strategic patience. i'm an optimist, mr. chairman, and i believe we have already made serious progress under this initiative. but it took our two nations many years to get into this situation, and it's going to take us some years to get out of it. i thank you, mr. chairman, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. now mr. benson is recognized for five minutes. .. '80s

to subordinates of the colombia cartelses in the '80s and the violent actors in the global drug market today. from my supervisory position on the southwest border, to coordinating multi-injure additional at the headquarters and national level and from my position as special agent in charge of offices in seattle and atlanta, i have witnessed the remarkable spread of mexican trafficker influence throughout the united states and around the world. currently, we enjoy an unprecedented levels of cooperation and coordination with our mexican counterparts and greatly appreciate the unwavering commitment and leadership of president

calderon. the pursues of the merida initiative is critical against the formidable enemy. dea has benefited from the opportunity to work with better equipped and better trained police officers and prosecutors. the u.s. state department has administered the position of technical material and educational support to our tireless partners resulting in the dismantling and fracturing of several dtos and encouraging our partners in mexico on far-reaching judicial law enforcement reforms. information-sharing between our two nations with the goal of capturing mexico's most violent and prolific traffickers has never been more robust. as these warring groups have splintered into smaller often legalist factions we see the surrogate bosses lack not only the discipline of their elders and formal leaders or the international connections and

influence to realize the custom level of profit. some might call the resultant behavior anarchy and dea recognizes that extreme seemingly arbitrary criminal violence has a label when some of that violence is directed at government officials, police officers, soldiers and civilians. and despite some groups resorting to terrorist-like tactics of bombings and beheadings these acts are not precipitated by any motivation other than greed and rivalry. the members of these desperate organizations are not fighting in the name of an ideology, philosophy or religion or for political power and influence but to eliminate competition, settle scores and increase profits. extortion, kidnapping, oil pipeline theft, prostitution, carjacking and robbery, even media piracy all serve to bolster drug trafficking revenue and they are the hallmark

activities of organized crime. the government of mexico continues to work to build law enforcement capacity and funding from the merida initiative was critical in the transformation of the federal police agency and the training of police officers and prosecutors at all levels. in june of last year, our partners passed some of the most effective antimoney laundering legislation in the country's history and the results of our bilateral efforts to claim a portion of the estimated 18 to 39 million in drug profits crossing our border every year are improving. as the next step in proving the effectiveness of mexico's state and local police agency is tantamount for lasting success. i stress again it has only been in this area of remarkable cooperation that u.s. efforts have been matched or exceeded by our partners in mexico. we are committed to our partners and must continue to support their endeavors to bring

security to mexico and its citizens. supporting the merida initiative and president calderon as well as the next administration in mexico is the only option. thank you again for the privilege of speaking to you on behalf of the men and women of the drug enforcement administration, and i'll gladly respond to any questions that you might have. >> thank you very much, mr. benson. ms. silver, you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much. chairman mack and chairman paul, ranking member engel and ranking member keating, and distinguished members of the subcommittees, on behalf of secretary of homeland security janet napolitano first i want to thank you for your continued support and for the opportunity to testify today about our work with mexico and on the merida initiative. dhs's opponents have participated in the state-led merida initiative since its accepting in 2007 and secretary napolitano continues to support participation in merida-funded

programs. while the state department has responsibilities as you know for policy oversight and dispersing merida funds, dhs and other u.s. interagency partners participate in intently particular programs. this approach is consistent with the department of state's quadrennial diplomacy and development review which states, quote, given the national security implications of security secretary substance, state will look first to the departments of justice, defense, and homeland security to implement stimulate programs involving counterterrorism capacity-building or in law enforcement or strengthening justice in interior ministries and we're pleased to participate in that weren't to mexico. in my written testimony, i provided some specific examples regarding the types of engagement that cbp, i.c.e., and coast guard have had during the course of the merida initiative. we work with state department and with our mexican partners on anything from training to procuring equipment by the merida initiative. we believe the dhs' unique expertise and skill sets have

contributed greatly to furthering the goals of the merida initiative. i want to shoat the merida initiative marked a change with collaboration of mexico and security law enforcement issues. we've seen it in the policies and we've seen it on the ground. as part of the shift it led to a significant framing and change in our bilateral gambit. the merida initiative is framed around four pillars. dhs works in all four but we focus on pillar 3 which is creating a 21st century border. during the state business of president felipe calderon in 2010, president obama and calderon specifically acknowledged the work being done under pillar 3. president obama and calderon's joint statement articulating that, quote, the 21st century border must ensure the safety and security of residents and communities along both sides of the border. and, quote, they affirm the interests of mexico and the united states to prevent entry

into our countries of people who pose a threat to national security. the president's border vision also recognizes the need to develop the border and manage it in a holistic fashion which we have been working on with our mexican partners. this policy vision requires us to move beyond seeing border management as simply or guarding or policing the jurisdictional line between mexico and the gulf of mexico. they are linked as was pointed out. thus government efforts in the border and the interior should be complimentary and leverages with all agency counterparts. enforcement at the border that is between and at the ports of entry is necessary but it should be part of a more comprehensive approach. through this approach we need to engage domestically at the border and abroad which we're here to talk about today to secure the united states. we need also to leverage opportunities working with our foreign partners to intercept and neutralize the threats before they reach the u.s. border.

dhs recognizes, of course, as i'm sure do all of you that more places and more countries are interconnected through networks of trade and travel every day, the very nature of travel, trade and commerce today means that vulnerabilities or gaps anywhere across the globe including, of course, in our neighbor mexico have the ability to affect abilities thousands of miles away and in the united states. it must also include efforts to include global trade and travel networks. this view of border security highlights the importance of collaboration of tribal governments as well as international and private sector partners. it's built on approaches to newer both economic competitiveness and national security. we've, of course, can't let commerce grind to a halt. dhs appreciates the support congress has shown for our work and your support of the united states relationship with mexico through the merida initiative. from the field level to senior departmental leadership, the united states and mexico are closer now than we have been. while challenges remain we believe there's a strong foundation of cooperation on

which we will build. we look forward to continuing to work with congress to achieve these goals and with our mexican partners. thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i'm happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you very much, ms. silver. and i now recognize myself for five minutes for questions. first of all, let me -- let me make this perfectly clear, the people of the united states and the people of mexico have a very shared interest in this. the people of mexico and the people of the united states have similar desires and that is for the ideas of freedom, security, and prosperity. and this hearing today is to get at some of the questions about where we've been, which have been documented, but have we diagnosed the problem correctly and what do we do moving

forward? so first let me ask just kind of a baseline question here for all of you and hopefully i can get a yes or no. i know that might be difficult for some of you, but please try. have the drug cartels in mexico evolve in their criminal activities and level of violence since 2007? ambassador? >> i'll start, mr. chairman. they have involved -- they are different cartels than they were at the start of this process. they are smaller. they are more numerous. they are more diverse. and as a consequence, they are a different kind of strategic and tactical problem to address than they were four years ago. >> thank you. mr. benson? >> and yes, chairman, we have seen that evolution, expansion, some of those cartels splintering and then -- essentially more criminal groups that we're targeting. >> thank you. and ms. silver? >> i would corn occur with that. they're definitely more fragmented we have many more

small on the ground troops and as ambassador brownfield pointed out they are different to point out. >> according to the cia, and i quote insurgent activities include guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and political mobilization such as propaganda, recruitment and international activity. do you agree that the cartels in mexico are engaging in the activities listed by the cia? >> it's a label, mr. chairman, but i -- i will not question whether certain members and certain organizations are doing certain things. although, to be honest i could probably make the same comment about organizations in the united states as well. >> but you don't deny that the cartels are engaged in guerrilla warfare, terrorism and political mobilization such as propaganda recruitment and international activities? >> i accept that individuals of some of these organizations are

doing sometimes and some places this sort of activity. i do not suggest it's systematic or in its institutions. >> we have a slide here -- guerrilla warfare, so you got examples of mexican federal police officers attacked in mexico. next slide. terrorism, you have a gunman killed 52 people and burned the casino royale in monterey, mexico, and i believe the president himself indicated that was terrorism. political mobilization, you have a candidate for governor who was assassinated in june, 2008 -- or 28, 2010. you have political protests, increasing pressure and awareness surrounding the war on drugs. again, then you have -- next slide, propaganda and recruitment. you actually have the cartels who are holding fairs and providing food and drinks and

music, happy children's day and at the same time, recruiting and offering better pay and health care. so i think that would go towards that. and then you have international activity, which we've all talked about here today. so i'm having a little bit of a hard time understanding the reluctancy in saying that the activities that the cartels are showing do fit the definition -- the cia talks about activities as an insurgency. >> i don't question your facts, mr. chairman. nor do i question your motivation. you and i have exactly the same objective in mind here. if on the other hand, you're asking me do i see exactly the same thing here as i see in other parts of the world that we have described as an insurgency, there is a difference. >> ambassador, i'm not asking about other parts of the world. i'm asking specifically about whether or not the cartels are partaking in an insurgent activity as outlined that we just did. the last question here, the

department of homeland security and the department of justice are addressing some of these newer concerns such as drug trafficking, financing in the united states and border protection programs. but separate from the merida initiative. wouldn't it make sense to have a coordinated u.s. strategy to meet strategic u.s. goals in mexico? >> ambassador, if you want to take a quick shot at that. >> sure, although we would have to work our way just as do you when you are melding what your subcommittee does with what mr. mccaul's subcommittee does we have to deal with these as a foreign issue and a domestic issue. but the answer to your question is yes. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. so you agree there's been an evolution in the activities in the violence by the cartels. you can agree that there has been insurgent activities in mexico from the cartels. and that we need to have a

coordinated u.s. strategy to meet the strategic goals. mr. benson, do you agree with that? >> chairman, i think right now we have a very robust interagency targeting effort. as we target mexican organized crime and their cells here domestically an intelligence that's generated is shared very timely to our counterparts in mexico. and our goal obviously being to impact the largest piece of the organization as possible. and we continue to do that as the ambassador mentioned on some of these captures that we've had over the last couple of years, unprecedented numbers of high value targets of cartel leadership that has created these smaller groups has been -- has been a great success. >> thank you, mr. benson. and my time has expired. i'd now like to recognize mr. engel for five minutes for questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. you know, again, i don't want to

get into semantics but i just think it's important that we define these things. i want to read something that mexican ambassador arturo wrote on april 11th of this year in the "dallas morning news" and i quote him, these transnational criminal organizations which operate in both our countries are not terrorist organizations. they are very violent criminal groups that are well structured and well financed. they pursue a single goal. they want to maximize their profits and do what most businesses do. hostile takeovers and pursue mergers and acquisitions. they use violence to protect their business from other competition, from other competitors as well as from our two governments' efforts to roll them back. there is no political motivation or agenda, whatsoever, beyond their attempt to defend their illegal business. misunderstanding the challenge we face leads to wrong policies and bad policy-making.

if you label these organizations as terrorists, you will start to -- you will have to start calling drug consumers in the u.s. financiers of terrorist organizations and gun dealers, providers of material support to terrorists. so i'm wondering -- we can start with ambassador brownfield. can you discuss the implications of labeling the mexican dtos as terrorist groups. do you believe with the ambassador? >> the ambassador is very a wise man. he doesn't speak for the united states government or for me. he does speak for the government of mexico. i think his reasoning is pretty sound, congressman, and that is to say, we have to -- we have to look through just the label and we have to think through what the implications of the label would be. i agree with virtually all of the suggestions that the facts are consistent with the label. i then say that is only half of our job. the next half is to assess what is the implication of us making

this determination? does have it domestic legal implications? does have it implications that are political in nature? what does it gives us that is more than we already have? these are the questions that i think we should ask as well as whether these specific acts of this organization, in fact, are consistent with the acts of an insurgency or of a terrorist organization. >> mr. benson? >> sir, in my career, i have, as i've targeted mexican organizations operating on the border, or up in -- up in the northern border, across the -- in the southeast, the northeast, it's been targeting of organized criminal gangs, cartel representatives and linking that back to those leaders back in mexico. we do clearly show our intelligence that we generate here in the united states, and we target -- they're clearly

taking direction from their leadership south of the border. >> so is the ambassador right that you agree with his statement that he wrote? >> as a -- as a career special agent, i view those mexican trafficking groups as organized criminals, organized crime. >> ms. silver? >> from our perspective at dhs, we also view them as organized crime. and our interest is lessening the semantics, and lessening the label but what the label implies operationally for us. and for us we have had the law enforcement tools that we have are best suited to the job that we see at hand. >> thank you. the original statement jointly issued by the u.s. and mexican governments in october of '07 announcing the merida initiative, and i remember it very well because i chaired the subcommittee then. it said that reducing demand in the united states is a major goal of the program.

