. the defense authorization bill is a piece of legislation at the congress passes in each house in n.a.b. conference and there's a piece of paper, papers that represent the authorization bill, telling the department of defense but it can do for the next year. when i left as secretary of defense in 1976, the defense

authorization bill had 74 pages. when i came back in the year 2001, the defense authorization bill had something like 574 pages. that is going to be off by a few, but it's good enough for government work. you get a sense of what it changed. what had changed is that the department of defense is enormous and there is no way it can be efficiently run. government is almost inherently an efficient because it can't die. it doesn't go away. unlike a business. you drive down any street in philadelphia and you'll see a retail operation i was there one day and it's gone the next. it can fail. government just stays there. so the inefficiencies compound. and the effect of it is that it

is not efficient and to the extent something is not efficient, then the congress, concerned about representing their come if you any responsibility for oversight, legislative oversight to see something wrong and besides the way to fix it is to require another report or to hire more people to monitor something were to have more hearings and to look into it. so what you see is how many people are old enough to remember bold first couple through member of the through? an old fusions for this big. goals were finally put so many threads over gulliver that he couldn't knows. not one of those threads was doing the job. it was the thousands of threads that prevented him from moving. and that is where we have arrived in government. we have so much oversight in so many pages of micro requirements can so many reports to be filed

that it consumes just an enormous amount of time. there are over 10,000 lawyers in the department of defense. imagine. i've got nothing -- i've got nothing against lawyers, but i don't know how -- to >> delivers her walking out of the room right now. >> i don't know how any organization can function with 10,000 lawyers. [laughter] just kidding. >> i'm going to push you to skip to the rest of us because we haven't got much time and i want to get to do the things that happened obviously during that decade. 9/11. in retrospect, do you think 9/11 could have been averted if you were able to rewind the tape? if earlier presidents behave differently. was that the extent to some of things the president did or did not do? >> you know, i am not one who

can answer a question like that. i'm the one hand just logically come you said yourself, there must've been some things that might have been done differently on the other hand, the task of the intelligence community is truly difficult. it is just a very, very tough job. the world is a big place. the terrorist networks in the closed societies in many countries make it enormously difficult to gather intelligence that can be useful and actionable. in my adult life, i have seen literally dozens of instances, where our intelligence community has failed to predict something. it was a very funny book called pearl harbor by roberto wohlstetter and the forward to that book was written by a think

a -- i think he was harbored at the time named dr., shelling. he wrote this forward about surprise. he characterized pearl harbor is a failure of imagination. and of course there were so many hearings after pearl harbor, what might have been done, who might have known this. was it great to have a concentration of our battleships immobilized and vulnerable as they were with all of our planes on the ground on a sunday morning. i'm tram? i look back on nine 9/11 and i am aware of the reappraisals and lessons learned that have been done. and there's no question that the fact that the united states of america in the case of somalia,

after being attacked, pulled back. in an instance in haiti was attacked in some ships pulled away. i think it was bosnia, some folks went across the line and were captured and we pulled back several collaborators. and lebanon, after the marines were killed in the barracks there at the airport in beirut, the united states withdrew their forces. after the khobar towers and the uss cole were attacked by terrorists among the reaction of the united states was minimal i would say. there were some cruise missiles launched on a couple of occasions. if you think about it, the terrorist that organize these kinds of activities don't have countries to defend. they don't have populations to

defend. they don't have real estate and infrastructure they want to protect. they operate in the shadows and you can operate a lot of cruise missiles and drop an awful lot of bombs and do precious little damage to the terrorist network. they came away having drawn a lesson and have said as much. osama bin laden has said on many occasions on video for the united states was a paper tiger. and if the united states is yet, it will react. it will withdraw. it won't reach out and do damage to the people imposing that damage on our country. so someone could make a case that that pattern -- the weakness is provocative, that to the extent we behave in a manner that is weak and allows those kinds of things, that it provokes people into doing things they might otherwise not do. they wouldn't think of doing it if they felt they would be instantaneous punishment for doing it.

but listen, the last thing i would do would be to say that there is something somebody could have done to have prevented september 11. i just -- i would say it like pearl harbor is a failure of imagination and probably a relatively understandable failure of imagination. >> maybe a couple questions from the audience. one is about iraq and vietnam. do you think that is a fair comparison? >> are certainly similarities and certainly notable differences between the two. the vietnamese were not likely to come and attack the united states of america. the terrorist threat, the dean shares in iraq was on the terrorist list. the terrorist threat was a very real one to our country.

and al qaeda had demonstrated that it would come and attack america. now, there is no direct link between al qaeda and iraq. there certainly was between afghanistan and iraq. iraq was on the terrorist list. and iraq had a pattern of having developed weapons of mass destruction. and so there was -- there were these things that affected it. but i would say that -- i think the differences are greater than the similarities, but there certainly were similarities. >> out of beta in the case of johnson. you and i both know a lot about the people who worked for lyndon johnson. one thing they say it's a tough thing for them is when people say last my son in vietnam. why did he die? would you say for iraq?

>> it is the hardest thing. i think anyone who is in a position of responsibility, with a conflict occurs and you will come as choice and i would go to the hospitals to meet with the wounded whose lives are changed forever, and meet with their families and meet with the families of those who have been killed, we would need to ourselves, we are going in, what is it that we could say or do that would help them understand the appreciation that we in america have for this sacrifice? the individual sacrifices and the sacrifices of families as well because he sacrificed and they serve. and we would come out of those meetings almost invariably inspired, not feeling that we had hoped to them, but feeling they had hoped us.

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

powerful. now, how does one answer that? spicing answer is that -- >> with the johnson people said he still pushed us to tell exactly what the sacrifices made for. does anyone ever do that when you see them? >> sure, sure. >> world war ii i assume that is not hard. but a war like iraq or vietnam or something that is not full throttle, what do you say? >> a war that his armies against navy, air force against air force, that is clear. that's understandable. it starts and ends. it ended world war ii on the uss missouri battleship at the signing ceremony. what went through the cold war was quite different. it was many decades long. it was an ideological competition of ideas.

there was never going to be a signing ceremony. what we are in today is much more like that. it is a longer period of time. it's a marathon, not a sprint. it is a competition of ideas. but for whatever reason, we are hesitant and not skillful and engaging in the competition of ideas. we recognize the overwhelming ideas of the muslims on the face of this earth are you fine people who have a religion that may be different from christianity or judaism or other religions, but they are not radicals. they're not terrorists. they are fine people. and yet, there is a small minority of muslims that have engaged in terrorist acts that organize to do those things. and we are reluctant as americans to take a bad debate can compete with those ideas. they are not reluctant. there are recruiting. they are out raising money.

