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 united states flexible, 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. .. >> convey that. and there were, this was an area that had to do with north korea's nuclear aspirations and activities, building a nuclear reactor for the syrians in eastern syria that would allow them, ultimately, to produce all nuclear weapons and so forth. um, it was one where with there were significant differencesif inside the administration. i think many of those were known, but part of my interest o was in putting down the historyh of that period. and the policy debates, and i thought there were lessons to be

learned. we weren't the first 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, >> the iowa caucuses are just a week away, and the candidates are business with can cam before busy with campaign appearances. newt gingrich is in mason city,

iowa. at 1:20 p.m., mitt romney makes an appearance in clinton iowa, and at 8 p.m., ron paul holds a campaignrally in des moines. that's all live on c-span and c-span.org. >> c-span2 is the only network that takes you inside the world of nonfiction books every weekend on booktv. 48 hours of the best in authors, politics, current events, issues and trends. find out more online at booktv.org including video of a all of our featured programs and the latest from the world of publishing. booktv every weekend on c-span2 and online at booktv.org. ♪ ♪ >> with the iowa caucuses next week and the new hampshire, south carolina and florida primaries later in the month, c-span's series "the contenders" looks back at 14 candidates who ran for president and lost but

had a long-lasting impact on american politics. tonight, barry goldwater. thursday, hubert humpfrey. and then on saturday, senator and congressman from south dakota george mcgovern followed by billionaire businessman, ross perot. the contenders, every night at 10 eastern on c-span. >> at this house hearing on crime in mexico, republicans called for mexican criminal organizations to be labeled as insurgents. the hearing focused on the marita initiative, a bush administration policy now enforced by president obama. it provides counter drug assistance and equipment to mexico, central american countries and parts of the caribbean to combat drug trafficking and organized crime in the region. this is two hours. >> the meet willing come to order. i'd first like to start and say i ask unanimous consent that the

gentleman from texas be allowed to sit in today's hearing. without objection, so ordered. that was a close call. [laughter] that was a close call. i first want to thank everyone, especially our witnesses, for joining us today. after recognizing myself and the ranking member, mr. engel, for five minutes each for our opening statements, chairman mccall and the ranking member keating five minutes each for their opening statements. we will then proceed directly to hearing testimony from our distinguished witnesses, the full text of the written statements will be inserted into the record. without objection members may have five days to submit statements and questions for the record. after we hear from our witnesses, individual members will be recognized for five minutes each for questions, and

i now recognize myself five minutes for my opening statement. two weeks ago four expert witnesses testified in this hearing room, two experts explained that an insurgency is raging along our southern border. the other two focused on the fact that violence and crime in mexico has taken a unique turn, and the u.s. response has not followed. all agree that the situation has evolved and fragmented into violent criminal control over parts of mexico. it is clear that today mexico represents a unique situation requiring the development of its own specific classification to successfully combat the authority of this expanding criminal control. today i will continue to headache the case that mexico is facing a criminal insurgency.

the attack on the state are clear; the criminal organizations are capturing the allegiance of the population through economic and social programs and as they undermine institutions, they have no desire to replace them. this makes the insurgency in mexico more of a threat to democratic governance than we have seen in any other insurgency scenarios. furthermore, these transnational criminal organizations are employing increasingly gruesome terrorist tactics to carry out their threats. the potential threat of criminal organizations controlling our southern border creates grave national security and economic implications for the united states. that is why in 2007 the united states began funding the initiative to improve the situation in mexico.

unfortunately, we face more extreme threats and violence from our border region today than we did four years ago. the marita initiative has been successful in two areas. first, establishing deeper cooperation between the united states and mexico, and that is clear. and, two, removing major drug kingpins in accordance with the goals of the mexican government. unfortunately, the game has changed. the reality in mexico is that u.s. assistance has lagged while the traditional cartels evolved into diversified transnational criminal organizations perpetrating insurgent tactics to protect their assets. after four years of the marita initiative, our border region with mexico is more violent today than it was four years ago. a reduction in violence, while

maintaining a full attack on the criminal organizations and strengthening the institutions to prosecute and punish hem them, is required in order to regain control. this is the basis of the counterinsurgency strategy that i outlined in the prior hearing. the united states should support a targeted, yet comprehensive strategy that works with mexico to secure one key population center at a time in order to build and support vital infrastructure and social development for lasting results. the counterinsurgency measures must include, one, an all-u.s. agency plan including the treasury department, department of justice, cia, u.s. immigration and customs enforcement, the state department and others to aggressively attack and dismantle the criminal networks in the u.s. and mexico.