without demand in just country, it's clear that there wouldn't be a significant narco criminal problem in mexico, colombia or elsewhere. since fy of '04, spending on demand reduction has increased 2 billion. but why aren't we doing more to reduce demand for illicit narcotics in the u.s.? are we living up to our original commitment under the merida joint statement to fight demand? and if we don't deal with demand at home, aren't we treating the symptoms, not the disease, ambassador? >> i'll start on this, congressman, although as you know, i look externally as opposed to internally. obviously, it's a very simple matter to say if there's no demand there's no supply because you're not supplying any demand. it's much more complicated than that as we all know. we have been addressing this internal drug consumption problem in the united states in a serious way for nearly 50 years. we have not been sitting on our hands. we spend more money on this than i think any other nation on the

planet. it is integrated into our domestic policy. and i would offer a foreign affairs suggestion as well, and that is let us not assume that when the day arrives we have solved our drug problem. the foreign drug supply problem is going to disappear. it will not evidence -- exhibit number 1 is u.s. cocaine demand has reduced some 50% over the last 6 or 7 years as the production of cocaine has disappeared 60%? no it has not. the producers have sought out new markets and it goes to additional locations. they are in it for the money. and they will create markets if markets are denied to them. >> i guess my time is up. i don't know if anyone wants to just jump in quickly. >> somebody have a quick answer to this? >> i would just say that we are

the primary enforcement arm but every agent in their off-time is that constant time frequently where agents are going to our local schools and many, many outside events on demand reduction because that, obviously, is an important component as we look at the drug abuse problem in the u.s. >> thank you, mr. engel. i now recognize mr. mccaul for five minutes for questions. >> and thank you, mr. chairman. let me first commend all three witnesses for your dedication and service to this country in a very challenging time. i think we don't pay enough attention to this issue. i know, ambassador, you're the expert. and you've been on this issue for decades. you're the ambassador to colombia. and we recently went down to colombia to visit with the president down there to talked about what worked and what didn't and we do know that one of the things that president

clinton did he did designate the farc as a foreign terrorist organization. i think it's important to point out -- this is more than just a label. it's not just a label. it's a designation that provides authorities. it's a designation that provides tools to combating them by freezing bank assets in the united states. by prosecuting with a 15-year enhancement for anybody who aids and abets a terrorist. by allowing us to go after -- unlike the kingpin which you only go after the head, this allows you to go after the body of the organization. and in addition, it doesn't have to be just a person in the united states. it can be a foreign national, which i think is critical. so jurisdiction is beyond the united states. and i just wanted to -- just your experience, ambassador, and being down there in colombia, and watching that successful operation, tell us how this foreign terrorist organization designation -- can you tell me whether that was helpful?

>> a very fair question, mr. chairman. and i'll offer you a couple of observations. first, i have absolutely no objection to having placed the farc, the aln and the paramilitaries on the fto list and participated in that process in 1999 and 2000, and i believe 2001. it was -- it was helpful to the extent that it got at their support network. i don't think it had a direct and immediate impact on them inside colombia because the guys that were in the camps and the jungle were obviously not worried a great deal about their designation. but their external support structure was, in fact, affected. and, in fact, their external support structure was small enough that you were able to verify who they were and go after them. that was helpful. being able to call them terrorists was helpful. being able to assert every time we talked about the hostages that they were keeping in jungle

camps and referring to them as terrorists was helpful. being able to say, we, the european union, the canadians and there may have been one other government had put them all on the same list was helpful. i don't deny it. it was helpful in colombia. and i do not -- and i said it once and i'll say it again, you and i have exactly the same objective. the question is how are we going to get there? >> and i think that's a fair assessment. the definition under federal law is to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government by extortion, kidnapping, political assassination. you know, when i look at what's going on down there, it seems to me they fall squarely within that definition. and i wanted to -- i mean, maybe it is semantics, mr. engel, but i do think this law would provide additional authorities to help mr. calderon win this

war. he described the violence in his country as a challenge to the state, an attempt to replace the state. that sounds like more than just organized crime. and in the recent casino fire, he says that we're facing true terrorists. so mr. benson, i appreciate everything you do at the dea and your agents, particularly, down, you know, in mexico and central america. i mean, they're really in the line of fire. in your testimony, you have under here the threat to governance, the threat to governance. those who organize, finance, direct and control drug trafficking thrive in areas where government control is weak. we know that they're looking just as the taliban and al-qaeda does for failed states. i would argue guatemala is on the verge of being a failed state and mexico city, 25 farmers heads were cut off that day. this is real stuff. and it seems like every day we're hearing about some new

report. and they are looking for safe havens. they are looking to manipulate the government. in your testimony, you said more troubling is the fact that many of these brutal murders were committed with the specific intent to intimidate the public and influence the government to suspend action against the cartels, to intimidate the public and influence the government. again, going back to the definition under federal law, to intimidate and influence. they terrorize civilians. they terrorize the mexican people. there's no question about it. the example of the school bus, trying to extort money from teachers. and throwing heads in the front of the school. you know, this is beyond some of al-qaeda's worst tactics. there's a real problem down there. and i guess the debate we're having is, how best to handle that. i want to allow you, mr. benson, to respond. >> sir, i agree, they are

attempting to instill fear in the public because they want to -- they want to try to instill this fear on the public to prevent the government from increasing their operation tempo and targeting. the government is having that continued success. and so they're reverting to these vicious acts to instill that fear. so in my opinion, we need to keep that operational tempo going forward, both in the united states and in mexico, what we're doing now, in those successes that i've highlighted. so if we continue attacking their leadership in both countries, simultaneously, with that information flow going back quickly, that will result in positive success down the road. >> and i agree the partnership is key. i don't know if we have a second round. are we? okay. just for the record, i would like to put in the record the response from the "dallas morning news" to the letter described by mr. engel as very interesting.

that these are not just businessmen trying to make money. they are more than that, they're killers and they do terrorize. and with that i yield back. >> thank you, mr. mccaul. i would now like to recognize mr. keating for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chair. ambassador brownfield, you made reference to the fact that merida is in transition and we've moved from equipment goods and training and i want to make an aside that in 2010 we withheld 15% of the merida funds pending compliances, some basic human rights. i want to ask you if -- i'll jump to this because i think it's more on point for me. to what extent do you think the people in local communities particularly indigenous communities feel comfortable going to the mexican military or the police to report crime? >> congressman, obviously, it will depend upon the community.

and there is a difference between the military and the police. the military does not tend to be local. they obviously have come in from somewhere else for the mission of whatever duration. the police is local. and are members of the community. and in some communities in mexico, i would say to you that probably the community is very uncomfortable reaching out to the authorities, seeing them as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. in others, i suspect that is different. one thing that i would suggest to you fairly strongly, however, is that since the merida initiative, more mexican communities have seen their law enforcement and military as part of the solution rather than the problem than they did before merida. >> thank you. i just want to follow up, too, how have women been impacted by the violence of the drug cartels by cases also like inez and valentina where the very forces that were supposed to protect them, harmed them and then ignored the allegations of rape?

>> a two part answer for a two part question in my judgment, women have been inordinately affected by the drug cartels in their attempts to intimidate through violence, through extortion, through threats, the communities and the institutions because of the belief that by threatening -- that the female population, they will have greater impact than threatening, killing or otherwise abusing males. the second part of your question deals with the institutions that are supposed to be protecting them. and, obviously, every time you have a case, an incident, in which the institution that is held responsible for protecting that community, in fact, goes to the dark side and becomes part of the problem, you've taken a giant step back and it takes years sometimes to restore the confidence in the institution. >> yeah, do you think that

withholding funds specifically geared to that would be a deterrent to that? what's going to change that? >> i'll offer you my view with which you have every right not to agree with completely, congressman. in my judgment, there are many ways to attack this issue. some of them are direct and blunt and frontal, and that is withhold funding until or put specific training components into the program that says you will be trained on human rights. you will be trained on respect for women and children, whatever that may be. part of it is indirect. you build institutions, prosecutors and even special courts that are designed specifically to address this issue. but in my personal opinion, the most important thing we can do is professionalize across-the-board throughout the nation mexican law enforcement. when you have more professional, more competent, better-trained law enforcement officers, just

trained in law enforcement, they are far less likely to commit that sort of abuse. and that kind of cuts against holding too much of the funding in abeyance because that 15% is obviously 15% for that period of time is not being used for that training purpose. i swing either way. it depends on the day and what i had for lunch. >> well, none of that will do any good if we don't have oversight that will bring it to the surface. what are we doing and the american taxpayers are funding many of these initiatives, what are we doing to make sure this is being rooted out and we discover this and then through training or maybe other actions withholding money and other actions we can deal with that. i know i'm only leaving you about 25 seconds but i want to ask you about that oversight. how are we going to find that out? are we doing a good enough job in that regard? >> my own view is -- i give us

between a c plus and a b minus right now but i would do that with almost any program of this size that we're just getting started. your problems will almost always occur in the first two or three years of your massive programs and i don't care whether you're talking about afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, mexico, colombia, that's where your biggest number of problems are. we're out of that period right now. you have a right to ask of us what is our specific evaluation and oversight mechanisms. and i will tell you that i believe that is our challenge for this year that we're still in and next year. part of the problem that we have to work our way through is how we work this with the government of mexico because at the end of the day, these are their institutions, their police, their military. i actually hope you will call me up and haul me over the -- over the coals in another six months' time on just that issue because i, in fact, am hopeful we're going to have a much better,

clearer and more precise story to tell by that time. >> thank you. and since i'm over my time, if you could in writing forward to me not just the grade but what actions and oversight you're going to implement and then we'll look at the grade afterwards. thank you. >> thank you, mr. keating. and just for the record, mr. ambassador will be happy to call you back and rake you over the coals. [laughter] >> i'd now like to recognize mr. bilirakis for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate it very much. to the panel, for several months now, i've expressed my deep concern regarding reports that the administration participated in multiple acts of gun-walking such as we've seen in, of course, the case of fast and furious, allowing firearms to pass into the possession of criminal and other third-party organizations south of our

border. i strongly support efforts to disrupt criminal syndicates that traffic firearms, of course, and drugs. and conduct other illicit and illegal activities. however, when those efforts serve to fuel the operations of criminal enterprises through the provision of firearms, they must be stopped. it's extremely troubling that the united states government would willfully allow weapons to be acquired by dangerous criminals and drug trafficking organizations in direct cont contravention of the government. what are you doing to enforce current laws and ensure we are not allowing weapons to fall in the hands of mexican drug cartels and criminal organizations? please. >> congressman, when i look at

drug trafficking and drug trafficking, violence go hand-in-hand. as we target those cartel representatives that have deployed to the united states, we encounter weapons frequently. we seize those weapons. and we do that continuously throughout operations throughout the country. >> thank you for the question. from the dhs point of view, obviously, we are constantly on the lookout on the southwest border and on the region for weapons that are southbound. we've instituted checks of rail and of cars that far outstrip anything we've done in the past for exactly that reason. and we'll continue to do so. >> and finally, if i could add on from our end, congressman, and that's the external side, what we do on the southern side of the border, we are working to support both training for mexican law enforcement and military in terms of identification of and how to do

investigations of illicit firearms and illegal firearms. and second, we support tying them in to our own electronic tracing systems that we have whereby we can track through serial numbers and other identifying data a firearm to give the mexican institutions access to that same system. >> thank you. my next question -- the safety of our men and women in uniform remains, obviously, my top concern. and i'm going to demand that those who are on the front lines of this battle get the training, resources, support they need to do their job as safely and as effectively as possible. we must act operationally to gain control of the border. to do anything less would be a disservice to our border, personnel and leave the door open to which criminals, drug smugglers, human traffickers and terrorists can destroy the fabric of our society.

while the merida initiative involves bolstering the effectiveness, accountability, and professionalism of mexican police at the federal level, corruption among local police forces is consistently cited as one of the key reasons as to why the drug cartels are able to continue exporting their product to the united states. whether they turn a blind eye or actively work for the cartels, corrupt police officers enable the drug gains to remain a national as as opposed to a regional threat. i have -- my question is on this matter is twofold. how does the merida initiative address the issue of corruption among local police officers if merida does not address this issue, what plan of action would you recommend to this committee to counter the crippling influence of corrupt police officers, corrupt police forces and what the initiative is

trying to accomplish? a question for the panel? >> let me start first, congressman. and i'll start by the last sentence that i offered in my oral statement and that is, it took us many years to get into this situation. it's going to take us some years to get out and corruption clearly falls in that category. what are we doing right now? first, we are attempting to professionalize first the federal police forces and increasingly in the future the state and local police forces because a professional law enforcement institution is less likely to be corrupt than a nonprofessional one. second, we are supporting the development of internal investigatory capability, the equivalent of an ied in a u.s. municipal or state or federal police institution, individuals within the police force whose job is to monitor, investigate and if necessary sanction corrupt members of the institution. third, we're trying to work to

ensure that they have salaries that you can actually live on. if your salary is $15 a month, it is highly likely that you will try to supplement that through external income. if your salary is $1,000 a month, it's at least $985 less likely per month that you will try to supplement it. and finally, we are working with the attorney general's office of mexico and we'll increasingly work with the state's attorneys general to ensure prosecution, prosecution that becomes visible of everyone in the community of corrupt officials and officers that thereby sends a signal that corruption will not be tolerated. >> how much progress have we made in this area, though? >> i would say it depends upon where you are and what the institution is that you're dealing with. but i will talk about the one that i believe has seen the greatest progress in this regard, and that is the federal