they are out organizing and there are planning attacks against the nationstate, that because they have a conviction that it is their calling to do that. so the fact that we are willing to engage in that debate were not skillful addict or reluctant to do it leaves people with a vagueness as to why -- why people have to do things. the wonderful thing i found that the men and women in the armed forces is that they are there whether they are serving in korea or in bosnia or in iraq or afghanistan. they know what they are doing. they understand it. they are proud of what they were doing. thanks to modern communications and e-mails, they are able to communicate with their families and their families and the company sent what they are doing and why they are doing it. and when there is a loss of

life, it is heartbreaking. when there is a loss of limb, is heartbreaking. and yet, he talked to those families and you talk to those people and they don't ask why was i dare? they know why they were there and they are proud that they were there. and we're very fortunate country. >> that's for sure. you are a very close to that leadership as well as a leader yourself. [applause] indeed. and you've seen a lot of leaders. i guess i was thinking of -- >> here's a leading scholar on presidential leadership that is going to ask me a question of leadership. i feel like i'm back in school. >> sandhu. some just write about it. but when people in my line of work read about george w. bush, what you think would be the shortcomings that one achieves?

>> well, i am 78 years old. i have lived a third of our country's history and almost every republican president was considered not very swift. dwight eisenhower played to much cause they say. he had a poor syntax. my goodness, gerald ford they said they too much football without a helmet. [laughter] didn't matter that he gone to yale law school. didn't matter as one of the leading experts on the u.s. budget having served on the appropriations committee. >> not to mention the best athlete in the white house. and they contended he was a stumblebum. i mean come you go from one to another. ronald reagan was characterized by clark clifford as an amiable dunce. and then people read his letters and saw that this man was thoughtful, knowledgeable.

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

president. and i don't know quite what it is about our society that does that, but i must say i've watched a lot of presidents and i would say that george w. bush -- i mean, you think what he did with the surge in iraq -- >> is that something you would've supported had you stayed on quite >> indeed. what he did was interesting. a lot of things combine to make it work. the anbar awakening to place. the training and equipping of the iraqis military had come to a very advanced point, where we had hundreds of thousands of iraqis trained and ready to participate. ..

he means business. he's not looking for a way out he's looking for a way to win and that caused the political situation in the country to coalesce and the maliki government went into the south and took care of some of the dissidents.so-cal se solder army which was an army as a group of people that can get out in the street and maket demonstrations they went s quiet because they didn't knowe what would happen but the center gravity shifted from iraq to the united stateses as the say e military the real locus of the problem was in the united states and the congress was about ready to pull the plug and as they did on vietnam and the old miss of

what george w. bush did belies the situation and made it possible for the war to be successful. he deserves a lot of credit for that. >> how much should the war be judged by success? sue lyndon johnson's viet nam war ended in victory in 1966 would we be looking at him as a great war iraq leader and someone who did it the right way? >> the historian seems to me that i don't know who said it with the war is a series of catastrophes and by success. they are untidy, difficult, hard, the enemy has a brain. on eisenhower i think said the plan is worth less. planning is everything and the plan is worthless because the na -- >> one of rumsfeld's rules. >> it is a rule that i quote from someone more intelligent than volume. >> with full credit.

>> indeed. but it's true every time you try to do something for every offense or defense, for every defense there is an offense and if there's a constant change that take place on the battlefield, i think that we are unlikely for a period of time to end up with the kind clarity we had in world war ii because of the nature of the world we are living in. it is asymmetric, it is ever changing and it is clear to be a challenge for our leadership. it's come to be a challenge for our country. but the growing lethality of those weapons -- what president bush was faced with when he made his decision on iraq was there was a study by johns hopkins university called dark winter and if my memory serves me

correctly, a series of experts got together and they said what if we took smallpox and put it in three locations in the united states of america? and in a relatively short period of months the dark winter exercise come by johns hopkins university concluded -- and i'm going to be rhomboid -- but concluded somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 americans would be dead. some one here knows the exact number. where is keith? that's close enough. and something, a multiple of that would be infected with smallpox. imagine in our country of that happened think of the martial law, think of being diligent to move from state to state.

free people, that's what we are. we are people that want to get up in the morning and go where will want and see what we want and think what we wanted the purpose of terrorism is not to kill people, the purpose is to terrorize. it's to alter your behavior. and imagine this country if we had 800,000 people dead from smallpox and martial law imposed the process and that study exists it's available and it is that concern that caused george w. bush to step up and decide you couldn't wait to be attacked the only thing you could do is try to put pressure on terrorist states and put pressure on terrorist networks and make every single thing they do harder harder to communicate with each other and keep the

pressure up for the weekend and gage and act like that again. >> we have a couple more minutes so i will last two more questions. one is what is the story and why about donald rumsfeld the second time that the pentagon? >> of the devotee vitter or 20 years. >> journalists like to think the right the first draft of history i don't know that i use the word history with that first draft. i served a lot of years in government now live been out for four. i debated whether i should write a short book in the year and use my memory or whether i should digitize this incredible archive the light accumulated over my lifetime and start and played the confiding people into the

faces of my life and the eventide been involved in it if you look at the acknowledgment section its many dozens and we would talk and transcribing and go back to the records and then i think if i've got that archived why shouldn't be digitized? and see if we can make it available to the reader? and i told that maybe for the first time we know are going to have available in e-book which means electronic books i told they didn't used to have those when i was a kid. and you can read the book gives you can look at the end notes and see the source where i decided something and then you can go to the website and pull up the entire document and see right there whether or not the context or the perspective that i provided, which is worked to

try to make accurate and fair and say i would have done it that we but there are thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of different documents many of which have been recently declassified that are available on this website. savitt we have the documents. in 20 years i will be 98-years-old you can read whatever you want. [laughter] this book as i mentioned has a very detailed accounts of secretary rumsfeld's encounters with all sorts of public figures, world leaders, people with very influential and

important positions but one of the most intriguing is your encounter with elvis. >> leggitt lescol elvis presley. a lot his songs were not really waiting. [laughter] >> why does that not surprise me. [laughter] on any given sunday today if joyce and i can't get to church we have some elvis presley singing gospel and they are wonders and we played them sunday after sunday after sunday. how did this happen? mo i was running the so-called war on poverty simi davis jr. was on the advisers board. we were giving a speech and it coincided with his underperformance of one of those

casinos, the fans or something. so we went to see his show and he and his wife were there and they performed the issue was spectacular. it wasn't an accident bickel seeley davis jr. the world's greatest entertainer. he said to joyce and me the next light i often going to take you to see the best entertainer in las vegas and he didn't tell us who it was. so the next night he went to another casino he and he got a dinner table needless to say right up front. and it was elvis presley and say and believe elvis presley was the best performer in talent and he was in his later years and he was large. he was wearing a sequence

jumpsuit >> i've never seen the man and i've never heard the man and what color is it it's got red, pink, scarlets and he would wipe his face, he would get up and sing it was fantastic to see the most ridiculous thing in the world and people would cheer and yell and love it and i would sit here and go like this. then he would sing a ballett and it was absolutely beautiful. this man had a voice that was spectacular, and i love country music and i love ballots and he would sing and you would just -- you would be carried away with it. then he would take the scarf, wipe the sweat off and throw it in the crowd. so he threw one and gave it to a

joyous and its frame. what happened afterward as sammy said to joyce we are going to go back to the dressing room. you go in this place and its large and here are all these people. sammy is getting dressed and walking or not at all the showgirls are are selling and cigarettes with western jewelry and turquoise and what have you and all the hangars and their staff and joyce it's turning away talking to somebody and she couldn't find the it finally elvis presley had recorder was against the corner and he was and i was him behind.

