has linked up with the community mental health centers in montana, and i believe that i may be out of date by a couple years since we did a couple years ago, but there was an organization in the health center by allowing veterans to go to those mental health centers which are usually staffed by psychologists and social workers and usually not by physicians. they were able to dramatically improve the access time to get folks to talk to people in their neighborhood and their city to get some care. i think in order to make that care to he says, as mr. tolentino said, you have to be able to get medical records back and forth so that there's a coordination of care. so i think the all hands on deck idea is one that i fully endorse

and one where if i look at some of the cases in a tragic cases we've looked at in the past, it wasn't in frequent for veterans to show up at the community mental health center in their town, and because they were veterans they were then sent to the va and there wasn't a link they were not accepted or there was no payment mechanism or there was no authority so i think there would be a useful step. second, i think you really do have to sit down and as bad as the metrics are i think you do just have to sit down and model what you're going to do and figure out what the demand is and try to lay out a business case for what you're doing. ..

>> to ensure that data integrity. if we have seen scheduling practices that resulted in gaming the system, to make performance metrics look better at the end of the day, over the past seven years, they need a culture change. to get that culture changed, i think they really need to hold the facility directors accountable for how well the data is actually being captured. the auditors that actually did the work in the field at the sites for this review had general observations that the focus was always on the

outliers, who were not getting care outside of, say, the 14 day window. but there really was very limited focus on how well the schedulers were capturing that information. that is the information that starts to identify demand. it starts to tell you what type of services you're going to need, and what you need to address emerging care or strategically addressed care over the long term. you have to have reliable information. so coupled with i think a positive step to increase the staffing, that his glory very important. >> thank you very much. senator brown. >> thank you very much. just want to get back to the bonus issue. this year, next year $136.2 billion, an increase obviously. and the va gave out in

$211,194,000,000 to senior executive service employees. do you think that is appropria appropriate. >> sir, we at va under secretary shinseki's leadership have done an extensive review of review of bonuses, and have reduced those in both the number of outstanding ratings and the dollar amount that has actually been implemented. >> so the number was actually higher at one point? >> it was. we have taken this very much to heart. and let me just offer that the integrity of our performance measures and the integrity of our scheduling system, the fidelity with which we implement these and adhere to them better veterans centric, is extremely important to the department. so we take very seriously the

comments that have been made by the ig, and we will be rigorously following a. we have been emphasizing the integrity of the system, and it's obvious that some of what we put and come in my opinion, in performance measures, particularly as it relates to the desired date, may get us into a discussion where it leads to this kind of confusion. because what sometimes happens is that a scheduler will say i want to schedule you for when you want to next come in, and the veteran might say, but when are you next available? i'll be happy to take whatever is there. that's a trick bag we need to get out of by going back, in our view -- >> i understand that but my question is focusing on bonuses and now. i understand that there are holes and we need to fix them. the chairwoman brought up this is been issued since mid-2000,

2005, eight, whatever. if something you'll continue to work on. i get that. it's not perfect. i understand that as well. i'm a little curious, which the average salary for these people who are getting these bonus is? >> sir, can we take that for the record? >> i'm going to get you cash that was the summer, what are the bonuses based on, how do you justify 194 -- of the tax dollars to go to pay bonuses, people, they should be part of the john. i want to make sure i understand. and maybe if not, and i will stand corrected. nic, what you think about the opinion of time these bonuses to quality rather than quantity? what you think about that possibility? >> senator, my opinion with the bonuses is, is that i think you already mentioned, bonuses for doing your job. so you're doing your job up to par, you are rewarded for that. from what i was always taught,

for my 14 years in the military, is your bonus is your reward for going above and beyond. and clearly i am not seeing that in the treatment of veterans, in the care that they need. so my opinion is, i truly -- >> do you think that money could be used somewhere better? >> beg your pardon? >> do you think that money could be used somewhere better? >> i do. >> general, thank you once again. i enjoyed the testimony from senator moran. why do you think that veterans are reluctant to share their experiences with their clinician, and that you are finding that during your situation, and there's some, you found some of these folks have actually opened up. why do you think -- is a trust issue? >> yes, sir. it's clearly a trust issue. the issue, the combat, there's operational stress -- >> can add one thing? what you think the va could do