police of the sfp, an institution that before the merida initiative totaled about 6,000, is now nearly 40,000 and my own personal opinion is that is an institution that is much more highly regarded for its professionalism and by the same token its relative honesty than it was four or five years ago. if we could get to that level in the 32 states and hundreds of municipal institutions, i would suggest to all of you, ladies and gentlemen, that we'd made some real serious progress. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. i'd now like to recognize mr. rohrabacher for five minutes for questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and i appreciate this hearing. we need to pay attention to mexico. i've been in and out of mexico since i was a kid. i'm a southern californian, i spent a lot of time in baja. and lived with a mexican family

actually for several months when i was in college. and it seems that since that time, which would seem at that time mexico was a very pleasant place. the people were very wonderful people. and it just seems that this horrendous cloud has come over this -- our neighbor and is now enveloping these wonderful people. i would suggest -- i mean, all i hear basically -- what i've been hearing is law enforcement is going to be the answer. i would just suggest to you, i don't think that's the case. i don't think you're going to solve the problems down there with law enforcement. we've been trying to bolster -- we've had military military groups that we've bolstered and then turned against the authorities against the cartels. for 20 years now, we've been

trying to suggest that cooperation of law enforcement can solve this problem, but it's gotten worse and worse and worse. let me ask you a little bit about something that was just brought up. did any of your agencies know about the fast and furious operation that saw thousands of military-style weapons transferred from our government into the hands of the cartel including high caliber sniper rifles? did any one of your organizations know about that operation prior -- as it was going on and as it was being instituted? just go right down the line. did you personally know about it and did someone in your operation know about it. >> i did not and to the best of my knowledge, no one in my -- in my part of the u.s. government did. >> okay. so no one from the bureau of

international narcotics and law enforcement affairs knew about fast and furious, that's what you're testifying today? >> i became aware at the same time that it hit the media. >> okay. what about drug enforcement administration? >> congressman, we are working with those committees that are investigating the matter. that would be the comment that i would make. >> okay. so your comment is that you're not going to comment, on a direct question about whether or not your agency knew about fast and furious? >> my comment would be is that we are working with those subcommittees that are investigating fast and furious. >> well, this happens to be a member of congress who's very interested and you are now under oath so maybe you could answer the question for me. >> that would be my comment at this point. >> uh-huh. which is no comment.

i find that to be of great interest that your predecessor -- your fellow who just spoke, mr. brownfield, could absolutely go on the record and say he didn't know about it, and you cannot. how about you, ms. silver? did you know about fast and furious? >> i learned about it in the press when it became exposed to all of you. and in terms of my office, i can say that no one in my office knew about it. >> okay, you personally did not know anything about it and no one in your office knew about it. >> that's correct >> i appreciate that. i just want to put that on the record, mr. chairman. one thing -- i voted for nafta years ago based on a promise that nafta would in some way help the economy of mexico and thus prevent or at least offer

an alternative to these drugs be a means of earning a living. has nafta made an impact and can we make these economic agreements and expect that they will have a better impact elsewhere than they've had on mexico? and feel free whoever thinks they can answer that. >> congressman, i suppose, i should say that we're not the right people to answer that question. however, my wife says there's never an issue i shouldn't talk about that i'm not willing to talk about so i will answer very simple views. as congressman engel knows i spent three years in colombia trying to make a case for an fta which has finally found its way to this institution so i will make that basic generic case. free trade agreements for the most part are good for the economies of both countries involved. they are good for the economies of both countries involved because they allow trading commerce -- >> how do you compare that for

mexico for us. >> at the end of the day i don't want to claim to be an expert on nafta but i would say to you that the logic is by removing any -- you know, the cost of moving goods back and forth across the border, you produce more trade. by producing more trade, the factories and companies produce more stuff. as they produce more stuff, they employ more people. as they employ more people their economies grow, the logic, therefore, is the economy grows on both sides of the border. that's the logic behind a free trade agreement. >> but it's gotten worse in mexico since we've passed nafta, unfortunately. i mean, that's just the observation -- you can't see san escapable to see that. well, thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> and i thank the gentleman from california. next i would like to recognize mr. duncan for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i think we've done a good job exploring this topic today. i want to thank the panelists for being here. and for your service to our nation in your various

capacities. i'm going to take a little different line of approach here because it's a topic that is interesting to me and we've talked about many times on the committee of homeland security, and that is the issue of an international terrorist organization, hezbollah, and its involvement with the mexican drug cartel. many experts believe that international terrorist organization has work with the mexican drug cartels for years and they have worked in africa, central america, and the triborders region in south america. u.s. authorities have long described hezbollah as the a team of international terrorism, far more disciplined than al-qaeda, vast financing from the governments of iran and syria and a global network of sleeper operatives who could be called to launch an attack at any time. just last year in july of 2010, we saw the first ied explode south of the u.s. border in mexico since the fall of 2008,

at least 111 suspects hezbollah linked of drug traffickers and money launders have been arrested of an international operation coordinated by dea and i could go on and talk about the owner of the cafe in tijuana arrested in 2002, another individual who traveled all the way to dearborn, michigan, spent four and a half years in prison for conspiring to raise money for hezbollah. there's just a lot of cases there and so, mr. benson, i would ask how much of a priority should hezbollah be to american and counterterrorism policy? >> congressman, as we look at the tide of the drug trafficking and terrorism we do see that around the globe. for the dea it's a priority that we look at those organizations and we look at their connection

across the globe. >> in your activities with dea -- and thank you for serving our region of south carolina where i'm from, by the way. i meant to mentioned that but in your activities with dea, is there any conclusive evidence of hezbollah's involvement with the tunneling activities of the cartels? >> i guess i would say a general statement between the link of drug trafficking and terrorism does exist. i don't necessarily see that to a great degree with the mexican cartels. but other locations around the world where we see like in afghanistan or places like that. >> yeah. >> mr. ambassador, i know you aren't necessarily on triborder region but in south america, your service there, the triborder region, how much emphasis was put on that area during your time in south america and chile and also

colombia? >> you may have left out the third one which probably has the greatest focus which has been venezuela. congressman, first, you are -- i believe you are absolutely dead on right to be focused on hezbollah as a potential threat. second, if hezbollah were to develop operational capabilities in the western hemisphere, that would be one real major serious problem for the united states of america. third, i believe as we look at hezbollah, we have to break the threat into two parts. one is the -- kind of the fundraising possibilities that they have. and i actually think there is evidence of that in a number of countries in south america. the second part of the threat is operational capability. i at this stage do not see operational capability by hezbollah in the western hemisphere. that said, i do not focus on this issue for a living.

there are others who do that. and you would be far better advised to get an opinion from them than from the guy who does organized crime, drugs, rule of law and law enforcement. >> thank you very much. ma'am, would you like to chime in on this issue at all? >> i think it's been well covered by my colleagues. i think from the perspective of dhs, obviously, we're constantly looking through our intelligence and analysis branch for those kinds of linkages or for any indication of those kinds of linkages. and we will continue to do so. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the balance. >> thank you very much, mr. duncan. i now would like to recognize mr. rivera for five minutes for questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. i want to try to hone in on this issue of mexico and its ability

to carry out primary responsibility in protecting its citizens and also the impact that the diversification of criminal activity and criminal organizations in mexico -- what are the types of criminal insurgencies against the state may be developing and whether they're making headway. i'm wondering if perhaps all three of you could comment, your thoughts on the drug cartels and whether they have drug cartels in mexico and whether they have indeed diversified into a variety of illicit activities and what that comprises. maybe we can start with secretary brownfield. >> sure, congressman. and i'll give you my answer filtered through not just my experience of the past year dealing directly with the merida initiative in mexico but the prior three years when i was in colombia. as i suggested in an earlier

answer, i believe what is happening in mexico is the larger cartels are taking serious hits. they are breaking up to a considerable extent. there are now more organizations but smaller in nature, less national and nationwide in scope and more regionally focused. so whereas previously you would have had "x" number, maybe you now have three times "x" number, but each one of those organizations is smaller. >> and would you agree as well their illicit activities have moved beyond just drug trafficking? >> first, i think they have expanded their drug trafficking in terms of what they're willing, able and capable of doing. i could say it's no longer just cocaine, if they can also make money out of methamphetamines, out of heroin or out of other products, they do. they can use the same networks. they can use the same people, they can use the same institutions. they can use the same logistic systems to move product.

if they're moving it in a criminal enterprise to a certain extent it doesn't matter what's in the truck, the plane, the boat or the backpack, if they can make money by moving it, they can and they will. and to that extent, i suppose, my answer to your question would be, yes, i do see some signs of diversification. >> administrator benson, your thoughts -- if there's been some diversity of illicit activities or a combination of illicit activities. >> congressman, we've seen the same thing as well. they've moved over from marijuana traffickers to cocaine traffickers. they basically pushed their operations and the colombians have receded over the last decade, two decades where you have mexican organized crime that have -- i mean, they are the wholesale distributors in the united states of methamphetamine and cocaine and marijuana and heroin.

but then also as we have impacted their leadership in mexico, they have then diversified as well into other revenue streams, kidnapping, extortion, a number of other crimes as well. >> secretary silver? >> congressman, certainly, we see the same -- both the fragmentation and some of the diversification both across the narcotics spectrum and then also we have a significant concern about human trafficking and human smuggling and engagement in that on the part of some of the criminal organizations and we're focusing on some significant energy on that as well. >> i would hope then if there is indeed this evolution or diversification of the illicit activities with respect to the drug cartels moving beyond just the drug trafficking, even if the drug trafficking perhaps has moved to different forms of that trafficking, different forms of drugs, then i think it's important, as we go forward, that we also look at diversifying our strategy as

well. if it's not just drug trafficking, if it includes human trafficking and smuggling and other activities, i think that's something that perhaps would concern many members of congress to make sure that the administration, as we go through, looking at the genesis of the initiative and what its primary responsibility at the beginning and what the threat was at the beginning of the initiative, if that threat has indeed changed and if the illicit activity has diversified or evolve over the years, that we would make sure and focus in on that as well and be responsive to the changing threats of the illicit activities. so i'll yield back my time, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. rivera. i'd now like to recognize mr. cuellar for five minutes for questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to thank both of y'all and the ranking members for allowing me to sit here. assistant secretary brownfield, good seeing you again. for 175 years the u.s. and mexico have held strong relations building, you know -- signing several treaties, sharing various membership in

international organizations, we share maritime border, a land border, with them. .. >> of complications. >> um, would you agree that we should be working with our mexican partners to bring them closer especially with all the examples that have been given him, or should we be pushing him away by going into what names we ought to call them or the groups that are working there?

>> i would never offer an opinion on what, direct or indirect, on what other members of these two distinguished committees have suggested. i would say to you, as i said in my opening statement, that if we cannot reach basic agreement with the government of mexico, our efforts probably will not succeed. it has to be cooperative. they have to agree with what we are trying to do. if not, we are unlikely to succeed. >> if drug cartels, and this is more for mr. benson. consider that they're dealing in, what, a couple hundred cities in the u.s., how do we deal with u.s. citizens who purchase drugs from them? if somebody purchases a bag of marijuana for personal consumption, will they be charged with aiding and abetting a terrorist? i'm sure we'll catch somebody because we spend, what, 25, $30

million of money down mexico. wouldn't that be a possibility? >> as i look at it, congressman, from an organized crime standpoint, i believe our authorities, our federal narcotic laws are sufficient to address the trafficking problem that exists now. >> okay. you didn't answer my question. so i guess you're saying that we don't need to go into -- and i'm one of those that i believe in law enforcement, i've got three peace officers in my family. when it comes to law enforcement, just like we listen to our troops, i mean, to our generals in iraq and afghanistan, i want to listen to folks who are doing it day-to-day. i certainly would agree with your assessment on that. let me ask you a specific question. the u.s. and mexico got into an initiative where there were established multi-national, multiagency intelligence

centers, and one has been established, my understanding that the u.s. government designated one agency which you might be familiar with to take the lead on this, and then they designated another mexican agency to take the lead on this. according to the mexican agency, um, that center there's been about $10 million that's been spent for equipping and staffing the agency at this regional intelligence agent i which is good. but according to mexican agency where the plan, merida, is put anything the money, they still haven't gotten any of the money. they haven't been trained, and, again, there's two side to every story. but i'm just saying what the mexican government who was designate today help establish the center center, they're saying all the $10 million has gone to equip the u.s. agent is. which, again, i'm okay, but are we forgetting our mexican

partners on this? >> i think as we look at the exchange of intelligence, congressman, it is very robust -- >> no, i don't mean to interrupt you. i'm not talking about exchange of information, how robust. i know we are at the best relationship. listen to my question. have the money that's been there, around $10 million, has that, any of that been spent to help equip the mexicans or train them at the fusion center for the one that's operational now? just a yes or no. >> i don't know exactly the monetary figure. i really couldn't answer that. i don't know the answer to that question. >> all right. let me restate this a little bit because my time's up. do you know if any of that money -- is this any reason to doubt the mexican agency that got given the lead just like the american agency, is there anything, is there anything that would question the statements that they made? that you know of?