he was talking about the united states army. if you remember there is a draft during that period and some of the people did not go in the draft. they went to canada and he went in and through the united states army and he served in germany and want to talk. he left the army is valued his time serving and he was going back and forth with the about this and that and the other thing and i just found it fascinating to rest slim who committed ago had been of they're wiping the sweat off his face and for when these things and everyone screaming what you read this dressing room if he was standing there asking questions after the united states army.

former vice president dick cheney talks about 9/11 and his time in the bush administration

in an interview with steven haze senior writer at the weekly standard. he is the author of the book cheney a biography of the vice president. this is an hour and ten minutes. [applause] good morning everybody.. welcome to the americanen enterprise institute. human item the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies here at aei. let me first remind everybodyd please turn off their telephoneo or to put themne on vibrate ande ask everybody when the session in this to please remain seated in order to allow our speakers to leave the room.

a final housekeeping notedfter e booksellers are available with the book after the event. re when a aei president worker cou' brooks when fortunately couldn't be here invited the viceesidentj president chinley to join us today it was to remember the attacks years later and considering some of the lessons learned and those that were not since that date. the first thing to recall since 9/11 and about brolan war that we are still fighting is the mini that gives their lives. the family, that sacrificed loved ones, and the awful loss. first and foremost, now is the time to remember the brave americans who died at home are fighting men and women who risked everything so that we can live in freedom and our

invaluable allies fertility countries to name who share our cause. as some of you know vice president cheney recently published a memoir in my time written with his daughter, liz cheney. we understand and will debut at number one on "the new york times" best-seller list. [applause] today he joins us with weekly standard senior writer and best selling author speed late for a conversation about the attack on a nation about the decisions made since then and reflections on of an amazing life in politics and pretty much whatever else he and steve choose to talk about today in the hour that we have treated it hundred and after that conversation we will have a q&a session moderated by steve. lynn cheney has been discovered

at aei for many years. dick cheney is a board of trustees. you're so glad to have them as a part of our aei family, and we thank them and you all for joining us here today. [applause] speed remember you are a reporter. >> i get paid back. >> i just want to say a word and then i will turn it over to mr. hayes to read the book i wrote as a more that covers all years of my life. the early years with a lot of good stuff to write about in the period of time. but the last half of the book focuses on the ad ministration and lawyers as vice president,

and the book opens in the prologue which recounted the defense and i saw them on line 9/11 event it deals with what we had to do during the course of our seven and a half years to keep the country safe, some of the controversies that we were involved in on things like the terrorist surveillance program and enhanced interrogations'. that is a large part of the book is relevant with respect to 9/11 and the aftermath with other subjects as well. i guess there were five republican at ministrations worked closely with a fifth, the administration as part of the house republican leadership and so i try to cover all of that period of time but there is

enough there that steve is trying to make a living writing articles about me. [laughter] so i'm going to turn it over to him. >> thank you and thanks to the indian aei for having us. just to give you an idea what i thought i would try to do this morning i'm going to start with questions about my 11 specifically in the push you in particular about your personal views on these things because i know you love to put yourself on the couch like that. publics of reflection. and the line going to go and talk about a number of different ways in which the policies that emanated but you i think in large part helped drive it try to fill in some gaps i spent a lot of time looking of the interviews you done since the book cannot and i've read it now twice and some questions i have for a meeting for you. so, that's how i would like to proceed and that we will throw

it open for any additional questions that will be much better than line. the first part we would store is on the morning of 9/11. i would be interested to know when you first knew we were under attack. not when you first heard about that but when did you know that we were under attack and when were your first thoughts that moment? >> i was off in the west wing working with my speech writer with my secretary called in to the report the plane had struck in the world trade center and return on the television after the first plane had gone in before anything else had happened and the immediate reaction was what was possible in perfectly clear whether there was no way to account for it and then as we watched we saw the second plane hit and that immediately in my mind triggered

the notion this had to be a terrorist attack in the world trade center it not have it be anything but a terrorist attacks. shortly after that i talked to a present all in florida it to the statement he was getting ready to issue it was whether or not it was proper to talk about terrorism within that context of the statement and the words he used was probably a terrorist attack on the united states. it was in a relatively short period of time and people begin to gather in my office secretary rice and the national security adviser was there with my chief of staff and probably had seven or eight people, and then all of a sudden the door burst open it

is taking over to the desk where we were sitting and said we have to leave for a meeting please come with me. we have to leave immediately. put one hand on the back of my bills and one hand on the back of my shoulder. i didn't have the option of not going. the pause for that, the reason he did that is a he explained to me as he was taking me down to the presidential emergency operations center on the white house was yet received a report that there was a hijacked aircraft headed towards crème been code for the white house and that turned out to be

american 77 which came in and made a circle and then went into the pentagon. at that point i was down partway. i haven't gotten there yet of a immediately use the telephone that was there to place a call the president and to let them know washington was under attack and the secret service strongly recommended he not come back. i also recommended that he not come back be leaving the was important stay part so that we didn't become a ripe target that we didn't know at that stage what was happening. >> he didn't like to hear that committee. but he saw the wisdom of it.

i know from that spot went into the pmi itself isn't always presented by norman who was our secretary of transportation responsible to have an aircraft they believe have been hijacked at gunpoint. we thought that it was six, but they were the two major drivers in terms of what i thought about in that morning as we work through a crisis in that day. number one was we had to get all the planes down out of the sky so we can isolate the river had been hijacked and account for the hi tract including the list we had at that point it would account for three of them, to of the new york and one of the pentagon so that was a major part of the effort and then the other thing is it important that

i focused on some of you are familiar with especially during the cold war we had developed programs and procedures for preserving the continuity of the government in the event of an all-out global contract and focused on ways of having base to take the steps to ensure the line of succession survived for whatever kind of attack we were under some the debt settled we have a president in the function and that is what we refer to as continuity of the government. that day they took the form basically one was to recommend the president but secondly was

of course the speaker dennis hastert out at the air force base where his security detail had relocated him and the arena for him that the move from there to the disclosed location because he was next in line with the presidency and if something happened the president had to me the he was in the position to be able to take over the function as president. but those were the to sort of major concerns that we could buy most of our time there would be somebody in the line of succession to be able to take over speaking of the undisclosed location, much of the time when the media was reporting that you were in the secure and undisclosed location or at camp david and that is in the evening of september 11th.