to establish that bond that apparently you have? >> i think the issue is a lot of trust issue, and lack of trust. a fact that quite honestly many clinicians do not understand the nuances of combat stress. in fact, some of the tools that have been built now where much like 95, a dramatic event. combat stress is very different. it's very personal. it's something that people really have to have a feeling and trust to someone else to share those experiences. along with the reconciliation process, the more difficult the problem may be. the answer to that, i think that we need to provide more opportunities for like we're doing at the semper fi odyssey are some of these people in the mental health community. as mentioned before, i don't think that 1900 more people are 3400 more people are going to solve the problem, unless you're

hiring the person that really can, in fact, connect to the individual that will inspire him or her to share their perspective. >> thank you. thank you all very much. >> dr. shah, at this committee's november mental health hearing from you said you were not aware of any facilities that were gaming the system, and not so reporting waiting times. you heard mr. tolentino's assessment about the manchester va regularly using to artificially meet their measures, often at the direct expense of veteran care. so now that you've read the ig report and perform your own audit of mental health practices at various va facilities, and just listen to his testimony, i want to ask you the same question today that i asked you in november. do you believe that these facilities are gaming the system and not fully reporting wait times? >> senator, i would say that we

have zero tolerance for that, and we are going to continue our audits and reviews to ensure with additional training and scheduling practices that this is not occurring. this is certainly not a practice that can't be condoned. >> well, you heard mr. tolentino. he talked about the manchester viacom increasing the mental health workload numbers nor to get additional resources, despite not having enough staff to support that growth. the quantity over quality i believe is, as you stated it. and the result is a better site getting the care that they need. and i'm really shocked the va allowed providers to be put in the kind of dilemma, where they have to choose between following directions from their leadership and following the ethics of the profession. so let me ask you, what are you going to do to ensure that the quality of care is not being sacrificed as you continue to meet these standards be? i think it's a multi-fold

approach going forward that we, are underway and have been implementing here. first, we need to ensure with a staffing model that we will continue to perfect that we have sufficient staffing on board to serve the veterans needs. we also need to look, as dr. daigh said earlier, there's a productivity directive that is being developed to ensure that care is being rendered in a productive way. second, we need to make sure that we have the measures in place to ensure that the veterans are receiving timely care in accordance with the condition. and if i might just go back to an earlier discussion with senator brown. we were discussing those veterans who are most critically in need, who are urgently in need of crisis, i feel so

strongly that we should be sure to respond to those, but certainly in the case where we would not have, say, an inpatient psychiatric beds available, we would see that out to the private community. and that is something that should happen in order to ensure the veteran is cared for, but it's fundamentally important that we get visibility for this, and in the conversation with senator brown, what i was trying to emphasize is that we must have visibility and we must respond to those who are most in crisis. and if that requires that we feed outcome because we don't have a bed available or something, we would do that. we do do that, but we only do that after making sure we don't have the capacity. because and italy, part of the risk is a handoff to the private sector, and it's important we get visibility, we bring those veterans in and we take care of

them. >> let me go back to the scheduling issue, because that is critically important piece of all this. back in 2005, and again in 2007, the ig release reports that highlighted problems with the patient scheduling. including the calculation of wait times, practices by schedules, all that. and despite having heard about this for seven years now, here we are today. so why is it so difficult to address these problems? and she would be more optimistic it will happen this time? >> well, vha has established the business needs, madam chairman, our scheduling, including a vision of a modern scheduling package that would, among other things, provide patients the ability to make their own appointments. >> and implementation date? >> we have published rfi in december 2011. we like to take for the record

when will be implementing. because we are underway in this new initiative. >> dr. daigh, do you believe that is going to happen? >> i don't have enough information to comment. i would have to check and see where they are with us. i would just say that this has been issued for a number of years and it hasn't been solved. so i'm not aware of the specifics of what they are talking about. >> okay. i have several of the question. i will submit for the record, but i do want to say i want to thank all of you for being here today and sharing your views. critically, access to the health care in a timely fashion is absolutely essential. especially if we have a growing number of men and women who are returning from a war where this is a signature issue and a signature wound that we are very cognizant of. we need to be prepared for, and this committee is focused on this, wants answers, and