two, once and for all we must secure the border between the united states and mexico. doubling border patrol agents, fully funding and delivering on the needed border protection equipment such as additional unmanned aerial vehicles and the completion of a double-layered security fence in urban, hard to enforce areas of the border. and, three, we must take key steps to insure local populations support the government and the rule of law over the cartels such as by promoting culture of lawfulness programs. as i stated before, the current u.s. policy with mexico does not seriously address the national security challenges we face. it is time that we recognize the need for a counterinsurgency strategy that can combat the evolution and resilience of mexico's transnational criminal organizations. this is a severe threat and

requires a serious response. i look forward to hearing from our experts from the department of homeland security, the department of justice represented by the dea and the state department on how the situation on the ground has evolved, the impact on u.s. personnel and their activities and tactical ways to squash this criminal insurgency. i now would like to recognize mr. keating for five minutes for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for holding today's subcommittee. as a member of both the house committees on foreign affairs and homeland security, i appreciate the opportunity to jointly examine this very important topic. combined presence indicates the extent to which we take the security of our southern border seriously, and i look forward to continuing to work with the western hemisphere subcommittee

on this topic. mr. chairman, we are here today to examine the progress of the initiative and how effective it has been in halting the flow of violence related to criminal activities of mexican drug trafficking organizations also known as dtos. in moving illegal drugs and weapons across the southwest border. that being said, the brutality of these d,tos has overshadowed a number of facts relevant to our discussion today. let us remember that those responsible, particularly for violence against women, are not distinctive, and the mexican military is not always impartial. yes, mexico is an ally, but we cannot paint the battle between the drug cartels and mexican law enforcement in plaque and white. in black and white. with minimum controls for corruption and impunity in mexico, it's difficult to decipher who exactly is committing the crimes. in two widely-publicized cases

cited by the robert f. kennedy center for justice and human rights, inez fernandez ortega and valentino, two indigenous women, were raped by soldiers from the mexican army in the municipality of geterer row state in 2002. however, to this day the state has refused to admit that these two women were raped. after nearly a decade, these cases were finally transferred to civilian courts, but these two cases are not isolated incidents in the violence perpetrated by the military. the national human rights commission says it's received more than 5,000 complaints about the alleged abuses by the military since the offensive against the drug gangs began in 2006. i note this not to discredit our ally, president calderon, or the marita initiative.

since both of them have led to reform in the mexican judicial system. but i want to really for the purposes of this hearing as well go into this hearing with a complete picture of what's happening on the ground in mexico and what president calderon is up against. at a time we're all tightening our belts, we must monitor funding to the mexican police and military closely. lest we add suffering to the innocent people who, unfortunately, have nowhere to turn. for this reason i strongly support the training assistance that we provide to the mexican military and police along with strong oversight mechanisms. the u.s. and mexico have made strides in developing strong working relationships with diplomatic levels down to field agents patrolling both sides of the southwest border. at present more than 17,500 border patrol agents, 1,200 national guardsmen are cleared for deployment along the border in over 250 immigration and

custom enforcement special agents, i'm sorry c.e -- i.c.e. agents, are assigned to supporting the border. certainly, this does not mean incursions do not exist, and undoubtedly, more work has to be done. however, this is the highest number of personnel to ever protect our region, and these numbers represent a step in the right direction. in fact, more effort and resources are deployed along the southwest border today than ever before. by the end of fiscal year 2011 according to the state department, the u.s. will have invested almost $900 million in equipment and training to advance the marita initiative and to assist our neighbor south of the border. since 2008 the u.s. has contributed approximately $1.6 billion to the initiative while mexico has allocated $26 million. furthermore, a new effort is

being implemented to strengthen training and technical assistance. i hope that the advances in the merida initiative are followed along as opposed to strangling them with budget cuts. although we need to be incredibly wary of the money that goes into the mexican government, this is not the time to decrease the number of border patrol agents and, thus, have the effect of making the southwest border less safe. i urge all of my colleagues, both sides of the aisle, to stand against such cuts. i look forward to this afternoon's testimony. real progress has been made since the inception of the merida initiative, and i am interested in hearing about the documented results of americans' participation in this program which, with proper oversight, can lead to real success. it's vital that we as congress work close hi with our diplomatic and federal agency personnel to insure they have the resources they require to

continue partnering with mexico to fulfill the goals of the merida initiative while combating crime and injustice on all sides. i yield back. >> thank you. thank the gentleman, and now i'd like to recognize the chairman, mike mccall, for his opening statement. >> thank you, chairman mack, for agreeing to hold the important joint hearing on a very important issue facing our neighbor and friend to the south, that is mexico. and even beyond mexico, to the region of mexico and central america. and i also want to thank ranking members keating and engel for participating as well. over the past five years, more than 40,000 men, women and children have been brutally murdered by insurgents, including 12 majors -- mayors, a gubernatorial candidate and law enforcement officers. local governments are harassed and intimidated while the bodies of those who stand up against these terrorists are hung from