>> i, i don't have information to answer that, sir, at this time. >> okay. all right. thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. we appreciate it. and if witnesses won't, don't mind, we'd like to ask a few more questions and give the members an opportunity for another round. and taking the ambassador up on his offer. i would now recognize myself five minutes for questions. you know, i think this is an important hearing and, you know, it's interesting so some of the takeaways right off the bat is that there's not a lot of disagreement in things like the evolution of the drug cartels, the activities that the cartels are engaged in meet a definition by the cia of activities that are insurgent activityies.

but i wanted to before i get on to that, i wanted mr. brownfield, ambassador, you in answering some questions earlier you posed three questions to the committee or that you would suggest asking. and the first one was, what more can we get, would we get by using a label. or the terminology or designation. and i would, i would say this, that the criminal insurgency, it would allow us to develop counterinsurgency strategy that pulls all u.s. resources together for a comprehensive and effective response to the reality on the ground and increase awareness in the u.s. of the threat we face. that's one. the second question, what are the domestic legal implications of this, and the answer to that

is, none. and third, what impact would the designation have on programs on the ground. and i think what my suggestion is, is that this would simply utilization of the good u.s./mexico relations to simultaneously address the threat on all levels. so i think what, for me and i think for a lot of people, this isn't as much as saying merida has failed. there has some successes in merida that you cannot deny and that are good things. but as we look forward if we continue to kind of make the determination not to label what's happening in mexico as it is, it also hamstrings our ability to confront the

challenges because we aren't properly identifying what those are. mr. benson, in your written testimony you talked about the evolution and some of the cartels' activities here in the united states. wouldn't it be helpful if all of the, you know, the department of -- treasury department, all of the agencies, a whole-of-government approach, don't you think that would be helpful in completing your task? >> chairman, we, we do that now. we leverage every department in the u.s. government as we cross a number of different agencies as we target their leadership here in the united states and in other countries. so as we look at their money flow, for example, as we look at their movement of drug loads back and forth across the border, their movement into other countries, it is across

many different departments and agencies where we're impacting those organizations. >> so you don't, the cooperation's there, you don't need anymore help, you've got everything you need. >> i think the authorities that we have are sufficient to tackle and battle mexican organized crime. >> right. but how about to battle an insurgency? >> as i said, chairman, i believe our title 21 authorities that we have, our federal narcotics statutes are sufficient to target the cartels and their leadership. >> and i think this gets back to the point of the definition and why it's important to define what it is that we're challenging. i mean, most people recognize that the cartels' activity has gotten worse, that they are using every tool available to displace government. i mean, they're offering health care and, you know, other things

to the citizens in mexico to try to gain favor. and so if you just want to go after it as a drug enforcement policy, then i would say, okay, you have the support you need from some of these other departments. but if we describe what's happening as it is as an insurgency, there are a lot of other tools in the tool box to be used, and we can't continue to sit back and watch the growth of these cartels and their criminal insurgent activities in mexico because it puts not only the people of the united states at risk, our freedom, security and prosperity, but also the people of mexico, their freedom, security and prosperity. my time has expired. i now would like to recognize mr. engel for five minutes for questions. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. i want to just talk about merida, but i do want to comment on something mr. duncan said

about hezbollah. i think it would be good for us to perhaps get a briefing down the line about it. there is a flight, a plane that has been going from iran to syria to venezuela and back every week. we don't know who's on it, we don't know what's on it, but you can believe that there's some hezbollah connection to it. so i think that was a good, good thing that you raised it, and i think we should pursue that more. i want to talk about merida. we talked about it initially, and i wanted just to talk about it. when we announced the initiative in october of 2007, um, we were told it would be a three-year program. and last year we had the announcement of beyond merida and continued funding through the fy-2011 and 2012 budget, so it appears merida's here to stay

at least for the near future. how long does the administration plan funding to continue? should it continue for the foreseeable future, or should we start thinking about phasing it out and maybe doing something new? ambassador? >> congressman, that's a perfectly legitimate question, you have every right to, to grill us on this, on this question every time we come before you. my answer once again is filtered through my experience in colombia. another example of a program where we set out saying it's a five-year program, we are now wrapping up year 12 of the program. but it's down to a level that's now about 25% of where we were when we started it in the year 2000. that doesn't strike me as an incoherent way of approaching the mexico challenge. the simple and simplistic answer

to your question is, we're going to deal with the realities on the ground that are presented, and we're not going to ask the american people to subject their own security to an artificial timeline and timetable. but it should be realistic for you to say to someone like me, i expect to see a downward glide path. i expect you to have that program at a long-term, sustainable level in a finite period of time and to force me to give you some sort of estimate as to what that finite period of time would be. if you were to really twist my arm really hard -- >> i would never do that. >> i would say that you were very generous with us for three years. we are now into the fourth year. you should expect and you are seeing a reduction in the amount of resources and funding that is being put into the merida initiative. you should expect that to continue for a period of time until we mutually agree we are at a sustainable level.

that's the best answer i can give you. >> that's fine. let me ask you about some specifics about merida. the majority of the police in mexico are at the local and state level, but funding for merida goes mostly to the military and to federal security units. we know that there's corruption at the local and state levels in mexico, it's very high, so it's understandable, i think, that president calderon has turned to the federal police in the military. on the other hand, most crime takes place at the local and state level, and those police will eventually need to be professionalized. so can you tell me how would you characterize efforts under merida to assist local and state institutions, and how would you assess the progress in mexico's implementation of police reform at the federal level, and what point do you think the government might be able to disengage in military from it present role in domestic security? >> thank you, congressman.

i think that's a brilliant question because it leads right into what i call the transition that we are trying to do right now in the merida initiative. you are quite correct. the first three years were focused on the federal institutions. our objective that we set for ourselves this year and next year is to pivot from the federal institutions to the state and municipal institutions. the way we would hope to do it in absolute and complete agreement with the federal government of mexico which controls and decides everything that we do in mexico by way of support and assistance is to focus initially on three northern states of mexico; chihuahua and knew waive say leone, focus on their state and municipal police, follow up on the mexican government's own system of creating what they

call model police units which is units of about 422 police officers from each of the 32 states trained to a common standard, equipped to a common standard with vehicles that are of a common standard so that the federal government knows exactly what it is working with if this unit deploys and train up enough of them to be able to address these issues. when, congressman, the police and law enforcement are able to do their job, then i predict we see less military involved in law enforcement which in any country in the world, including our own, is not the mission that they are trained or equipped for. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. engel. and mr. mccall is recognized for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. excuse me. when the chairman and i were down in mexico city, we saw exactly what you were talking about. i think president calderon believes he's, there's sort of a

turning point which was encouraging. i'm not sure if that's reality or not, but his goal, as you know, is to replace his military with a national police force which makes sense, and i think his people look at the military cracking down in their own country. he also, there's a high level of with the national police, and they're all polygraphed. i wanted to bring up another, we've talked about this, ambassador, but we were down in colombia, president santos, he talked about his special forces trained by our guys, almost just as god as our -- good as our guys and was very willing to assist in any way that he could. and we took that message to president cald rope, and he was very -- calderon, and he was very interested. i understand they are providing some training in mexico, but can you just elaborate on that -- to me, a lot of people say, why don't we put our military down there? you and i know with the

sovereignty issues the gringo can't go down there. but i think the colombian special forces can assimilate better from a cultural standpoint, and it was an intriguing idea, i think, that we heard on that trip that we thought could provide some assistance. >> mr. chairman, i not only think it's an intriguing idea, i think it is an excellent idea. it would probably not surprise you to learn that i am a great fan and admirer of what the colombian people and their government and their institutions have accomplished over the last 11 or 12 years. i think they are now quite capable of exporting some of those capabilities through training and support elsewhere in the region. i think it is a net positive for the united states of america to see colombia and mexico engaged in this effort together. i think it is, among other things, excellent return for our

investment of $8.5 billion or more in support of colombia over the last 11, going on 12 years. i think you are absolutely correct, the colombians have reached a level where i would argue they have capabilities that almost to other law enforcement or military institution has anywhere in the world. and on some issues i'd even stand them up with our own armed forces. i believe in jungle operations, for example, the alcohol yangs may well at -- the colombians may well at this stage be the very best in the world. they can do much of this training cheaper, they can do it without, shall we say, the historical baggage that we bring to the u.s./mexico relationship, they can do it in a common language, they can do it where they're literally sharing realtime and real world experience saying this is what we did when we were taking down the medellin and cali cartels. this is not educational, this is

academic, this is how we did it. i think it is excellent value, and may i tell you i like you whenever i'm in conversation with either of the two goths am -- two governments am trying to continue this exchange. >> i think calderon was very interested in the idea, and i think we got his attention on that, and i think that's something, mr. chairman, a great takeaway from this hearing and a positive thing i think we can all agree on that we can move forward, you know, with that in mind. but i do want to clear up just a couple things. usually henry and i are on the same page, and we're best of friends. you know, in colombia when you had the foreign terrorist designation with the farc, were you ever aware of any casual drug users prosecuted? >> um, no. not that i'm aware of. i mean, it could well be there as in here, you know, you've got a charge sheet of 11 charges,

and you add on drug use just in case you lose the 11. you're asking if someone was prosecuted solely for that purpose -- >> because i think that's been misrepresented by many, and that's not the way it works. but i do, i like the idea, you know, the kingpin statute, they talk about that a lot, and that really goes after the head of the organization. whereas the fto would go after the body of the organization. and a far greater jurisdiction with heavier penalty. so it's knot for my, you know, might think i'm diplomatic. i know this one is not a diplomatic issue at times with the ambassador, we've had long conversations about this. but i do think it would provide greater authorities to go after these very dangerous cartels and just, finally, i mean, we didn't have any problems working with colombia when we had this designation, did we?

>> not that i'm aware of, although to be fair to the other side, mr. chairman, and i do not want to have an argument with you on this because i believe we're trying to accomplish exactly the same thing. >> and i agree. >> but i would remind you in colombia we never put the medellin or the cali cartel on the list, and i assume there is reason for that as well. i think this is worth more conversation, and i'll leave it at that. >> and i think that's -- it certainly has been a provocative issue and thank you for your testimony. i yield back. >> thank you very much, mr. mccall. mr. duncan is recognized for five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this may be the last question of the day, so i appreciate you bearing with us. mr. benson, as special agent in charge of atlanta's dea, you were reported as saying that the mexican drug cartels were able to blend right in and establish metro atlanta as that strategic transshipment point. so my question is, how real is threat of these cartels in

mexican cities, and what are the cities the mexican drug cartels are operating out of? >> congressman, it's very real. you know, as you know atlanta is the hub for business in the southeast, and the mexican cartels recognize that for a lot of the same reasons. i mean, you go from the southwest border to atlanta in about 1100 miles, 15 hour trip. and then from there we would see those cartels push uploads of cocaine, for example, all the way up the eastern seaboard. and then they would also use strategic transshipment hubs in atlanta and dallas and los angeles and many other places to then collect that money and then push that pack down to cartel leadership. so they have strategically identified locations like atlanta because it's a good business model for them. >> surely it's a good business

model for companies like fedex and others where they use hubs to distribute certain things. if we know that, though, if we know they're using atlanta and dallas and phoenix and some of those areas, would that not make it easier to crack down on them? >> yes, it does, and we have, we have hit them in a hard way in places like atlanta and some of their other transshipment locations. and what we've seen as we hit them in a place like atlanta, they then will adjust and make tactical changes in the way they do business. so it's just a matter of us keeping on top of them as they make their adjustments to our enforcement efforts. >> just one other quick question about methamphetamine. so cheaply made, but is it cost effective for mexico and a drug cartel to bring meth into the u.s. versus having it

manufactured and cooked here? >> we, we see a great deal of methamphetamine on the streets of the united states today. and most of it is produced there. they do produce it. it's inexpensive, and they bring up very large amounts of, for example, crystallized methamphetamine, high purity that they push out into our streets. so i still believe that we will see mexican organizations supplying the lion's share of methamphetamine to our market. we will also see those smaller lab operations that support either individual drug habit or those of a few. but i believe mexican organizations will remain the primary supplier for methamphetamine in the u.s. market. >> is it easier for them to get the sudafed and other ingredients through mexican

channels since we've thwarted their efforts of over-the-counter products here? >> they have instituted and they do have some very good chemical control laws in mexico now, but we have seen those lab operators adjust their manufacturing techniques to use other methods to produce methamphetamine. and i believe we'll continue to see that. >> thank you. i don't have any further questions so, mr. chairman, i'll yield back the balance of the time. >> thank you very much, many duncan. mr. duncan. well, this concludes the hearing. i want to, first, i want to thank the staff on both majority and the minority side for both the two subcommittees for your hard work in this. i also want to thank the members who participated today. and most importantly, i want to thank, um, ambassador brownfield and mr. benson and ms. silver for your time and sharing with

us your thoughts on what i think is a very important topic. so with that, the subcommittee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and a look at a map of iowa here where republican presidential candidates continue

to campaign in advance of next week's first in the nation caucuses. in fact, here's how the associated press is reporting news out of the hawkeye state today, republican hopeful rick santorum is claiming momentum. the former u.s. senator from pennsylvania mingled with 25 people at a diner in independence, iowa, and touted his plan to give a tax break to businesses that move their operations back to the united states. mr. santorum is down in the polls, but told diners that things are going great and his campaign has momentum. our road to the white house coverage continues today with several live events. first, our cameras are going to follow newt gingrich as he attends a town hall meeting in mason city, that's at 11:30 a.m. eastern. live at 1:40 we'll have mitt romney as he attends a meet and greet session in clinton, and we'll end with texas congressman ron paul speaking at a salute to

veterans' rally in des moines. ♪ ♪ >> 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 have a long-lasting impact on american politics. tonight, barry gold weapt. thursday, vice president and civil rights advocate hubert hutch friday. friday, george wallace 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. >> have you tried the free c-span radio app? here's what users are saying. >> the c-span app is fast, easy to use and richly appealing, and the audio quality is convincingly clear.