follow-up, and not just this to be another hearing but that real action is taken. so, dr. schoenhard i appreciate the va stepping up to this today. i appreciate them accepting the ig report. i really appreciate the ig for all the work you did and intense amount of time. a large number of your resources focus on this, of course our other witnesses, thank you very much for being here today. but i want to make it very clear, this is not something we will have a hearing on and leave and go do something else tomorrow. this has to be taken care. we owe it to these men and women. i don't want to continue to hear that anybody is gaming the system. i want to know that the action plan that is being put in place, make sure the hiring that you have announced is actually taking place. if there are berries to the, we want to know about it. and i want to know how you

decided which business were going to get the practitioners you've outlined, and i want to know from on the ground there is a real connection to the va here at central office. and this isn't just another hearing here in washington, d.c. and action on the ground continues to be the anecdote that this committee and i've heard and too many committee members have been continue to here. so this is very critical. i think would make some progress, but boy, do we have a lot of work ahead of us. and i think a nation expects that others. i intend to stand up to and i expect all of you to stand up to it as well. i do want to just take a second and congratulate ms. halliday on a recent promotion. we do look forward to working with you. with that this hearing is adjourned. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

c-span's congressional directory is a complete guide to the one to the 112th congress. inside you'll find each member of the house and senate including contact information, district maps and committee assignments. also information on cabinet members, the supreme court justices and the nation's governors. you can pick up a copy for $12.95, plus shipping and handling at c-span.org/shop. where is the national public radio table? [cheers and applause] you guys are still here last night that's good year. i could remember where we landed on that. [laughter] >> this weekend on c-span, the

98th annual white house correspondents dinner. president obama and late-night talk show host jimmy kimmel headlined the event before an audience of celebrities, journalists and the white house press corps. coverage starts with a red carpet arrival live at 630 come and watch the entire dinner only on c-span. you can also sync up your experience online at c-span's dinner hub. find a celebrity guest list, highlights of past dinners plus blog and social media pose at c-span.org/whcd. the white house correspondents dinner live saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> and president obama in fort stewart, georgia, today to speak to troops and sign an executive order dealing with her profit colleges. the white house says some schools looking for money from the g.i. bill have preyed on veterans with brain injuries and encourage servicemembers to take

on costly loans. the executive order would ban for profit colleges with a history of predatory behavior from military bases. president's remarks scheduled to begin in about 15 minutes, and we'll bring them to you live here on c-span2. until then, some of today's headlines from this morning's "washington journal." >> host: fed rejects new actions. zachary goldfarb covers the economy and financial issues for the lost and post road and he's on the line with at this point. good morning. thanks for being with us. >> caller: good morning tournament let me ask you from a macro point of view, what is the fed's intention with keeping the interest rate policy that it has? >> caller: the fed isn't any to continue to support the economic recovery, but not do anything more that would either speed it up or slow it down. so if that could raise rates or

take steps that would slow down the economic recovery in an effort to contain inflation but inflation doesn't seem to be worried at this time. they will take steps like buying new mortgage assets or bonds to try to bring down and speed of the recovery to but they're worried that would cause inflation. the fed is basically in a wait-and-see mode with ongoing operations. but this inflation just do anything more. >> host: i will ask you to bring it down to the level of everyday americans out there who are affected by these policies because there's a debate that seems to be growing a bit louder about the pluses and minuses of this for average citizens. would you give us the argument on both sides? >> caller: sure. the one thing to understand is the fed's action is relatively any direct way from the average person. it works for the banking system, it creates money out of thin air

eventually, which is then laid out at lower interest rates, and their hope, is proven that can create jobs, theoretically reduce unemployment if it works in the opposite direction. so the argument from most of the liberal economists or people on the left is that the fed has power to do more but isn't doing them. and the feds could take additional steps to try to bring the unemployment, when unemployment is are high. the argument from conservatives is that the fed has done too much. that the fed has kept interest rates low for a long time, many years now, and that is creating a new bubble like to have him housing market, and like we had in the.com mac stocks. this time in the bond market. it will cause a lot of damage for the country. there's no evidence, no, either other things will happen immediately. those are the argus from both