and i remember having a conversation with you much later in which you described what was like being at camp david leased the evening and the way that you described it as the family gathered of the television and yousaf basically in silence for a couple of hours watching the reruns' of the planes hitting the towers and of the board that day. what was that like? how long did you do that and what were you thinking at that point? >> after the president had returned and we get on the national security council meeting he addressed the nation when we finished that lynn and i got on a helicopter in the south lawn and were flown to kid david so the only time we had taken off the helicopter of the south's lawn without the with the president had done a lot over the years but you don't fly off the south lawn except in this extraordinary circumstances

so when we got to give david lee took this to the aspen lodge which is a presidential launch up their begin for security reasons, the secret service was obviously totally focused on and concerned about the possibility of the follow-on attacks and so forth and aspin was the most secure facility at cade david, so we spent a couple of days there at the aspen lodge. we sat in the living room and watched the television and i was accompanied by my wife lynn and my daughter liz. my daughter mary was out of the country. i can remember sitting there focused obviously i think people will look for the country watching the towers come down and the fires in the pentagon and so forth it began to think

about what we needed to do by way policy, what steps we might take in order to deal with this new situation, and the thought that came to mind first and foremost this was just a terrorist attack. we have a lot of terrorist attacks over the years. we tended to treat them as law enforcement problems. we would go out and find the bad guys, address them, put them on trial and lock them up. this is after the war we had 3,000 dead americans and in a matter of minutes that morning we needed to treat it as an act of war and that meant to marshal all of resources of the federal government to be able to deal with the preventive follow-on attack it deal with those responsible with what happened. we had a pretty good idea on the afternoon of the attack that this is al qaeda related.

the was the advice we were getting from the intelligence community. so it wasn't a big mystery about who was behind by then focused on osama bin laden. but there was a lot we didn't know about al qaeda. now we've heard so much about it for ten years as a bit of a temptation to know everything there is to know about al qaeda but the day of the attack this is a group of terrorists we couldn't even answer we didn't know they didn't know who was financing them or where there were operating. there was a lot that we needed to learn and that drove our search for intelligence at generated some of the policies that we put in place but i sat

and made a series of notes that might as i thought about what we were faced with and how we might begin to deal with it, and chewed over in my own mind what we needed to be doing. when we all met at camp david and followed the national security council tuesday and by friday night be gathered up that king david and had to pull together what ultimately emerged in strategy for the global war and terror. in the days after the tax and a very public displays of emotion we saw president bush almost come to tears in the oval office. we heard about condoleezza rice going back to watergate and breaking down of one point

because of the emotional toll that this was taking on a personal note. i remember coming back from new york driving across the roosevelt bridge during martin's version of america the beautiful and i broke down crying. did you ever have a moment like that? >> not really. [laughter] civic you understand people will find that very peculiar. [laughter] >> well, my wife and daughter with me that evening. lynn was with the all-day yet she had been downtown when the attack started and the secret service brought her over to the west wing it would be the best person to comment on what my attitude was and is focused on

what we had to do in terms of the said with respect to policy and military forces and with the targets were and how they might go after them and so forth what kind of intelligence really need to be able to cope with this it clearly was the the thing that influenced me been a personal standpoint i spent a good deal of time over the years so i'd been through exercises where the nature of the attack on the west in the excess of what we actually faced on 9/11 the thousands or millions of people killed. so i had the benefit of having gone through those exercises over the years and the training

just sort of kick in thinking about what we have to do that morning and the next day. >> let's get to those policies. specifically let's talk about the two that everybody i think thinks of as the most controversial. the terrorist surveillance program on the one hand and enhanced interrogations' on the other. can you describe -- i think there is a general sense among the public that you sort of brainstorm these ideas. you came up with them. they were your ideas. you had been the most fierce public advocate of them. can you described how the terrorist surveillance program came to be? >> it's important to keep in mind the were initiated. it's something we moved into in the days of the after 9/11.

the enhanced interrogation techniques came in a year or two later when we were out of business by the by capturing people like khalid sheikh mohammed and i believe we caught him in the spring of 03 in the was the capture of certain kinds of individuals that led us to the point we needed the enhanced interrogation the question of the terrorist surveillance program. the origin being from my keating and his people in the national security and george tamim was involved. there have been a conversation between the two of them this is within a couple of days of my 11 as i recall the to them had talked and the question was are there additional things we can do with our capabilities, our

capacity to read the mail that would help us deal with the situation we face? that led to the meeting in my office as i recall where mike came in and then general haydon and then the head of the nsa and later the cia and george and the three of us talked. and there were things that the nsa thought that they could do if the had additional authority. and i took that package of that proposal basically and went to see the president and sat down and went through it with him and he signed up to but with the caveat he wanted it carefully managed and wanted to make certain he personally approved. each step of the way they had to come again for approval on a

regular basis. what emerged out of that is the enhanced capacity for us to be able to intercept communications originated outside of the united states possibly from what we referred to as a dirty number. to capture al qaeda, he's got a computer, a rolodex, would reduce the maker of phone numbers and you wanted to know who he was talking to in the ble,ed states .. and the safeguards we built into the direction of the president involved the fact that i think it's a free 30 or 45 days varies from time to time. i think the secretary of defense and the director of the cia and nsa all had to sign off on continuing the program.

it didn't get renewed automatically. they had to say in writing the thought we should continue the program from the standpoint of the nation's security, etc.. the attorneys general had to sign off on that and then went to the president. david addington who worked for me was responsible for carrying it around and he would get all of the signatures and the president once he had received this input from the senior advisers then he would sign up for them and extended the program for another 30 or 45 days and that is the way that we operated for years briefed the members of congress. i had a chairman and ranking member of the house and senate intelligence committees come down every couple of months to my office and like haydon would come in and then george, and we would brief the key members of

congress who had jurisdiction in this area over what we were doing and what kind of results it produced so they were wired and from the beginning. later on in the controversy arose inside the program and with the justice department. we expanded that a group of four into nine. we had the speaker majority minority leaders of the house and senate and have all of them in and briefed them as well. then i went around at that point and asked them all at that point -- mincy policy was in the room, jay rockefeller, democrat side, asked them if they thought we should continue the program. they said absolutely. then i said to you think we ought to go back to the congress and could additional early legislative authority they were concerned if we went up and asked congress for a vote on the