insanely great deal considering it's free. it took me about ten seconds to learn how to use it. >> anytime, anywhere get streaming audio of c-span radio as well as all three c-span television networks including live coverage of congress. also q&a, newsmakers, "the communicators," and after words. c-span. it's available wherever you are. find out more at c-span.org/radio app. >> the center for a new american security released it report or on military suicides last november. the report is called "losing the battle: the challenge of military suicide" and identifies and addresses challenges associated with service member and veteran suicides. speakers include the vice chief of staff for the u.s. army as well as providing recommendations for dealing with this issue. from the willard intercontinental hotel in washington, this is about one

hour and 20 minutes. >> thanks for being here. my name is john nagl, on behalf of all of us here, i'd like to welcome you to this discussion on the important, challenging and very, very right now question of military suicide. our nation has thousand been engaged in a war for more than a decade, the longest period of continuous combat in our history. the all-volunteer force has performed magnificently but is showing signs of strain including, troublingly, a steady increase in the number of service members who are falling by their own hand. the problem is urgent. a good friend of mine currently serving as a brigade commander has lost five soldiers to suicide just this calendar year. this problem demands everything we can do to solve it. those who volunteer to serve us deserve our support when they themselves are suffering.

dr. carroll, director of our joining forces initiative, has written a policy brief titled, "losing the battle." it examines this crisis dispassionately and suggests a number of solutions that may help diminish this horrific loss of our most precious national resource. the lives of our sons and daughters who have chosen to serve their country. to discuss this issue with meg, we are honored to have back with us general peter chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the united states army. no one has worked harder for or done more to solve this problem. no one has done more. thank you, sir. [applause] we also welcome dr. jan kemp, national mental health program director for the department of veterans affairs which has an important role to play in

helping those who continue to carry the scars of their service after they have taken off the uniform. the panel will be moderated by juliet chi yes, ma'am, a lecturer in public policy at harvard university. from it founding, cnas has focused on the health of the force as an important component of our national security. the reason soldiers fall by their own hands are many and complex, and they reinforce each other in ways that are hard to understand. solutions are also complex. no one agency or organization can do everything that is necessary to solve this problem, but many can helpment -- help. we are honored to have the support of a number of philanthropic partners who share our concern about the health, employment prospects and education of those who have sacrificed to serve us. our partners have joined forces

with us to think about this public -- this pressing public health issue and to attempt to find solutions. thanks to them, thanks to all of you here and to all of those joining us nationwide via webcast for being a part of this important discussion. and juliette, the floor is yours. >> thank you very much. it is an honor to be here, and i want to thank cnas, meg, nancy who's the co-author but not here with us today, and the whole community for their efforts in exploring the issue of suicide among our service members and veterans. i have been in government and recently left as assistant secretary at the department of homeland security and returned to boston where i do write a twice a week column for the globe. and it was starting to write about the wars and how they were ending that this issue began to interest me and didn't seem to have enough national focus as it should warrant. for someone like me not familiar

with these issues, my several month exploration with the help of dr. harrell and cnas into how this nation will address the end of wars and the impact they have had on our military is surely going to be a critical challenge for not just our military, but the united states government, our political leaders and our citizens in the decades to come. the wars may be ending in some respects, but they are not over. the report, which i have had an opportunity to read, is a straightforward examination of what can and should be done to address one persistent and troubling problem; suicide. as the report notes from 2005 to 2007, service members took their own lives at rate of approximately one every 36 hours. the va estimates that a veteran dies by suicide every 80 minutes. we'll talk about drilling down on those numbers. now, these numbers are complicated, the army is in a different position than the air force or the navy or the coast guard. veterans data difficult to manage and understand given

challenges with data collection. but as you read and examine the report and listen, there are two important takeaways, i believe, for those of us who are grappling with the policy and, of course, for many of you the personal consequences of this issue. first is the house. how can we best adopt policies and, indeed, some of the recommendations are in here at a time when resources are scarce, congress is divided and much of our political focus is, of course, on the economy. and the second is the why. i know this sounds obvious. we have given the issue we're talking about, but an important aspect of this report is in making clear why we need as a government and as people to get this right. it is, of course, about our present service members and our veterans, but as the report and dr. harrell and nancy also make clear, it is also about the future of our military. an all-volunteer military. so want to begin with setting the stage for the report, um, and the findings in the report

with the co-author, dr. harrell. >> thank you. thank you to everyone for joining us today both here in this room and also online. thank you especially to my coof panel members for bringing your tremendous expertise to today's discussion. one challenge of the topic of suicide is that research is unable to quantify fully the number of lives that are saved by the tremendous efforts of individuals such as general chiarelli, dr. jan kemp who devote considerable energy for our veterans. today's panel is the first event of our joining forces initiative at cnas. as an independent partner to the white house's joining forces initiative, cnas has determined our joining forces research agenda to include research and analysis in three areas; employment, education and wellness. as those areas pertain to veterans, service members and to military families. this work on military suicide

was conducted in the context of our wellnd research. i have been asked whether for the first cnas joining forces product and event we should have led with a different topic rather than military suicide. after all, it's only a very small minority of service members and veterans that die by suicide. we feel, however, that it is too large a minority and too significant an issue to ignore given that these tragic losses effect many individuals besides those victims. the army brigade commander that dr.nagl mentioned recently brought his team to cnas for a discussion. our conference room was overflowing with officers who only wanted to discuss military suicide with me because they deal with this every day because it's happening now and because changes can occur now. further, the importance and urgency of this issue pertained to more than the service members and veterans who tragically died by suicide and their families.

military suicide is a national security issue. george washington said the willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation. if washington was correct, suicide among service members and veterans threatens the health of the all-volunteer force. mentors and role models including parents, teachers and, importantly, veterans play a critical role in the enlistment decisions of young men and women. we should realize that these mentors and role models will not steer youth toward the military if they perceive damage to service members or failure to address the mental health care needs of those who have served their country. our policy brief acknowledges that eliminating suicide among service members and veterans is an unreasonable goal. however, there are some

obstacles to addressing suicide that should be resolved. some of these obstacles can be addressed within the military services while others cannot. some of these obstacles are especially difficult to eliminate. at cnas we felt urgency to host this session and to release our policy brief because we believe we have actionable recommendations that can help address this issue. there are actions the service can take internally such as continuing to address the stigma of mental health care, establishing a postdeployment unit cohesion period, encouraging service members to answer their postdeployment health care questions truthfully and coordinating legal investigators with unit commanders to insure the safety of service members. some of these actions are being taken in some of the services and with some success. there are also measures that can be taken specifically for the guard and reserve to include establishing communication plans so that unit leaders have interaction with their troops between drill weekends and

developing a system-wide suicide prevention program for the guard that does not depend upon dwindling state resources. we also have recommendations that cannot be addressed solely within the military services. dod military treatment facilities need the authority to conduct takeback programs of excess prescription medications. military leaders need to be able to discuss personally-owned weapons with their troops, and military service members and family members need to be able to maintain a relationship with the mental health care provider that they have invested in even if their service moves them to a distant ins police installation- installation. finally, we need to understand how many veterans die bid is and who these -- die by suicide and who these veterans are. the department of veterans affairs and department of health and human services, we know that the number of active duty suicides nearly doubled over the

last ten years from 160 in 2001 to 295 in 2010. by va estimates every day equates the loss of another 18 veterans by suicide. this is happening now, and we these to address this now. >> thank you. finish. thank you, dr. harrell. i'm going to turn next to general chiarelli and, first, thank him for his tremendous work. if you just begin to explore this issue, the work you have done has saved lives. i wanted to know if you could provide a context for understanding of both the problem and the solutions and the work that's being done to address this problem immediately. >> well, thank you very much and good afternoon. i appreciate the opportunity to participate in this important discussion. i must correct those numbers. we had 162 active component soldiers commit suicide in 2010, 162 active component.

that's of a force of 700,000. 295 is the total number of suicides of the entire force. 1.1 million to include guard and reservists. as many of you know, for the last two and a half years i have served as the army's lead for integration of the ongoing efforts to reduce the incidents of suicide across our force. back in january of 2009 then-secretary of the army pete garrett and general george casey tasked me with lowering the rate of suicides, and i approached it like i did every other challenge going back to my days as a commander at just about every level. i'm an operator, and i approached it like an operator. they wanted me to lower the rate of suicide, i was going to lower the rate of suicide. i quickly learned it wasn't that simple. in fact, the challenge of suicide has proven to be the most difficult in my 40 years in the military.

that said, if there's one thing -- and i'm going to push back a little bit because that's what you would expect me to do, wouldn't you? if there's one thing in particular i would take offense to with the respect of this report is the implication that we have done a little. and certainly not enough. to address this issue, this could not be further from the truth, and i do not believe we are losing the battle. as the headline states. to the contrary, i believe we've made tremendous progress in understanding these very, very complex issues and making sure that leaders and soldiers understand them. i sit through a senior review group meeting which is once a month for two hours. we review every single suicide in the army. bonnie carroll is normally with me every single month to go through there. we have unit level commanders, members of the medical community

all together in discussion, and i can attest after doing this for two years the circumstances surrounding each suicide are as unique as the individuals themselves. that's what makes this issue so incredibly tough to influence one way or the other. that said, we've greatly expanded the resources and support services available, and we're working hard to eliminate the longstanding stigma associated with behavioral health conditions. and that's just not a military problem. that's all our problem. the stigma associated with mental conditions. funding programs and services and instituting them army wide, that's the easy part. the really hard part is eliminating the longstanding stigma, breaking down the invisible barrier that is prevalent in society as it is in the military. and the key to doing so is raising awareness. we take a step back, in my opinion, in what already is a

very difficult, very difficult endeavor when someone writes or speaks about this topic in an overly alarmist way or without accurately conveying all the facts both in the terms of the complexity of the challenges and the efforts underway to address it effectively. one of the most important lessons we learned early on in the process is that suicide is a symptom, albeit the extreme, of a much, much bigger problem. i've got this smear chart up here. up at the top it shows you, it tries to put this problem in perspective. we can really only gather good data on active component soldiers. and although there are 570,000 in the contactive component, that big blue ball represents about 700-750 because we have soldiers who are mobilized which expand our force. that's really where i can only gather the best data because i send a medical examiner out

every single time that applies the same standards to every death to make a determination of death. and as you can see there, as you follow this down, you see the different kinds of high risk behavior. and finally you see the little dot that we've had to go ahead and shade that shows the number of suicides in comparison to that big blue ball. finding in that big blue ball of 225-50,000 depending on the year, the 250 that will commit suicide is the most difficult task. and that is why we have focused on trying to identify the high risk behavior. soldiers on active duty, the red sphere represents soldiers receiving behavioral health care. that's good news. the green sphere represents those soldiers currently on prescription medication. again, in many instances that is good news. however, as you continue to the

right, you get further and further into the risky and high risk behavior and the most extreme cases, of course, are suicide. now, these challenges are further complicated in many cases by the physical injuries to the brain. you simply cannot have a fruitful discussion about the issue of suicide without acknowledging the immaturity of brain science. pure and simple. every scientist, researcher and doctor you'll ask will agree, we simply to not know enough about the brain. yet the most common injuries of this war are not amputations or burns as you might think. the signature wounds of this war are, actually, posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. and they have been of every war. i don't know how many of you saw the, um, hbo documentary, "war torn: 1861-2010," where they

talked about it everywhere. we've only changed the name of what post traumatic stress is. in order to reduce the incidence of high risk behavior including suicide across our force, we must continue to find ways to reduce stress, promote health, build resiliency and eliminate the longstanding stigma associated with seeking and receiving help. in other words, we must focus on the area indicated by the red sphere and address these issues and challenges as early as possible. to answer your question what are we doing to address the issue of suicide, over the past two and a half years since the establishment of the health promotion risk reduction and suicide prevention it is task fe and council in march of 2009 and the subsequent publication of our report in 2010 often referred to as the red book, we've instituted a number of very effective program and policy changes across our force. these include increased access to behavioral health care to

include telehealth options as well as confidential counseling programs, stigma reduction campaign efforts, fitness and resiliency training programs, expanding family support programs, expanded substance abuse surveillance. this list merely skims the surface. and the programs and initiatives are having an impact. we believe we are, in fact, making progress. now, i expect many of you will respond. well, then, why haven't your numbers gone down? the reality is, it is impossible to prove a negative. and when you look at active duty suicides in the army, last year they went down by six. the reality is it's impossible, as i said, to prove that negative. i can tell you how many did tragically make the decision to take their own lives in this past year, but i cannot tell you how many contemplated suicide, yet as a result of our collective efforts did not end up going through with it. the fact is that behavioral

health encounters increased 12% in fission call year -- fiscal year 2010. health care encounters primarily benefiting soldiers located in remote locations have also increased significantly, and that is very, very encouraging. i'll be the first to admit there's still much work to be done. any suicide or high risk death is one too many. this is an enduring challenge that requires an enduring commitment, and we must continue our efforts. we owe it to our men and women in uniform and their families to ensure they have access to the very best care, treatment and support when serving on active duty as a member of our reserve component and also after they've separated or retired from military service. the army is continuing to work close hi with our sister services -- chosely with our sister services is and with dod and department of veterans affairs toward this shared endeavor. i'll close my opening comments

by simply stating for the record i am incredibly proud of all we've accomplished to reduce the stress on the force, reduce the incidence of high risk behavior, reduce stigma for help seeking behavior and insure that soldiers and families in need have access to the appropriate care and are able and willing to take advantage of it. thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this event, and i look forward to a great discussion. [laughter] >> thank you, general chiarelli. i wanted to -- before we went on to dr. kemp, i think it's just worth for everyone watching and listening and on the webinar, let's just talk about the numbers, so i'm going to go out of order here. dr. harrell, where are we on the numbers, even if we're talking about a different set, at least everyone's on the same page. >> it's a great question because the numbers are tricky. so the number that i cited is the active duty number. that includes active component personnel, but it also includes guard and reserve personnel that

weren't activated at the time. >> what number's that? >> the 295. >> that's not the correct number. >> okay. well, let me speak to that for a moment because it matters, literally, what cay of the week a reserve or guardsman dies by suicide. that effects which number he's counted as. the numbers also shift as investigations occur and past events are resolved into suicide or not suicide events. the numbers change a lot. it's important to assess that. i think we agree in many ways, um, i think one way that i do us disagree is i think we're losing the battle multiple times a day right now. so -- >> just -- >> [inaudible] >> i just have to correct those numbers. >> the total number of activated plus active component soldiers is somewhere between 725-750,000 a year, i promise you. that number last year was 156. the year before it was 162.