bridges and tossed into the streets. i'm not speaking about al-qaeda or the taliban, i'm describing the acts of the mexican drug cartels. mexico's president, philippe calderon, declared war on the drug cartels when he took office in 2006. he described the violence in his country as a, quote, challenge to the state and attempt to replace the state, closed quote. and he said in response to the recent casino royale firing in monterey claiming 53 lives, he said, quote: we are facing true terrorists. end of quote. in 2008 the united states launched the merida initiative to assist mexico in its war against the drug cartels. over 1.5 billion has been appropriated, but to date only a third -- although i'm sure the witnesses will tell me more now -- has been delivered. according to reports issued by the gao, the initiative lacks

performance measures and accountability. this raises serious issues. what is our strategy and plan to help mexico win this war? is it now time to move beyond merida? and what do the federal agencies need from congress to accomplish this mission that we all agree is so vital not only to mexico's national security, but to ours? the united states' efforts need to be re-examined. we are underresourced along our border with mexico. there have been threats and attempts to kill u.s. citizens and federal and state law enforcement officials. as a member of congress, i had the privilege to travel and meet with our troops in iraq and afghanistan. but during one visit to el paso intelligence center, i requested to go into juarez. i us with told -- i was told by the state department they could not guarantee my safety. 6,000 people have been killed in juarez alone. we were given the same security measures that we receive in iraq and afghanistan and pakistan.

the cartels have not only breached our border, but are now creating narco safe havens across the border including in my home state of texas. this is the conclusion of a recent report by robert scales. they also say the cartels are using prisons and recruitment centers in cities in the united states for their drug operations. both of these generals will testify before my subcommittee next week. additionally, a very recent report from the department of justice revealed that the drug cartels operate in the more than 1,000 cities across the united states. one thousand cities. they control distribution of most heroin, marijuana, methamphetamines and other narcotics. these terrorists both in mexico and the united states are a threat to national security and should be treated as such. i introduced legislation requiring the state department classify drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations similar

to what president clinton did to the farc in colombia. this would limit the group's financial and travel interests and prosecute individuals who provide them any assistance. the legislation must also be tie today fighting the cartels both here and abroad using every means available. the drug cartels do intimidate and coerce the civilian population, they do effect the mexican government, and they threaten the national security of the united states. if you look at a definition, black law definition and also under federal law, this is the very essence of terrorism. there is a real war happening along our border, and the enemy is covertly infiltrating our cities. we must take this threat seriously and take decisive action, and in closing, i wanted to point out two more events. just recently during rush hour the cartel dumped two truckloads of bodies in a busy intersection in vera cruz, and most

disturbing, five severed heads were stuff inside a sack and placed outside a primary school in acapulco after the dtos threatened to attack elementary school teach terse they did not pay have their wages to the drug cartels. i submit to you, mr. chairman, that we are -- they are terrorizing the population. i submit to you that these drug cartels are terrorizing the schools and the children in those schools. and with that i yield back. >> thank you very much, chairman mccall. and i'd like mow to turn -- now to turn to mr. engel for his opening statement. >> thank you, thank you, mr. chairman. this is the second in an important series of hearings on the merida initiative and the situation in mexico. let me first say i welcome all the witnesses here, especially my friend, bill brownfield, who's been doing such wonderful work. very respected, and i'm happy that you're all here. i want to commend chairman mack

for taking the opportunity to conduct oversight on this key priority for u.s. foreign and domestic policy, and i'm very happy to be here today. there's no more important relationship than the united states and latin america than the one we have with mexico. we share a border almost 2,000 miles long, a rich and intertwined history, deep cultural connections and economies which are now interwoven and mutually dependent. yet today serious challenges and problems extend to both sides of the border. in the last several years, the drug trade which had once been the domain mostly of -- [inaudible] nations has moved north. it has taken hold in mexico. as i stated in the first of these hearings, i wanted to be clear that the united states stands with our friends to the south in the fight against narco trafficking. mr. chairman, i'm as disturbed as you by the horrors carried out by the drug trafficking organizations in mexico. they are brutal criminals who

prey on the abuse of narcotics in the u.s. while afterrening aing -- ravaging communities in mexico and elsewhere. their actions are illegal and hideous. i don't want to have a she plant call discussion. i'm not exactly sure if we could call them insurgents in terrorism. i'm not sure that describes what's going on in mexico. dod defines insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of conflict. dod defines terrorism as the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear or to intimidate governments or societies through a generally political, religious or ideological. the drug gangs are, i don't believe have political, religious or ideological goals. they're criminals trying to make money peddling their illicit narcotics. it's not exactly terrorism, and,