subject the fact that we were doing that would weaken and we would be telling the enemy how we did in the mail it was notified to the congress there was controversy later on but internally the president dealt with but it was unconvinced as a key part of our success in terms of preventing further attacks on the united states received thousands of lives by what we were doing. i think it is one of the great success stories especially with respect to the nsa and how they put the program together and developed the capability and one of the great success stories on the american intelligence bb someday it will all be told. estimate you admit the same argument about enhanced interrogations' you are a strong believer the policies worked. let's go beyond that part of the debate and talk about the

effects of the enhanced interrogations' and the perceptions are of the world that it is torture that the things we did amount to torture and the sense that maybe the position of the united states was eroded because of the things that we did hear this country how do you respond to those arguments. i always argue to leave to offer you an invitation to argue. they are sort of crazy to teaks and more thoughtful critiques and that is the more thoughtful critique. do you? i do not. i persuaded that the way we went about seeking the authority to be able to extract more intelligence from a handful of

individuals who were talking here not about the rank-and-file enemy troop this does of involve the military. this does not involve the department of defense. this is the program which is authorized by the president, but to by the national security council, carried out with all kinds of safeguards by the center of intelligence agency. we had a case where we had a handful of individuals who had knowledge of what was in the works from the standpoint of al qaeda with the hope to be able to do, how they function, who the key members were, with their plans were. it was people like khalid sheikh mohammed, a abu zubaydah, the notion that somehow the united states was wildly torturing anybody is not true.

anybody that takes the time to look at the program i think will come to the same conclusion people out there who defer with respect to that but when we get to the whole area of the controversy waterboarding added that there is a protester outside this morning when i drove in 33 people were waterboarded. notte dozens or hundreds but three. the one that was subjected most often to that was khalid sheikh mohammed and produced the nominal results. there are reports that the intelligence community did of the results of the program, which were declassified at my request that are now available on the internet that talk about the quality of information that we got as a result of our enhanced interrogation techniques applied by a handful

of individuals. we were talking about only a handful of people who were indeed part of the al qaeda organization id khalid sheikh mohammed was only the man we had reason to believe correctly the head of daniel pearl reporter for "the wall street journal," but also had claimed credit for the architect of my 11. i have another key point that needs to be made that the techniques that we use for all previously used on the american military personnel. not all of them but all of them had the training for a lot of our own specialists in the military area. so there wasn't any technique to be used on nd al qaeda

individual hadn't been used on our own troops first just to give you some idea of whether or not we were, quote, torturing the people we captured. the way the program worked was the agency came in georgetown and then still director of the cia came in and talked to me, talk to a couple of other people basically he wanted to know how far they could go in terms of interrogation on these individuals that we captured if you needed to sign-offs'. one was in the president and second was from the justice department where that line was and we sought and obtained both of those. the president signed up to it as

did the other members of the national council. some of my colleagues the have forgotten that, but in fact everybody who was a member of the national security council was informed about the essence of the program so you had the proper governmental authorities agreeing that this was necessary and worth while, but we have the key people in the justice department, people like john yoo who has been severely harassed because of the fact the legal opinion that he and others issued but were legitimate legal opinions from the justice department said this is okay and appropriate. this is very clear guidance that we can follow it the folks out at the agency insisted on that kind of guidance before they were willing to go forward.

one of the things that i found most objectionable with respect to the obama administration when they came in was the initial decision by the president and attorney-general holder that they were going to investigate and prosecute the people in the intelligence community who had a carry out this intelligence programs at our discretion and i thought that was a terrible -- the president of the united states signed up to the legitimate authority in this case. the justices apartment explained that to read these guys had gone out in our direction and used this authority to collect intelligence that we badly needed to have it the next thing you know you get a change in the administration and the new crowd coming in says we are going to prosecute those guys who were responsible for carrying out those policies.

i came here to the aei at one point about two years ago and spoke on the subject. i will say the administration appears to have reversed course. all of those activities were investigated by the lawyers and the justice department at the end of the bush administration. the old and looked at before coming into the obama demonstration and finally -- i think i hope the matter is now resolved back off and those people but frankly if you didn't deserve to be prosecuted for the work they did. >> let's jump forward to that speech which as you say was made of 2,009 and was in part a critique of the administration's defense decisions on those things it was a warning by

stepping back from the of the mysteries and had done. we were choosing to put ourselves at a greater risks and yet here we are some two and a half years later. we have of course the attack at fort hood, but in spite of all the things you were not against, we haven't been attacked again. osama bin laden has been killed and has been taken out and have a series of success on the al qaeda central and afghanistan and pakistan that has by most accounts been decimated it taken apart to reward you rolm when you read those warnings in the late 2000 by? >> i don't think so, steve. i would argue that the policies we put in place that were

available in utilized all over time and now we've seen some comment to this effect to the current officials of the government helped produce for example the intelligence that allowed us to get osama bin laden. there was out of the enhanced interrogation techniques that some of the leaves came that ultimately produced the result when president obama was able to kill bin laden. so i think it has been a continuum if you will between the administration's, focused especially in the part of the career folks in the intelligence community and in the special will parisians community military that has worked overtime. it wasn't just the new administration came in and all of a sudden we got bin laden. the had the benefit of all of the work.

>> of the same time the terrorist surveillance program is operating as it was originally. there are no enhanced interrogations' broadcast into al qaeda and others exactly how we will interrogate them. we read murray in the warnings. all of these things that you and others have warned against and yet here we are. we haven't been attacked again. we had these major successes. and when the bush administration came to him in on a remember you making the argument that you should be judged by the fact that in large part we haven't been attacked and that was a sign of success. why can't we use that same standard for the obama administration and things they are doing have been successful. stupak i guess i make the case to have been successful in part because the capabilities we left them with, intelligence we left them with because of what we learned from people like khalid sheikh mohammed back when they were subjected i think it is a mistake, for a table, not to have an enhanced interrogation

program available. the president of the enhanced interrogation program said they would set up their own for the high value detainee's but as far as we can tell i don't think they have. i don't know what they would do today if they captured the equivalent of khalid sheikh mohammed. probably read him his miranda rights. i don't know. that's what in my mind it is a mistake for us to give up those capabilities. i hope that there are no more attacks. but even as we meet here today everybody goes to work with their car radio this morning there's a threat that's sufficient credibility at least at this stage that the authorities are saying this is not confirmed what we are to give very seriously. so i think it was a mistake for them not to stay as actively and

aggressively involved. the averted a beautiful piece of the notion that we overreacted. i don't think we did. i feel we did exactly what we had to do and the results speak for themselves. >> one or two more from the and then we will open up to questions from others. you often made the case that iraq was the central front in the war and terror. looking back on iraq one of the things that people have focused on a reading your book and in the refuse of your book is the fact that you don't think a lot of mistakes were made that there's not much would change about the way that the iraq war was conducted and i know that in the reading in my book but the criticism of what the state department did you often focused on secretary powell and the leader secretary rice but in the criticism of the pentagon did you focused on the general casey