sides. >> host: you talked about how the fed doesn't affect directly the interest rate that consumers might pay. but, in fact, where are some of the positives on low interest rates for consumers? does it means lower mortgage rates? does it mean lower rates on car loans generally when the fed has this interest rate policy? >> caller: it has a pretty direct effect on interest rates. unemployed all the more indirect. combined with other factors in the economy have kept all interest rates low, oil loans are low, also rates that companies pay to borrow money are very low. but the flipside of that, people who rely on fixed income accounts also receive low interest rates. so people who have stocks in cds or money market accounts, people who save a lot of money, don't invest in the stock

market, they're getting paid in interest rates .5%, 1%, very, very low. but in general economists think that low interest rates alone is overall good for the economy. >> host: there was one the center of the federal reserve president from the richmond bank, and can you tell us more about what his argument is? >> caller: he generally feels it's gone way too far the direction of taking steps to help the economy, because that always creates risk of rising prices or inflation. and if inflation occurs, there are also -- higher food prices, higher gas prices, et cetera. there isn't any evidence that inflation is out of control right now. gas prices which are now coming down. it doesn't seem to be a verdant pressing problems now.

when inflation shores get out of hand it's very hard to contain. >> host: thank you very much for giving us the two sides of the art and as the fed announced its policy to basically hold the line on interest rates and delay 2014. zachary goldfarb, "washington post" financial reporter, thanks for your time. >> caller: thanks. >> host: there are lots of headlines that came out of this, and lots of debate. for example, a piece that paul krugman, the liberal columnist wrote over the weekend, first to ben bernanke and children i should listen to professor bernanke, but the piece in "the new york times" magazine, and in this he said right now the fred believes it is facing an economy that is subject to inflation in a situation which it would cut interest rates. the problem is rates can't be cut further. when the recession began the fed started slashing short-term interest rates until novembe

november 2008. >> host: we would like to hear from which you think about this. let's listen to chairman bernanke defending the fed policy and at a press comes this week and they will start taking your calls. >> the view of the committee is that that would be very reckless. we, the federal reserve, have spent 30 years building up credibility for low and stable inflation, which has proved extremely valuable in that we been able to take strong

accommodative actions the last four or five years, to support the economy without leading to an un-anchoring of expectations or destabilization of inflation. to risk that asset for what i think would be quite tentative and perhaps doubtful gains on the real side would be i think an unwise thing to do drama that is ben bernanke. our phone lines are open. would like to ask about how the fed interest-rate policy affects you and whether it is helping or hurting in your personal finances. for example, are you a small business owner, has given you more access to capital? if you're a savor it in retirement or otherwise, are you concerned about the return you're getting on your investments. lets you of the fed's interest-rate policy has affected you and whether or not you think is going to help or hurt to your personal economy as the overall income at large. phone lines are open. let's begin with new jersey, in independent. you are on. >> caller: morning. i would just like to make three points and have a question,

please. number one, the fed is unconstitutional. only congress can print money. bernanke says it is a federal agency. only the board of governors are appointed by congress. the 12 reserve banks are all privately owned, by the house -- and 300 profit individuals. they don't include the inflation rate for gas and food. you get .5% interest for savings accounts. the money from the new york fed, 100% went to foreign banks. and it cannot be audited and it's not open to freedom of information act. and i wish you have a program where they would stick to the facts of this because the united states has to abolish it, and people don't understand it. the state and local governments can abolish the feds if the federal government refuses to do so. so please, susan, have a program on the really goes into this. thank you very much drama thank

you. on facebook and composer, a facebook. you can also take part in april, a yes or no paul we have on facebook. facebook.com/sees them. here's one from woodburn who sees it as a plus and minus. it helpsb usinesses and families that need affordable credit while inhibiting people from gaining return on their savings account. next up is a call from schenectady, new york. pamela is a democrat. >> caller: how are you doing? >> host: good, thanks stranger i think the federal reserve has to be more transparent, and your guest book a while ago about inflation. inflation is through the roof. i don't know if he is bought a loaf of bread recent budgets over over $4 a loaf. people like me that are on fixed incomes, we can't afford to buy groceries or medicine. they really have to end the fed. go back to the gold standard. that's why i'm supporting ron paul. i wish you would have him as a guest.