um, not exactly insurgency, but it doesn't make it any less awful. we in the unite, obviously, have a real stake in trying to get at them and trying to defeat them. i think mr. mccall's examples of what we've, what we've seen with these people are capable of is something that we in the united states, obviously, have a very important stake in. i mentioned before, what i mentioned before about the definition of terrorism because i'm concerned if we were to put these groups on the terrorist list with the gun dealer who innocently provide -- negligently provides them weapons or the banks which lend them money be prosecuted under terrorism laws. it's unclear. but i think the possibility of adding these dtos to the terrorism list raises serious questions we need to explore in this hearing. it doesn't mean that we have to go after them any less. in fact, we need to do

everything we can. but i raise this because i just think it's important before we jump and call them terrorists or insurgents. i think we need to be careful. among the other questions i'd like our witnesses to discuss today are, one, whether we're doing enough at home to reduce demand for drugs. i've said many, many times when i've chaired this committee and as ranking member that if we didn't use the drugs, there wouldn't be a need for these people to do what they do. how can we slow the illicit flow of weapons into mexico? i think we should discuss that today. is the merida assistance moving fast enough? we've had a problem with that in the past. i think that's important to concentrate on. and finally, how are u.s. authorities coordinating on the border with mexican authorities? so, mr. chairman, i'm very happy that we're having this hearing, i think these issues are very important. i think our goals are identical.

we need to see these criminals and these thugs brought to justice. we need to stop it. and we have a stake in it just as much as mexico does, and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. engel. and i now would like to introduce our witnesses. first, the honorable william r. brownfield. ambassador brownfield is the assistant secretary for the bureau of international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. prior to this appointment mr. brownfield served as u.s. ambassador to kilometer rah from august 2007 until august 2010. before serve anything colombia, ambassador brownfield served as u.s. ambassador to venezuela and chile. welcome and thank you so much for being here today. second, mr. rodney g. benson. mr. benson is the assistant administrator of intelligence for the drug enforcement administration. prior to his appointment

mr. benson served as a special agent in charge of the atlanta field division where he directed and led federal drug enforcement operations throughout the state of georgia, north carolina, south carolina and tennessee. additionally, mr. benson served as a special agent in charge of the seattle field division. and third is ms. mariko, did i say that right? >> [inaudible] >> silver. she is the acting assistant secretary for international policy at the u.s. department of homeland security. prior to her appointment ms. silver served as policy adviser for innovation, higher education and economic development to then-governor janet napolitano in the state of arizona. before joining the governor's office, ms. silver served as special adviser to the president and director of strategic projects for the office of the president at arizona state university. thank you all very much for

being here. i now would like to turn to ambassador brownfield and recognize him for five minutes. mr. brownfield, thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, ranking members, members of the foreign affairs and homeland security committees, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i have a written statement for the record which i have submitted and would like to offer a brief oral summary. mr. chairman, i do not intend to spend your time describing the origin, history and purpose of the merida initiative. you know them better than i do. i will say that this has been more of a partnership between two governments than a traditional foreign assistance program. that the congress has been generous in funding it and that the merida initiative has

delivered some concrete successes over the past four years. since 2009 more than 33 high-level cartel leaders have been removed or arrested. this compares with one in the preceding six years. thanks to the merida initiative, the mexican government now has 14 additional helicopters, hundreds of sophisticated nonintrusive inspection suites of equipment and more than 150 k-9 teams. more than 52,000 mexican police and prosecutors have received some professional training under the merida initiative. by the end of this year, we will have delivered more than $900 million worth of equipment and training to mexico with more than 500 million delivered this year alone. there is no doubt in my mind,

ladies and gentlemen, that the united states is better and safer today thanks to our support for the merida initiative. but, ladies and gentlemen, merida is in transition. where we once focused on delivering equipment and goods, we now focus more on providing specialized training. for four years we concentrated on building strong federal institutions. we now concentrate more on state and municipal institutions. and we will initially focus our support in northern mexico where the violence is greatest and where we have shared border security interests. mr. chairman, the merida initiative was not engraved in stone. it is a living strategy that is modified, adjusted and corrected as circumstances change on the ground and we learn lessons. some of those lessons came from

the united states congress and came from some members in this very chamber. it is a valuable idea to integrate our efforts against illicit drugs, organized crime and terrorism into a unified, holistic approach to support the merida initiative. and we have learned lessons from other theaters of operations around the world that can and should be integrated into our merida efforts. but, mr. chairman, there are two lessons we did not have to learn because we already knew them. the first is that merida is a cooperative agreement between the u.s. and mexico with the government of mexico in charge of all activities within their territory. if we do not work together with the mexican government, then we accomplish little for either the american or the mexican people. and second, as i lear