we had a decrease of six active component suicides last year which included mobilized reserve component soldiers. it's important you understand those statistics because in those innocents when a soldier is activated, i send a medical examiner out for every single death. that medical examiner applies the same standards in determining whether that death was accidental or suicide. that's why we parse the numbers that way. that is a total between 725 and 750 depending on the year. we had a huge increase last year in suicides of soldiers who were not on active duty, and that's the 295 number when you include that number in with those who are on active duty. the problem with that number is it's probably underestimated because every single community investigates and applies different standards to death. and we all know the pressure

that is sometimes put on medical examiners not to categorize a specific death as suicide. so i think the numbers that i have the most confidence in are those numbers of folks who are on active duty both national guard, reserve and active component soldiers when they die because we're able to apply the same standards in making a determination. i'm not saying the standards are right, but they're the same every single time because that's how we investigate those deaths. >> are those numbers for the army only? >> that's the army only. >> okay. my firms -- my numbers were total. >> okay. so, we haven't even gotten to veterans yet. [laughter] so the numbers issue gets more complicated. i think so everyone was on the same page, the numbers are going to be different depending on if you look at active units which is now 156 and your number is -- >> 295 all services. >> 295 all services.

everyone here at this table agrees a problem that's too big for anyone's purposes. so, and we have not gotten to the veterans, so i want to turn to dr. kemp, um, to discuss, you know, dr. kemp, when i read the report and the work that's being done for the veterans, of course, a primary issue is what number are we talking about. and then if you could talk a little bit about how are you approaching this systemically give what we're -- given what we're about to encounter both with the iraq and afghan veterans. >> yeah. i'm actually going to make the numbers debate a little easier. >> with okay. >> and tell you i have no idea. [laughter] actually how many veterans a day die by suicide. and it's silly to think that we do at this point. i think if you read the report, you'll certainly understand meg's plea and recommendations that we these to solve the

numbers problem. we're making huge strides, um, in the va with our dod and our cdc partners to do that, but, um, it's not happening quickly. um, secretary shinseki has taken on this goal himself, has brought in the support of the governors of our states. we're now getting data on a more timely basis that talks about veteran suicide, and we're able to put that together and come up with some estimates which, um, you've seen. and you've seen the estimated numbers of 18 veterans a day dying by suicide. honestly, i don't know if, how correct we are in that it's our best guess. right now. um, i also want to address the title of the report, um, a little bit. i think as long as any veteran or service member dies by

suicide, we are, in fact, losing the battle. but i do maintain that we've made huge strides towards winning the war over the past several years. and, um, we will continue to do that. the va has taken the stance that suicide prevention is based on ready access to high quality mental health care. and to that end we've instituted a whole series of programs that i won't, um, go into now but certainly am available to talk to any of you about it anytime. probably the most visible, um, access mechanism that we've instituted, um, in the past four years is the veterans crisis line which now has taken over 450,000 calls into the line from veterans, families and, um, service members. the fact that, um, we continue to take those calls and i have to tell you, when i was first

approached about opening the cry lis line, i said, you know, i don't think veterans will call. .. in all sorts of ways and shapes

that we didn't imagine. and we'll continue with that effort. getting people into services is a major issue, providing those services once we have them is another major. and we too have expanded programs, we've opened telemental health programs, we increased the mental health services at community-based clinics but you're all looking at me saying it's not enough. and we know that. and we'll continue to find out where we need to put more services and more time and more energy and we will continue to grow those programs and to offer people what they need. and that's a promise we're making. >> i wanted to -- on the numbers 'cause i think this is just a key part of the -- we'll get into the recommendations as well but a key part of the report. no, no, can you explain to the audience why is it so hard for the va because i don't think

people understand why that part of the numbers is difficult for the va? >> if someone is active duty and they don't show up for work the next day or they're missing out of their unit, they're obviously gone and someone looks for them and finds them and finds out what happens to them, and knows that they died, veterans have no obligation to check in anywhere at any given point in time ever about anything. and so if -- [laughter] >> and either do i, you know? so we don't have the luxury, i should say, of knowing when someone chooses to take their own life when they choose to do that. so we need to rely on for veterans who get care in the va not everyone -- them not showing

up for an appointment which may or may not be scheduled. if you or i don't go to our doctors' appointments, very seldom does someone call or find out where i am or why i didn't come. but we have instituted programs in the va to do those follow-up calls and find people. if they don't care in the va, we don't know that they've died. so we rely on the state death certificate data to provide us with that information. not all states collect or report veterans' status to the center for disease control, which is the overarching group that maintains death numbers in the united states. there's a small percentage of states, 17 right now, to be exact, that report these numbers on a regular basis. so we've had to take those numbers and draw a conclusion from that.

there's a huge time delay. right now we're working with the cdc to get the 2009 data. so it's not available yet. [inaudible] >> right. >> we don't have any data to compare civilian suicides after the economic downturn. the cdc hasn't published it. >> so it's a struggle to figure out -- even if we're making an impact with the programs that we've implement. >> general chiarelli, i wanted to follow up on an important point on the review of each suicide -- every suicide is a different story. if you could, though, make one sort of systemic recommendation or at least the army, either it's a obstacle that should be removed or something that should be done, looking across, what do you think it should be. >> the number 1 systemic recommendation i would make is the study of the brain.

i promise you if there's anything we need to do, that's what we need to understand. we just don't understand enough. now, please don't take what i'm going to say as saying we don't want people to seek help from behavioral health specialists. we do. we want them to seek help but in studying those suicides over every single suicide, 50% of the soldiers who commit suicide in the united states army had behavioral health care. it's 50/50. almost a complete wash. they're seeing somebody or have seen somebody, sometimes numerous times, sometimes -- and bonnie will attest to this. we sit and listen to cases where they were seeing a behavioral health specialist who indicated they were a low-risk case and within 24 hours they were found dead. i mean, that is what is so perplexing about it. and until we understand more about how the brain works -- until we understand the effects of post-traumatic stress -- i

mean, one number that i've seen out there is that if you have post-traumatic stress, you're six times more likely to commit suicide than if you don't have post-traumatic stress. if you have post-traumatic stress, you are six times more likely to participate and partner aggression which is a nice term for something else. i mean, we just don't know. and if anything, we need to continue the research. now, we think we're close to having a biomarker for concussion which will be huge. there are no biomarkers for the brain right now. i mean, you know, the scary part for me at my age is going to the doctor is not the examination, when the blood work comes back. you just hope the guy has a smile on his face. because he can tell from that blood work just about everything about you except how your brain is doing. and we think we are very, very close to having a biomarker where we're going to be able to -- when a soldier is in some

kind of an event which we think is a concussive event, we can go up to him and we can brick their finger not unlike you would do for a diabetic for their blood sugar we can identify if that individual has a concussion. the comorbidity between the symptoms of the post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are like this. comorbidity to doctors means they share the same symptoms. and part of the problem is trying to diagnose those folks when they come back to the ones who produce themselves and indicate they have a problem as opposed to those who try to hide it because they're type a people who just -- because of the stigma attached to this, just don't want to tell anybody. >> okay. i'm getting the cue for q & a, which i would like to begin and delve into the recommendations. a couple of things on the q & a, we know this is, obviously, an emotional issue for many people. and want to respect that, but

also to utilize this forum, an open forum about some of the recommendations and some things that can be done by the government, by citizens, by local and state governments to help with this. so i wanted, if you could, announce who you are and answer a question. if it's for the whole panel, let me know, if it's for one particular person, let them know. [inaudible] >> there's a microphone. i'm sorry. >> thank you. one of the myths about suicides of the military is that it's somehow tied or connected to the volunteers in the last few years and related to the recruiting decisions during the midpoint in the iraq war. it's not part of the report and general chiarelli you probably have the best data on that and tell us whether there's any relationship between fitness measures, recruiting measures and the folks committing suicide?

>> we found none whatsoever. one of the most difficult things for us to do is do the evaluation because hipaa kicks in, there are all kinds of hipaa issues that are involved with screening recruits who may, in fact, may have behavioral health issues. as many are srg briefings go we see many, many times an individual who commits suicide had mental health problems prior to joining the service and that only becomes visible to us after they commit suicide because we can't get at those records but we have seen nothing in data that would show that there's anything to do with waivers or anything else that leads to warrant a higher incidents of suicide. i think when you look at our numbers -- when the cdc corrected the numbers and i totally agree -- we don't have numbers for 2009. our latest numbers are 2008. when we collect that -- correct that population or the population we have in the

service -- in civilian life it's 19 per 100,000, just over 19 per 100,000 commit suicide, in the military -- in the army it's been -- last year it was 22 per 100,000, an increase of 3, that is 3, that is 22 too many. and in no way do we not want to attack this problem. but the issue for me is, is trying to understand it. and it is so much more complicated than i thought it was when i set out to solve it. one statistic that i can tell you right off the bat is in the cases that i look at, 72% of those cases is an individual's got a relationship problem. 72% of the cases in the united states army last year had a relationship problem. and you say, ha, that's the -- that's the reason. anybody who has a relationship problem goes into a higher risk category. that's not necessarily the case. because what you see with post-traumatic stress is relationship problems are the result of all the other things

that happened from alcohol abuse, to drug abuse to problems getting along with your partner, you name it. and finally it ends in a relationship issue. that relationship issue could be the culmination and the straw that broke the camel's back, i don't know. but that's what makes this so difficult. but i won't say relationships cause suicide. >> if our panelists want to add anything else, just let me know. otherwise, we'll just go right there. >> hi, my name is christie kaufman and i'm a soldier wife. as i appreciate this in-depth conversation and general chiarelli and i have spoke in depth about some of these issues, i think some of my concerns is when you have the title of report dealing with military suicides and no one's mentioned the suicides we're seeing among the family members. i know that there are tracking challenges to this and general chiarelli and i have talked about them but if you're really

going to try to track the veteran population and if you look at the collaborative efforts that you mentioned with the dod, va and health and human services -- unless we can get some numbers behind this, i can stand up to these conferences and i always say the same thing. i've lost three army we're live friends to suicide but i can tell you anecdotally if we don't have the numbers it's very difficult to develop any kind of traction behind it. based on some of the recommendations that you made, i would say that the federal exemption of the state licensing is a huge one. it's been a big problem for us within a community when you build a relationship with a therapist and then having to leave that therapist, dod had something called intransition. i'm not sure it still exists but it was a program that tried to deal with that. that did not apply to the family members. that's kind of the issue is that when we talk about these suicides or suicide prevention or just mental health in general, we have to be better at looking at wholisticly an integrating the families into it. i think that there are sops that are missing and general

chiarelli and i have talked about this when a soldier commits suicide, we have a dod suicide event report. there's really no sops in place or policies dealing with what happens when the family member attempts or commits suicide. and unless we have that data, again, it's going to be difficult to get to some of the issues. finally, i just wanted to say, even if everything the dod was working perfectly and we know it's not we do not have the resources to take care of the need after 10 years of war. and there's challenges whether it's a joint ethics law or regulations or interpretations thereof and then there are external challenges that we on the 501c3 need to be more effective in integrating our services into that community. thank you. >> i think you're absolutely right. there are lots of data challenges and the need to know more about services, veterans, affiliated or unaffiliated i think we need to know more about military families and families

of veterans. >> does that track all the military families through the veterans. >> we're tracking military suicides through the veterans. we had 10 as opposed to 12. i think most of you know because -- the cdc tracks suicides on a calendar year we use a calendar year which confuse some people when we track suicides. so our numbers are calendar year numbers, not the normal government fiscal year numbers. and this year we've had 10 and last year we had 12. and this year we had -- we've add total of 22. and last year we had a total of 26 for the year. >> i think the -- one of the things the report calls for is the strong partnership between the dod and the va and the department of health and human services. and the department of health and human services has taken on somewhat of the cause of family tracking. and i think we need to work

closer together. >> but i just would remind everybody, i can't make a family member report a suicide or even attempted suicide. that's one thing that lies outside have our ability even in the military. so i look with suspect even the numbers that i'm collecting. [inaudible] >> i believe it, among officers and nco wives and we have to get our messaging that -- oh, microphone, sorry. okay. thank you. steve, i believe? >> i'd like to thank you for the report. it's going to spark a lot of conversation. meg, this question's for you. military leaders must eliminate stigma. and eliminating stigma must include a multipronged approach which include accountability. on page 10 of the report, you said that military leaders must

be held accountable. so my question is, what do you think accountability is? and i'd like to ask the same question to general chiarelli. what's accountability? and how many leaders in all of the investigations you've conducted have been held accountable or what changes have you made to train them or perhaps, you know, in the military that i served in, if you did something wrong, it was reflected in your oer or your ncoer. >> i will. we do think that leaders need to continue to address stigma. that may be the hardest challenge of this report. and it's something that leaders at all levels of the military have taken on. i don't think anybody would say that we've reached success yet. it's something that needs to continue. again, it may be the toughest thing there. as far as accountability, i'd like to underscore that this policy brief wasn't about pointing fingers or assigning blame.