>> host: we've had ron paul as a guest and has heard his argument and seeing him on capitol hill. we heard mr. paul's point of view on this. so you think the fed doesn't measure inflation correctly? >> caller: exactly. they are sending all the money overseas, and our dollars not worth anything anymore drama thanks, family. picking up that thread, twitter post, the fed is afraid to hurt its inflation fighting brain. you can send us a tweet at c-spanwj to join in a discussion about the way the fed's low interest rates has affected your family, household, whether not you think it is helping or hurting your own situation and also the overall u.s. economy. in yesterday's "wall street journal," this piece that was the lead on the opinion page. congressman takes on the fed. is a bit of what he writes. the fed's news or interest-rate policy is punished savers without producing a strong recovery. two bills in congress would reign in the central bank.

that's yesterday's "wall street journal." next up is a call from bethesda. >> caller: i wanted to tell you that with economy tanks, i found very little work. what i did was write a turkish cookbook body have any money to pay for it so with a lower interest rates we were able to reduce our mortgage and we get $20,000 which i used to pay for the book, to print the book and now i am selling it so it sort of kept me afloat trim and so in your families personal economy the low interest rates have been a plus. >> caller: absolutely. it didn't increase our mortgage at all but we got some free cash to play with. >> host: who depend on people having capital to take on new projects track and i'm seeing a bit of movement there. i'm starting to get more work, so i'm hopeful that things are picking up. >> host: how is your book selling? >> caller: thank god very well claim thanks for the call. she is an architect giving us a

personal example of low interest rates on her family's economy. this is from the internet about dot com on the u.s. economy. if we can get a pretty close your. this is what the fed's policy on interest rate has been. it began in september 18 of '07 with the first half point cut. at that point it was for .75%. if you look at the success of rates that the pentagon over the ensuing year, plus the current rate october 29, away, half a point cut to 1%, and there in the low point, the low rate has stayed again, this week the fed announced that is going to hold the line on interest rates until late 2014. we're talking with you about the effect of that on your own family economy, plus or minus. mixes a telephone call from lake placid florida. richard is an independent. good morning. >> caller: good morning, susan. a pretty day today. the fed should be abolished as soon as possible.

their currency is terrible. they lied to us on a regular basis, especially about inflation. i mean, they cut fuel and food from inflation of what everybody consumes in this country every day. it's energy and food. when they figure the consumer price index they do not figure that in there. inflation is probably averaging somewhere between probably 12 and 16% yearly, at least. also, the fed talks about unemployment, and probably the biggest lie they are telling right now is trying to cover up the fact that we have catastrophic economic failure going on in europe. and when it hits the united states we could have a total collapse of our economy. hopefully not.

.. they will buy these up. that's the taxpayers. that is us. fallen on us. that is why we have the housing market and other crash. this is the history of the fed all the way back from creation in 1913 is that the peaks and valleys.

they were behind the great depression. they were behind the savings and loans of the '80s, of the late '80s, if the people follow the history of the fed they will find nothing but corruption and failure. peaks and valleys. destablize the monetary system, that is what the fed does. >> host: thanks, richard. on the other side of the coin we showed you paul krugman, earth to ben bernanke. there is response from the business insider magazine. earth to paul krugman. bernanke knows what he is doing. this is published on the 25th. ben bernanke is neither overly shy or out of touch with the world as professor krugman would have us believe. i believe the chairman has correctly assessed limitations of extraordinary monetary intervention at the zero bound short-term interest rates and comprehends the inability of the u.s. economy to generate sustainable inflation that the professor correctly notes would help us out of our debt deflationary slump.

next is call from cleveland. good morning to mark an independent. hey, mark. you're on. >> caller: good morning. nice day we seem to be having here in cleveland for a change. i want to echo exactly what your last caller said, what your first caller said. i think people are finally starting to wake up to the fact that congress should be printing the money. look at the last president who did that and what happened to him and where this all comes from? people are starting to watch "the history channel." they're starting to learn the history of the united states. we've been doing things for a long time under false precedent and people are getting educated by tv of all things. and it's really great. and i don't think this low interest rate thing that is going on now, it is just a fiat. fix it again, tony. fix it again, tony.