and didn't focus on your friend and mentor donald rumsfeld. why is that? >> i thought i wrote a pretty good book. i thought it was relatively balanced. i chose not to dwell at length on what transpired in the immediate aftermath of our going into iraq. there had been a lot of books written about the policy in terms of setting of a new government in iraq. jerry brummer has written one to read some of the later books have been written. rumsfeld has written pretty extensively about and i basically took the approach that i could focus on a few things and what i really wanted to focus on was the surge and the

counter insurgency doctrine that accompanied the surge that we put in place at the beginning of a seven so there is a lot written about that in my book but i didn't spend a lot of time going back over what this department did with respect to managing the situation in iraq or with the pentagon did outside of normal military activities to speed but if you read the book and you talk to other people talked to other people on your staff in elsewhere where you said you were asking questions about the u.s. military strategy and iraq. during those years the is obviously were not going well ask the tough questions what is our strategy, do we know how to win, why do we doing the same thing? is the training effect of? and i guess the interest on a and i guess the interest on a personal level when did you start asking those questions? >> on a personal level i thought

now is as good as a time of any. you have to make choices and we wrote a little less than 600 pages, and as i point out in my early remarks i have material for the four or five books and what i chose was to focus on the highlights as i saw them and what i thought was vital in that regard obviously. i wrote it from my perspective in terms of what i saw and what i believed. i exercise to a certain amount of discretion. i didn't put down everything i know about what transpired in a whole range of different areas. >> will there be a second volume? >> it depends on how well this one does. [laughter] >> there are things i didn't

talk about what just on iraq but through my career when you are the vice president of the united states there are things you are involved and where he expects discretion it deserves at, and i didn't write about those things. that is generally true of lots of things. i think it's fair to say in both cases there are confidences they had in me in certain issues and -- to mccaul the second term foreign policy you're right in the book in the chapter not so subtly that you call setback about iran and north korea, about syria and nonproliferation

issues and you suggested various points in the chapter that the bush and administration lost its way, hattie's and to leave your away from the bush doctrine that was so well established in the first term. and i wonder if you see president bush himself lost his nerve. .. had to do with north koreas nuclear aspirations and that tvs, building a nuclear care for the syrians and eastern area

th that would allow them all f tonight to produce nuclear weapons and so forth. iide it was one there were i think m significant differences in safety administration.as in many of those were knownod, and, and i thought there were lsons to be , administration having trouble figuring how not to get the north koreans to go nuclear. the clinton administration faced similar problems. the obama administration will have similar problems as well, too. i thought it was important to put down the record, if you will, of how we dealt with that. now, in the final analysis, the president made the decision. he had to make choices. that's why he got the big bucks and lived in the big house. that's the responsibility of the president of the united states. obviously he did not always agree with my advice, and in

this particular case he opted for the state department view of how we should proceed rather than what i was recommending. it's not the first time i've lost an argument with the president. >> do you think we're less safe because of those decisions? >> well, i think -- this is a way to put it -- would be i believe that -- i gave an interview before 9/11, actually along in april or may of 2001. we'd only been in office a couple of months. and it basically -- atlantic, new yorker, where i righted as cited as the biggest threat the face niced was the possibility of a terrorist organization acquiring weapons of mass destruct, and e, an al qaeda with nukes. that i believe deeply, especially in the aftermath of

9/11, and it's important on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, to remind ourselves that threat is still out there, still very real, and one of the things i thought we did well, up to a point, was when we went in and we took down saddam hussein. obviously we eliminated one of the guys who had been a prime source of weapons of mass destruction previously. whether or not he had stockpiled at the time we hint in, he clearly was a proliferateash -- a potential o'live rater of that. so we got rid of him as threat. five days after we went in and captured saddam. moammar gadhafi held a press announcement he was surrendering all of his nuclear materials. he sad centrifuges for enriching uranium, a weapons design and he

surrendered all of those and the it's has them. so we took him out of the nuclear business. pretty good given what has happened since in libya would not been good if moammar gadhafi had nuclear weapons. we also took down a network. kahn was the mastermind of the pakistani nuclear program. then went into business for himself. black-market operation selling nuclear materials. his biggest customer was libya and was also dealing with north korea and to some extent with iraq. so saddam, moammar gadhafi, all put of business from the standpoint of having to worry about them producing and/or proliferating using those materials. the one we didn't get handle on was north korea, and what the chapter you referred to that i

call "set back," basically the story of how we did not deal effectively with the north korean threat. i think if you're keeping score, three out of four is not bad. but the problem is that threat is very real, and north koreans especially dangerous, but they've now tested two weapons. they have -- we caught them red-handed with respect to their providing a plutonium react for to one of the worst terrorism sponsored regimes on the face of the earth, nigeria. so perhaps the israelis took that out and it was established they will proliferate nuclear materials to terror sponsoring regimes, and the problem we're faced with is there's still very

much there, and we do not yet have a handle on north korea. the other problem, obviously, is still iraq. we haven't even talked about that. that ought to be front and center as well as the north coreons and our concern about that threat, and i still today as we meet, that's the most dangerous thread the united states faces, that technology will fall into the hands of an al qaeda type organization. and then nuclear weapons will no longer be a deterrent,. let's take few questions about iran. when you're called on, wait for the microphone, give your name and affiliation, and ask a question rather than making a long statement. >> were you surprised when you found out osama bin laden was in

pakistan in terms of your talking with president musharraf at that time, the cooperation between the countries? did you at any time feel that the palestinian authorities had been hiding something from the bush administration? >> i never had reason to believe that president musharraf was involved in neglect like that. i think there was a general view that bin laden was in remote -- some remote section of pakistan, not just a short ways from islamabad. i think what was startling was to find he was living where he was. he wasn't hiding in a cave someplace. there was a lot of the imagery that somehow he had gone underground figuratively. i had no -- in my dealings with

president musharraf -- and i dealt with him quite a bit -- to question his commitment to the work he was doing with us, to help us deal with the threat that had emerged from pakistan. i think he came to believe that al qaeda types threatened him personally as well as his regime as much as it did the united states, and that was true. two or three attempts on his life in a matter of weeks by al qaeda or al qaeda affiliated organizations, while he was still president. >> another question? yes, sir. right down here in front: >> mr. vice president, my name is jason stern. i'm a graduate student of middle east studies at george washington university.