the real point here of this policy brief, our intent is that things need to be done as we move forward to try to address this. >> we've got to go back and take a look at some of the laws and policies put in place that makes it very, very difficult for military families or anybody else we used to because of the stigma associated there's a very complicated and a legalistic way if i want to command-direct be in to behavioral health i have to do it. and if i violate it, i've had cases come in front of me i've had to adjudicate where the individual has done exactly the right thing in ensuring that somebody got to a behavioral health professional but in doing so, did not follow current policy that requires certain things be done, lockstep, or you're allowed to do that and i've had to take action. and the action i've taken is to call them into my office and

thank you very much for what you did but we've got to change those kinds of things so that we can get into the 20th century and understanding the behavioral health issues and injuries are real, no-kidding injuries. and that's what we, i think, as a society have failed to do. and i hope the military can lead an effort to do that. >> this question is for you, general chiarelli. you talked about the after-action review that you do after each suicide and i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that process. and is that standardized across all the services? >> i can't speak to all the services. we start with what we call a 36 liner. we're big into reports. probably 10 lines than it needs to be but it's 36 lines and in it we go through everything through the prescriptions the individual is on, how many times they've seen a behavioral health

specialist and all the material comes to us and one the medical examiner -- and until they indicated, yes, this was a suicide that we hold this srg and discussing the case with the commander who, in fact, talks about the individual case, what went right and what went wrong and it's always what went wrong and what they could have done about it. and it's just an open discussion to try to pass lessons learned to all commanders who were all listening to this. i talked to folks in afghanistan and iraq. no one is immune from having to be up to hawk these. they have to hawk and brief it to the army every month. we're trying to learn from them and they've proven to be very beneficial at pointing some of the policy issues. you know, i just recently -- i just recently published a policy and i think the report correctly points out that i am not allowed

to ask a soldier who lives off-post whether that soldier has privately owned weapons. i have to go through a very distinct process, a commander does, before he can ask those questions for a soldier who lives off-post. and when you have somebody who is moderate to high risk and seeing a behavioral health specialist, the studies that i have read indicate that when you can separate the individual from the weapon -- 'cause suicide in most instances a spontaneous event, often accompanied with alcohol or prescription drug abuse -- when you can do that, you can lower the incidents of suicide. and we have issues in even being able to do that. >> we have lots of questions, so -- you, yes, sir. >> thank you. chaplain johnson, army reserve, sir. i think i would like to hear you

speak about the real success in how we intervene with those who actually do come up and declare themselves suicidal, having some kind of suicidal ideaiation. 28 days a month i'm wearing civilian clothes and working back in the philadelphia area and part of that is with the local suicide prevention task force in our county. and there is not -- despite all of the mental health resources available, there is not within the general population the kind of attention to and training that people can identify and respond to someone who's suicidal. so my whole point, sir -- i would like to hear you speak to the successes which is those who come up on the radar, we deal very effectively with them. >> we do. and some of those are the most difficult cases. many times where soldiers do

exactly what they're supposed to do. change of command, do what they're supposed to do and follow exactly the way you would want them to do that. but if a person wants to commit suicide, it is very, very difficult to stop them ultimately from doing it. it really is. you can get them the help. you can do so much and we have many, many success stories at being able to help them and i will tell you the va's line is one of -- it is truly a great national resource in being able to get to somebody who can help you over the phone and they do a fantastic job. but there are all kinds of success stories out there where soldiers have intervened, got the soldier the help and got them past the immediate crisis. but we are concentrating, quite frankly, on those where we don't have success and trying our darnedest to figure out how we can fix that. >> there are a few -- >> thank you. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. there are a few interventions that both the dod and the va

have found to be effective in the immediate need arena. and i think that everyone in america should know what those are. and one of those you alluded to is removing the weapon from the person's home. at that point, when someone is endangered, making it difficult for them to seek any means from which to hurt themselves is effective. there's a stalling technique involved. there's studies that say if someone planned to jump off a bridge and the bridge is closed, they won't necessarily walk to another bridge. they'll think about it. if they go to get their gun and the gun has a gun lock on it or it's not in their home, there's a stalling technique there. and i think that that in itself is the single most effective thing that we can do as a society to help anyone who we

think is in danger of taking their lives. i think the other thing that we've learned over time is that making sure people know that help is available. that they have a number to call. they have something in their pocket they can pull out and choose, and that we as a society aren't afraid to ask the question, are you thinking about hurting yourself? are you thinking about killing yourself? i don't want you dead. i care about you. and i help you get help. and that's just my public service announcement for the day. >> the report says that 48% of military suicides in 2010 occurred with privately owned weapons. and before this panel we were talking about some of the surprising findings at least for veterans. could you explain to the audience what are some of those as relates to handguns, some of

the trends? >> one of the things we worry about in the veteran population is that veterans are at a higher risk than nonveterans to die by suicide. the numbers vary depending on what state stat you're looking at and what it boils down that the rate for veterans in general is slightly higher than it is for the general population. within that, there's deeper concerns. and one of the concerns is that women veterans are at a higher rate than nonveteran women to die by suicide, which is concerning because in the national numbers, we know that women -- while they may be more likely to attempt suicide are much less likely to die by suicide overall. so the fact that we have this group of women veterans who may be changing that dynamic for

themselves is worrying. one of the reasons we worry about that is that they are more likely to use firearms as an attempt method. and we know that firearms are a more lethal method and their chances of dying are higher as they try to kill themselves using a gun. so i think those are things to be aware of. >> the gentleman here. >> good afternoon, tom berger with vietnam veterans of americans. and thank you for putting on this briefing this afternoon. with all due respect, dr. harrell, i want to return to my colleague steve robinson's question which not turning to leadership and just call it command structure. when we look at the reports from the rand corporation that came out earlier this year, both on resiliency programs as well as on suicide risk prevention programs, leadership -- let's call it command structure was

mentioned very specifically in both of those reports, okay, as reasons why in the case of the resiliency programs they've been failing in the military. so i wish that the general would please comment. >> about leadership? >> about leadership's role or -- >> i think one of the programs is going to be the most effective is one that we've rolled out called comprehensive soldier fitness. we have an online test called a gat that measures resiliency. now it's evidence-based -- most people believe it's evidence-based. there are always some who believe they are not because when you get 15 psychologists in a room you will get 15 different answers, i promise you. but we have the gat, the gat measures resiliency and the gat recommends a series of modules that are online that a person can take, again, in order to reduce the stigma and make this something the soldier goes to, we require them they take the

gat and we don't monitor their progress on how they work on increasing their resiliency. we also have master resilience trainers that we are rolling out of our battalions who will go with the leadership and help teach resiliency techniques to soldiers because we really believe that if we want to get to the left of the event we have got to increase the amount of resiliency the amount the individual soldiers have. >> you need the microphone. >> as a follow-up, as you recall one of the criticisms in the rand report on the resiliency studies was that there were no evaluations done. how are you evaluating the program you just talked about in a meaningful sense? >> well, one of the things we're doing is we've entered into a $50 million study with the national institute of mental health, the first ever end to end look at suicide in this entire country. it is being framed after the

very famous framingham report that reduced the risk of cardiac deaths by 55%. it's a study that i think will go far longer we're trying to to go up with algorithm, that say chiarelli will die at 29. but when you go to the doctor and they ask you do you have any family history of heart problems. do you take an aspirin, what's your blood pressure? what's your cholesterol? all of that came out of framingham. we think and the national institute of mental health thinks they will be able to do the same for us when it comes to behavioral health in these issues and this study, i think, is going to be ground-breaking not only for the military, what comes out of it and a survey, an al-army survey to cigar this data. we'll be able to track this along with our soldiers on the gat and we're going to be able to draw some conclusions to

exactly what is the impact of resiliency and low resiliency on suicide? i really feel that within two to three years you're going to see things coming out of this study that are going to have a huge impact across all of society. >> i have a question up here. thank you. >> my name is lynn mccall. general chiarelli, you mentioned that you were close to having a biomarker for concussive events. is there a link between concussive events and the propensity for suicide? >> what we know is there is -- i mean, if you look at the work of dr. ann mckee in boston. if you're one of the believers like i am in her work that indicates the protein, that's very important in the body for neurological, it seems like multiple blows to the head. i'm not a doctor. i'm a tanker, but what it

explains it bends over itself and it collects in the brain and it has the effect of beginning to eat away at the brain. you all heard -- i think his name is brian doerson the chicago bears football player who committed suicide not too recently. most men put a bullet through the head. he put it through the chest. put it through his chest 'cause he wanted ann mckee to do the biopsy of his brain because he had a very successful nfl career, very successful in business, and then he started to display all the symptoms, early dementia, problems getting along with people, anger management issues. he killed himself. they looked at his brain and he had the same buildup of tao protein she's seen in just about every single case she's looked at in the nfl and it's also been studied in boxers so that's the kind of research i think we need. a really exciting thing about this research is that there's many people who believe that this will help us with the problem of dementia 'cause

there's a belief that the same kind of -- it's research. it's not finished yet. that this same kind of buildup of tal protein could be one of the reasons why people develop dementia later on in life. >> consistent with that, there is research that shows that veterans who have dramatic brain injury, dbi, are about 1.5 times as likely to die by suicide. >> i know there's a lot of questions, the issue we haven't talked -- we talked about the length of 10 years of wear so to speak. in the findings that all of you are dealing with, is it something unique about these wars and multiple deployments where we haven't talked about iraq or afghanistan specifically, whether it's comparative to previous wars or if in the findings about veterans, is this different about what the veterans from vietnam or first gulf war -- in

the data? if we could talk about those wars specifically? >> i think we've alluded to some of the difficulties in determining that. and that is our tracking of veteran suicide. and actually suicide in the military and in the general population, in the early years. so we don't have good comparison numbers to go back and to look at. and the information i have and what informs me actually is information about veterans who get care within the va system because they're the ones that i can track and i can follow. i know now that our numbers are somewhat bimodal. when we look over the right spectrum, we have an increase of suicides in people who are in our under-35 age group. and then we have another peak

that corresponds with national suicide numbers for people in middle age or just past middle age, which actually is probably our vietnam-era veterans. so there's still two groups of people within the va that we're concerned about. i think over time, we'll find out what happens to this early group as they age and they're out of the military for longer, but i think that one of the things we need to remember is that veterans are people too. and so they are also subject to all the stresses and normal life span changes in suicide rates and imposing that on top of their veteran experience is something we haven't quite figured out how it makes a difference. what i do know is that the way we are dealing with and working with our newer veterans is

different than the way we dealt with our vietnam veterans when they came back. we hope we've learned lessons. we're doing things differently. we hope we're doing them better. and i think that perhaps that this is a positive outcome is our -- the fact that we're even having this discussion in a public forum, with a room full of people speaks to the differences in both of our agencies' perception. >> might i say a couple of words about the link between deployment and suicide. it always seemed obvious and intuitivive that these things should be linked but until this past summer the prevailing wisdom was that data didn't support that link at all. and now as of some analysis done this past summer, what we're seeing is that there's a link for the army but it varies for the other services. even before we saw this link, clearly we still knew the tie

between tbi and ptsd and for those service members that come back with theater with those types of wounds, they were at risk. what we now see in army data, is that those who were deployed were about 1.25 times more likely to die by suicide than those who did not deploy at all. but we don't see that in the other services. and the extreme of that is in the air force. the air force will tell you that those who do not deploy, have never deployed, are 3.5 as likely to die by suicide as those who have deployed three times. exactly the opposite relationship. it's a complicated relationship. >> and we don't know what happens over time. >> we don't know. >> i could throw out a factoid. be careful about numbers. you'll see post camper station.