i guess it's fair to say that no matter who is in the white house, the arabs present a challenge to uphold our values. how well is the obama administration responded to arab spring and how would the bush administration have responded differently if they were still in power? thank you. >> well, i am -- it's difficult to judge the quality of the current effort without having to speculate about what is going to come out at the far end of the process. and, frankly, i don't have answers to a couple of key questions. i don't know who is going to be in charge when the dust settles and new governments are established. what are these regimes going to be like how are they going to look at the u.s.? what kind of relationships are we going to have? in some cases, some of the

regimes that have been replaced, like hosni mubarak in egypt, had been good friends and allies of the united states. worked closely together with them in the first gulf war, for example. so if you're evaluating the outcome in terms of u.s. interests, i think there's a lot we don't yet know about the outcome. in terms of whether or not we should be supportive, i think that it is important for us to continue to express our support of certain values that we believe people ought to have the opportunity to live by. we believe in freedom and democracy, and i think that needs to come through. but again, you've got to come back and be cautious here, i think, in terms of, are we

promoting that process with respect to islamic fundamentalists? to groups or organizations that may have one election and then shut down the electoral process and you'll have hamas running it. we don't know yet. at it difficult to make a final judgment until we see how things develop. >> should the united states be taking a more outfront role in promoting the arab spring? >> i'm cautious, steve, partly because of things we don't know. but also i think it's important for us to be a little cautious about lumping them all together. and my experience over the years with that part of the world is, it's very important to remember these are different countries. in some cases language differences, religious

differences, splits between shia and sunni. and in some cases you have governments that i think are probably viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the governed, and others were clearly -- syria comes to mind -- a brutal dictator in charge and using violence to preserve his hold on power, and most of us could agree that assad needs to go. so when you talk about the arab spring dish think i understand what that means, and i think generally it's been welcomed as a fundamental change and reform, if you will in the region. but i think it's important to keep in mind, as we evaluate these developments, each and every one of these countries is different, and needs to be dealt

with accordingly. >> next question? yes. over there in front. >> alex, i'm your average citizen here. i have a question. when do we know we won the global war on terror? >> when do we know we won the global war on terror? well, -- it's not similar to what we think of as a conventional war, where we get the battle ship missouri and steam it into tokyo harbor and get all the guys there to sign a document saying, we quit. that not going to happen. and i think there is evidence out there that we're making significant progress. i think getting osama bin laden, very important, and very useful,

demonstrated part of that process. i think also it may be the kind of thing that is gradually phased in over time. but i don't think there's going to be -- there's likely to be an aha moment when you can say, there, it's done. >> take a couple more. sure. >> vice president, take you back to your earlier comments about the middle east and bring it back in history. the great controversy at the close of bush 41 administration was the assertion that, had we continued to march, was the phrase he used, might have been a different outcome. what do you think that outcome would have been had his advice been pursued in that regard? how would that have changed the course of events? >> well, don is talking about when he and i were in charge of

the pentagon, i was the secretary but he was the comptroller. he knew where all the money was. and the -- as i think back on that, -- careful not challenge my colleagues from that era because i think they all did good work. but i -- my recollection of the close of the gulf war was that there was unanimity on the part of the president and the senior civilians and military advisers, that we gathered around the desk in the oval office, we had the secure line open to riyadh, where our senior military commander, general schwarzkopf, was, and you can look back on it later and say, well, we should have done this or shouldn't have

let them have helicopters or -- things we didn't know at the time. but there was a general sense that we had done what we set out to do. we're going to liberate kuwait. that's what we told our tops we were going to do, and i promised when i went over there initially to put the u.s. forces into saudi and promised them, as soon as we completed the mission we would go home. we're not looking for permanent bases in saudi arabia. soit was -- so it was general sense. now, should we have gone to baghdad then? circumstances were pretty dramatically different ten years later, after we had had the events of 9/11, after we had seen saddam violate 16 out of 17 u.n. security council resolutions and produce and use

weapons of mass destruction against his own people. the world had shifted ten years later, and if we had gone in -- if there was a way to -- one thing i can think of i would liked to have changed would have been to have had saddam at the table signing the surrender document. that one of the things that emerged out of the way it was dealt with, was he was very creative and didn't have any qualms about misrepresenting the situation. but for years afterwards he peddled himself as somebody who had defied and successfully defied the great state of the united states of america, because after all we had done to him, he was still standing. that was the fact he was still standing that he used to

demonstrate or validate the notion that he had won. of course, he hadn't, but he was able to peddle that in that part of the world. so if i can thing of one thing i would have like to see differently, wouldn't have been going to baghdad but would have been to have him set his fanny down in a chair and sign a surrender document. >> all the way over. my name is siet from oakland daily newspaper and i also served in iraq for five years as a united nations spokesman and i can tell you iraq is a disaster zone with very little chance to recover for decades to come. iran has almost totally -- and the united states is about to -- was that a mistake to invade iraq? >> i think it would be a mistake to cut and run.

i don't think we should turn our back on iraq at this stage, and the efforts that we have mounted over the years. i think it's very important for us to complete the mission, and i think -- my own personal view is that there's a danger here of -- under the current administration, and that would be really unfortunate. >> one more quick one. >> sure. >> i'm with aei and the washington examiner. president bush in his memoir -- which doesn't purr port to cover the whole administration -- doesn't really mention iraq from the spring of '03 to the spring of '06. what do you say to the criticism the president was insufficiently monitoring his generals to not eliciting early enough or as

early as desirable something on the order of a -- the search strategy, which was ultimately developed at the end of '06 and '07, early '07? could that have been done earlier? >> well, i am inclined -- what i remember was that the president was heavily engaged in that period of time. he was not ignoring what was going on in operations in iraq. we had fairly regular sessions where he would get on the secure hookup to baghdad, not only with our own senior people but also with senior iraqis. i have a picture -- a picture i put in my book of rumsfeld and rice and i up at camp david, and doesn't show the president,

because he is on the other end in dab -- baghdad and we have a secure hookup at that period of time. he is in baghdad over there, visiting with -- having an important session with then then-prime minister al-maliki. so the notion he wasn't focused on, wasn't engaged, i would challenge that. i don't think that's true. >> let me take the prerogative of asking one last question and bringing this back to 9/11. you have made the case that 9/11 changed the government, and i think that's obvious to everyone. in many respects it changed the country. clearly changed the world. did it change you? >> did 9/11 change me? well, it was -- i don't think it changed me in the sense that some have suggested. that i had -- i have friends out

there -- used to be friends -- who -- i knew cheney when? when he was a nice guy. warm and fuzzy, but i don't know him now. the other night i did jay leno. i don't know whether anybody here saw it. but they have what they call a cold open, and the program begins with jay in greeting his guests of that evening. wearing blue jeans and so forth, hasn't got his suit on yet. and he asked me if i'm going to wear the suit on the hanger on the show that night and i opened the door and come out of the dressing room and i'm dressed as darth vader. which he was part of the joke. it didn't help my image any. i don't -- i suppose i don't --

i can't say it didn't change me. it's part of my life and it was an important milestone for all of us. obviously i spent the next seven and a half years working with the president and our colleagues to try to make absolutely certain that it never happened again on our watch, and that meant we had to take steps and enact policies that would guarantee the safety and security of the american people. i sort of see this as, okay, here's the problem, this is what we're going to do about it, and then we did it. the notion that -- of change mainly came to the fullest in my own mind -- i thought before about this problem of a 9/11 style attack -- terrorist attack with deadly weapons, something

other than box cutters and airline tickets. but the events of 9/11 brought that home, and i think it heightened my concern, would be a fair way to put it, about the potentially devastating consequences. we had anthrax attacks at the same time. those were probably domestically initiated. we had -- one night i remember being at a dinner in new york a month after 9/11, and as we landed that day, drove down to the waldorf where i was the guest speaker for the evening. received word that there had been a botulism attack at the white house. one of the detectives had gone off suggest that the president and i and others had been exposed to botulism toxin. deadly. deadly. and we didn't know for several howard whether that was true or

not. turned out to be a false reading, fortunately. but there was a level of heightened concern in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that we had to deal with. it was like on 9/11, you get a report that there are six planes hijacked, turned out there were only four. that was enough. a report there's a car bomb at the state department. turned out there was no car bomb at the state department. there was a report of a plane that had gone down on the ohio-west virginia border. now that was american 77 that simply dropped off the radar, hit the pentagon. there was a report of a plane down in pennsylvania. shanksville. that was true. that was united 93. so, as we went through the process in the immediate aftermath, as we're putting together policies and so forth, there's no question about what

there was a significantly elevated level of concern, and i felt, like i think most of us did, but i don't know how could i have done my job if i hadn't. i felt that part of my job was -- as the president's, was to make certain that we never again got hit the way we did on 9/11. >> well, with that, i'd like to think mr. vice president and thank the american enterprises for hosting, and thank all you for coming. [applause] >> thank so much. aei is grateful to have a friend like you, scholar, representing aei's mission so. we we're so thankful for your time this merge. mr. cheney, liz cheney,

>> condoleezza rice served as national security adviser and secretary of state in the george w. bush administration. she spoke about her career in government at the university of miami. it is just under an hour. >> it's one thing to an about american history in the classroom. it's quite another to absorb these lessons up close and personal with one of the 21st century's chief architects of american foreigne policy. . a cop leadership lecture series was established by ambassador sue cobb to commemorate her husband, chuck cobbs 50th birthday. i cannot birthday present. please join and recognizing sue and check for 25 years of providing the university of op

miami with the opportunity to host insightful and provocative leaders from all walks of life. [applause] i also want the students to ofank them for very generouslyn donating 300 of secretary rice is. the book, which were given to the first 300 student who the attended this year's event. [applause] now, the university takes no credit for doing this. i want to thank our very good i friend, mitch upland votes and. votes. the university met with him to a discuss launching a new partnership to bring speakers to campus in one week later he calledne to say that we would ht an opportunity to host secretari rice's first public talk to her about

relationship. thank you very much. [applause] >> the have sponsored other speakers, bob galvin, the founder ross perot, nba commissioner david stern, david gergen. sue and chuck have dedicated their career to serving their country in a community in a variety of ways. between them they are a formidable diplomatic corps that spans from iceland to jamaica to d.c. to tallahassee and miami. sue served as u.s. ambassador to jamaica for 2001-2005 during the same time when secretary rice serve as national security adviser and secretary of the state. governor jeb bush appointed her secretary of state of florida from 2005 to 2007. she has taught at the foreign service institute and cochaired the u.s. department of the state mandatory seminar for the newly

appointed ambassadors. and an interesting twist, she is an alumna of the stanford university where secretary rice is a very distinguished member of the faculty and former provost and the university of miami school of law. chuck was the u.s. ambassador to the republic of iceland during the administration of george h. w. bush and during of the ronald reagan at the ministry should he served as undersecretary and assistant secretary of the u.s. department of commerce where he was responsible for the trade development export promotion and international travel and tourism yet he was appointed by the florida governor and charlie crist to speak on the state board. both serve on the board of directors on the american investors. chuck is a double gratuitous stamford the we can't claim him as an alumni he is a longtime member of the chairman of the board of the member of miami's board of trustees. the diplomatic dynamic duo, the ambassadors cobb.

[applause] >> thank you, president shalala. dr. rice, ambassador, guests, we are pleased to have all of you here. this whole thing is sort of unfolded around the interests of my husband and leadership, so when we have been able to have outstanding leaders come through this area, we have arranged to have the university of miami students and guests participated and that's been an extraordinary pleasure. this year we hit the jackpot. [laughter] condoleezza rice. we do have a relationship that goes back and as you know i

think dr. rice was the provost at stanford and back at stanford now with the woodrow wilson institute we spent eight years on the campus of stanford. it was not because we could not a graduate. that is a different story. we have many mutual friends from our service in government and elsewhere, and of course we also have the privilege of service to our country at very consequential times. one of the things i enjoy thinking about in the leadership also and i think of dr. rice as a transformational leader. in fact i think of president shalala in the ambassador cobb as transformational leaders, you might think about and ask what are the concentrates -- common

traits. vision, touch context of all, understanding the environment you're not reading, communication and motivational skills. they are challenging but in power in comer rock-solid integrity, unusual determination and perseverance. welcome as you might guess i'm a great admirer of dr. rice, not quite as much as large gadafhi. i don't have a scrap. [applause] i do have an enormous regard for dr. rice and very pleased she is here to do her formal introduction. i'd like to invite investor cobb to the stage. [applause]

clich >> good morning, everybody. thank you, president shalala and my wife for those nice comments. before i introduce condoleezza rice, i want to share with all of you a favor to sallai have -- favoritism that i have a and the biases that i have a strong affinity for smart, strong, powerful, successful and charismatic leaders. and as evidence of that -- [applause] as evidence of that i've been married to one of those lease for 52 years. [applause] but as second evidence of that, i had the pleasure to share the

committee for the university of and our first choice by far was donna shalala because she had all of those skills. and then third, on the board of the woodrow wilson center and i had the honor to chair its search committee recently and our first choice was condoleezza rice who clearly has all of those skills as i will talk about in a moment. unfortunately we couldn't get her away from writing the script book. we were successful in encouraging congress woman jane harman who was the congressman from california, and also a very

charismatic driven powerful wonderful smartly. so it's quite obvious i think for all of this that i really do have this - come and for that reason it is really an opportunity and a pleasure for me to introduce the most successful woman in the world coming and i really do believe that. so, you heard from my wife about leadership skills and clearly condoleezza rice has all of those. but in my opinion the most important leadership skills she has and i think all successful leaders have this is the ability to bring people together, to team building, to seeking common ground and no one is more skilled at this than condoleezza rice. as the national security adviser as you all know it is her job to bring really diverse personalities together. and so in her case,