the number of suicides at fort hood is naturally going to be higher when there are 40,000 soldiers there than there will be when there's 12,000 soldiers there because they're all deployed. and we follow reports of an increased suicides at locations and normally it's because the increase is based on people coming back home and the post being full of soldiers as opposed to when they were all deployed. the most -- the most likely person to commit suicide in the united states army is a 29-year-old private. that's what we found when we did the red book. and you ask yourself why? and i would argue if you join the army at 29 years old, one of two things happens. you either got a real shot at patriotism and decided to go down one night and signed up or you're going through some life experiences that you are reaching out for a lifesaver. and what we find with these kids, their spouses have left them, they're left with two kids. they have no medical insurance or health insurance. we bring them into the army, we put them through six months of

training. they think they finally made it. they go to their first post camp and station and four months later they're looking for somebody to take care of their kids because they've got to go down range. so one thing we've told our leaders is when you get these kids who come in at a later age, those are kids that are probably a higher risk category. you need to take a little bit more time interviewing them and talking to them about what the condition of their life is. >> this is also on the webinar so i think we have questions from twitter. is that true? yes. >> i'm from twitter. >> this is for the entire panel. >> what can the american public do to help reduce suicide in the military? >> that's a great question. what can the american public do to reduce suicide in the military so i'll just go down, for veterans. >> i'll start. i think awareness and support. this is an american problem.

it truly is a va problem. it's a department of defense problem but it's an american problem. and the suicides in the military affect all aspects of american life. we've heard families are hugely impacted, children are impacted for generations to come. i think being aware that people have -- and that our military service men and women and veterans need to talk about their experiences, but they need practical assistance, too. they need jobs. they need support. they need friends. they need community involvement. and being there for people and each other is probably the single most positive thing we can do. general? >> i would argue pretty simply, help us eliminate the stigma. not only the stigma in the army but the stigma in what i term in

civilian life. i mean, that is really what needs to happen. we need standards that are applied across-the-board so we really understand the breadth of the problem. i would hope that if we could get a little quicker in reporting the specifics, i think it's really is a problem like this. you know, there's 30 to 35,000 folks in the country that commit suicide every single year. it's going to be somewhere in that number. and we need those statistics. we need to track those statistics so we can start to get at this issue. and end as much as we possibly can the incidents of suicide. >> general, it's a pleasure to say i agree with you on that. [laughter] >> the stigma and the data. [laughter] >> are there any questions in the back. right there. yes, you, and then i'll head to you. okay. >> general chiarelli, your comments about 29-year-old privates notwithstanding, i believe you said finding those or identifying those at risk is the hardest task.

assuming you could do that, assuming you could see find those cohorts of people who for various different reasons or combinations of reasons were at the highest risk to commit suicide, given the policies and the procedures and the constraints that you have to follow, what do you think you could do that would impact the incidents? >> well, i mean, one of the things we tried to do -- i'll give you an example of some of the things we've tried to do. we tried to change our own regulations. it used to be when an individual reported to alcohol abuse center to get help that it was automatically reported to his chain of command. we started a pilot at six locations where that's not the case. where an individual self-refers themselves for alcohol -- what we call the asap program, army assistance abuse program. we do not report it to the chain of command. we leave those centers open late at night so people can seek the help that they need and on weekends so they can seek the help that they need. that program was initially

rejected by commanders. but in each instance where we were able to do it, we have had tremendous success at bringing in a portion of the population that's high risk, who doesn't want to admit they are high risk because they don't want to be branded as an abuser of alcohol. the problem i have in rolling that out throughout the entire united states army is a national problem, the problem with health care. we just do not have enough behavior health care folks. and someone who is an army subanswer it counselor to become a behavior health specialist who makes more money and i have this problem in trying to fill up the number of a.s.a.p. counselors is what i call them to get at this issue. i don't want somebody to self-refer themselves for alcohol abuse and say come back five weeks later when we can see you. i want to make sure that we can provide them immediate help when they do that. it's those kinds of things i really think we have to look at.

i think we have to make maximum use of telebehavior health. and one of the problems with telebehavior health is getting all doctors to believe in telebehavior health. you know, this group of population, the youngsters of today -- there's nothing they like better than communicating over some of the things that those of us who are a little bit older might not like to do. and what we found when we rolled out these pilot programs in doing this, is that a kid who gets on skype and talks to a doctor is much more forthcoming on talking about his or her problems than they would be if they're sitting across from you and me. but this is one way we can make use of assets when i have brigades return home so that rather than you use the pdha, you know, the post deployment health assessment, that we give every single soldier, starting with the brigade commander and brigade commander a 20-minute evaluation to see if they will have a problem reintegrating

into their community. >> nancy sherman, woodrow wilson center in georgetown university. this really follows on your remarks, general and that has to do with the art of being a clinician. there's science, there's antistigma. your statistic was alarming that 50% of the suicides or so have been in behavioral care. so resources aside, is there -- and standardization aside, is there concern about what this so-called art of building rapport and getting people to trust you, which is what clinicians do or are supposed to do, whether it would be through skype or phone calls or consultation -- you know, one-to-one consultations. is that something that the army is looking at? and recommendations regarding that? >> well, we're looking real hard at it. i've spoken about this a lot.

i mean, i wish -- we used to, in just country -- we used to make use of boards where doctors -- when they got together, would sit around and talk if somebody was lost on the operating table they would sit and talk about the operation, what went right and possibly what went wrong. i'm a tanker, not a doctor, many of those boards have gone by the wayside of the fear of individuals being suicide. and malpractice insurance. one of the things that we have in the military that's a blessing is you can't do that. i have been working very, very hard to get my clinicians in high risk or what they thought were medium risk cases where things go bad, to get together and talk about lessons, what they possibly could have missed that would have caused them to put that person in a higher risk category and made them an

inpatient rather than an outpatient. but it is difficult to do that even in a hierarchical organization with four stars on your collar across the force. but we're starting to make some progress. >> i have a comment there. i think one of the things we tend to forget is we're well aware that the new generation likes to communicate over electronic media. you know, we've had almost 30,000 chatters into your chat space about suicidal issues. one of the things we don't remember is that we have a whole new generation of medical professionals now coming out of academic institutions who are psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers who are going to be providing mental health care to not only the new generation but generations that are already available.

they, too, prefer to communicate over different media than we're used to. and so i think it really behooves our academic institutions now to take that into to take that into consideration to prepare people with mental health care not only the future but right now. we know in medical institutions across-the-board, it's not a topic that even is discussed or talked about or people taught someone from internal medicine or a primary care perspective how to work with suicidal patients nor to ask the questions and so i think it behooves us all in our institutions to do a lot of clinical training and support for all sorts of reasons, medium being only one of them. >> i have one more -- there's a woman on the side here, if you could stand. and just to let you know, i have

about 30 people and no minutes so i think we'll be able to discuss after and -- [inaudible] >> we have an interested audience so that's good. >> cj jordan, tag line you must know me to treat me. general chiarelli, can you talk about some of the things you instituted dealing with descriptions? i mean, that's part of the report when we talk about abuse? >> descriptions? >> the prescriptions drugging. >> i wish we had open season to collect drugs people aren't using. one of the things we had to do was closed open prescriptions. you know, the person who goes in and gets wisdom teeth pulled and has an open prescription for percocet, we in the army have gone back and closed those. we've seen -- we're working very, very hard to reduce the reliance on psychotropic drugs. at walter reed alone, we went from 83% of our soldiers in the wtu were on some kind of

psychotropic drugs down to 8.5%. but one of the reasons why we saw an increase -- and i saw it when i went out to talk to soldiers, when i visited six installations in seven days and i would talk to soldiers and they say i go to the behavioral specialist and he asks me three questions and throws me a bag of drugs. well, why did that happen? they are not bad people. but the fact of the matter is there's 15 other people lined up to see this person and they take -- maybe this will work. this works in some cases. and we were throwing and dispensing out too many drugs. that's got to end. we're working very, very hard on alternative pain methods and trying to get at this whole issue. but there are all kinds of policies and laws out there that make it difficult for us when we want to try to pull that back. and i think the report clearly points out -- i wish it was easier to do that. we've got a request in that will

allow us to collect those drugs, but we'll see if it gets approved. >> do you want to add on the recommendation? >> i think the report speaks on that one. >> we are going to close this event, but certainly not the discussion nor the report. i wanted to give everyone an opportunity -- a quick opportunity of any final comments or statements about the report on this issue? >> i want to thank you for the report. i think it is important to keep remembering that those issues are not going away. my other plea is to remember that veterans aren't going away. and that this is going to be a problem that we will deal with over many years to come. it's not going to go away when the wars are over and the conflicts are over, that veterans will still need our help and support. >> general?

>> i want to thank you for the report, as difficult as i can be on this subject. [laughter] >> anything that would pull this group of people together to talk about this. to webcast this around the country is something we should all be thankful for. it's a complicated subject. you've done a good job at trying to lay out some of the issues. i would just make that plea to people to help us end the stigma associated with folks getting the help that they need for behavior health issues. >> i'd like to thank my panelists and thank everyone for coming and for listening online. this is a tough issue. we've laid out recommendations that we felt were actionable, but in no way did we mean to imply that any of them were easy. this is something that's going to take continuing work. and dr. kemp is absolutely right. veterans are in the public eye right now. as these wars phase down and our

militaries downsize we'll have more veterans out there. and they'll be less in the public eye. >> i want to thank all of you, thing cna s and also thank the audience for coming and your questions, to we understand something dr. kemp said. this is an american problem. and your energy and interests in this subject is something that we welcome. and thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at what's ahead today on c-span2. next, the american academy of arts and sciences host a discussion on the military's

relationship with civilian society. more from that group after that with a look at the constitution, politics and civil discourse and later, china's central television and their reporting of kim jong-il's funeral in north korea. taking a look what's going on in iowa. here's a story on fox news.com. ron paul was ignored, tolerated and occasionally even praised by his opponents in the republican presidential race but with the libertarian leading candidate heading to the front of the field, paul's extensive record of outside of the gop mainstream comments and views is coming under withering fire. fox news goes on to say, that former massachusetts governor mitt romney who mostly has stayed away from commenting on mr. paul's campaign has taken a swipe today at the texas congressman's hands-off attitude towards iran's nuclear program.

♪ >> with the iowa caucuses next week and the new hampshire, south carolina, and florida primaries later on in the month, c-span 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, vice president and civil rights advocate hubert humphrey, friday, four time governor of alabama, george wallace and on saturday, senator congressman from south dakota, george mcgovern followed by billionaire businessman ross perot. the contenders every night at 10:00 eastern on c-span. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate, on weeknights watch key public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and

get our schedules at our website and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> next, we bring you a discussion on the modern american military and civilian society. we'll hear from lieutenant general thomas bostic, the chief of personnel for the army as well as major general greg martin, commandant of the army war college. the moderator is stanford university history professor david kennedy. topics include the end of don't ask, don't tell, army morrell and the incidents at abu ghraib prison in iraq. this panel discussion was hosted by the american academy of arts and sciences in cambridge, massachusetts, in october. it's an hour and 10 minutes. >> thank you, leslie and welcome all of you this morning. this symposium at least was occasioned by the publication

this summer of an issue that i edited. this is not a book-promotion event but i just call it to your attention. [laughter] >> this is the backdrop for this discussion this morning. i chose as an epigraph for this volume of the maxim from cicero, arms are of little value in the field in which there's wise counsel at home and i chose that deliberately as a way of trying to focus all the essays in this volume and our attention here this morning for that matter on the critical importance of the relationship between military institutions and civil society in many, many different dimensions and we'll explore some of those here this morning, i'm sure. cicero's point was driven home to me in a much more homely fashion. about three years ago, when i was a week-long observer at a

five-week long exercise at -- what was then called fort lewis, washington, for the army rotc cadets between their junior and senior year, a exercise called warrior forge, and i spent a week observing the cadets and what they were doing and so on, and every evening i would have dinner with the instructors and many, many times over the course of that week, someone asked a form of the following question: how can it be that the army is at war, but the nation is not? and i think that really made vivid for me the possibility of a radical and rather disturbing disjunction between the role of the military in our society today and its relationship to civil society at large. now, more recently, someone who has much more authority to speak about this matter than i do, the recently demitted chief of staffs admiral mike mullen at his commencement address at west

point last may said the following. he said there's not a town or a city i visit where people do not convey to me their great pride in what we do. even those who do not support the wars support the troops. but i fear that they do not know us. i fear they do not comprehend the full weight of the burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle. this is important because the people uninformed about what they are asking the military to endure is a people inevitably unable to fully grasp the scope of the responsibilities our constitution levies upon them. we're way more representative of the population. we're more american touched by military service. perhaps the more advantageous familiarity would ensue. but we are a small force, rightly volunteers and less than 1% of the population scattered about the country to do base

closings and frequent and lengthy deployments. we're also fairly insular, said admiral mullen, speaking our own language of sorts, living within our own unique culture. well, there you have it from a fairly authoritative source, i think, is one way to define the issue before us is the relationship of this relatively small and as i'll say in just a moment or explain further in just a moment this relatively incomprehensive force to the larger civil society in whose name it is sent to do battle. now our volume and this discussion this morning tries to keep these sorts of questions in play, while examining many aspects of the current military's nature and characteristics. we're trying to explore what today's military does or is asked to do, who does it? why do they do it. how do they do it? and what challenges does the future hold in all of those