fix it again, tony. >> host: that is mark from cleveland. sheila bair head of the fdic also part of the debate. she contributed to cnn money. watch out is the fed pushing us into another bubble. sheer here is a little bit what she said. the fed should declare victory and not intervene if the markets want to push rates up a little bit. this will help savers and small businesses to get loans. we're talking to you your personal view of the fed's low interest rates and how it affected family income. do you think this is helping or hurting. lakewood, washington. next up to holly, a republican there. >> caller: thank you for taking my call this morning. i honestly i was going to question whether or not the low interest rates have hurt my family because it is just me but, now that i look back at the past and, of the past few years, just from the crash of 2008, if i just go back to that date and look how much stuff has been

stolen from me and i mean, honestly, i would be taken to court by people who, like i would rent from and i complained they weren't fixing anything when i'm paying these exorbitant rents. they won't fix windows or doors but then they come in and sue me when i don't pay them, when i, you know when i have a problem i'm sick or something they are not fixing it. that seems to what is it is stemming from and what is actually happening to families like mind. single people who really haven't bought their home yet or are trying trying to buy our first home but are having to buy from people who got sucked into this little bubble thing. if they stop looking at bubbles and look for a way out then we could actually fix this problem by just setting one interest rate permanently at a lowered number, like maybe 5 or 6 or 7 or 8% if we make it a general across the board number so it covers

everybody and people like me can afford to buy houses. my bank i bank with is a small community credit union. we have a wonderful relationship because they are not getting money from the fed like bank of america who took money from me and i had to go to my small bank, this bank is stealing from me, how can we cover this problem? if our federal government stopped giving to big banks and start putting into banks we banks that we use we won't need a bubble collapse or crisis. we can do a 6 or 7% rate for everybody and have a perfect number. thank you for taking my call and hope you have a wonderful day. >> host: thanks for making it. people mentioned housing market. the story in the paper, foreclosures up in more than half of metal tan areas. this is "washington post." he writes, many experts foreclosures to surge in the coming months in part of the company in the wake after $25 billion between major banks and government

officials over shoddy foreclosures practice. many banks and mortgage servicers halted or delayed foreclosures while the deal was pending a new wave of foreclosures could drag down home prices in the short term but eventually help boosting housing market by clear backlogged inventories and putting new owners into long-vacant homes. from twitter. this comment from bob. he writes to us, the fed policy help rich retain value of riches while simultaneously creating much higher inflation for the poor. our next comment from st. louis, william, who is a democrat. >> caller: good morning, how are you? >> host: fine things, willis, william, excuse me. >> caller: i wondering with high insurance rate on car loans because my credit went down, i'm paying 20 3% on car loans. if they can find a way to lower the rate giving out loans to where we can afford to put our money back in. i'm on ssi disability and i can't even afford insurance

because they want -- >> we're going to leave this morning's journal now to take you live to fort stewart in georgia. president obama visiting the army post there to talk about student loans and military servicemembers. the white house says some schools looking for money from the gi bill have preyed on veterans with brain injuries and encouraged servicemembers to take on costly loans. stepping up to the podium a sergeant who will introduce the president. live coverage now on c-span2. >> thank you, major general abrams program command star watson, colonel kanaly, command star major mowser and the 3rd infantry dog faced soldiers. i'm honored here today. my name is sergeant johnny marshal. i was born and raised in monroe, louisiana. i have a wonderful wife, of

seven years, nettie marshall and four beautiful children. i joined the army in 2001 and i'm assigned to 2nd brigade third infantry, brigade special troop battalion as their 29 echo electronic warfare specialist. and in 2010 a friend of mind told me about an online university where i could earn a degree quickly. i told him i was interested. thereafter i was contacted by this for-profit university and decided to enroll. this was an awful experience. i didn't feel like i was. learning furthermore, i was not being challenged in class. i never wanted to be given grades. i wanted to earn them.

it did not feel like this university had their priorities in order. for example, i called the school because i was having trouble logging in to a online course. after several weeks passed, i received a phone call. it turns out they were not calling me to solve my problem. they were calling to recruit my wife. they were not looking out for my education. i felt the focus all financial. so i reported to my chain of command in search of ideas to resolve this situation. i attended an educational fair in the fall of 2011. i immediately enrolled in central texas college. i'm pleased to report that i'm taking classes and have everything i need. books, necessary classes,

and sincere academic advice. i'm able to attend class around my training schedule thanks to staff sergeant bozeman, staff sergeant jordan, staff sergeant young and the two three bsb titans. i'm thankful the president and first lady are here to address this issue. i'm glad they're taking action. ♪ . with that, please join me in welcoming our first lady, and the commander-in-chief, president barack obama. [cheers and applause]

♪ . >> thank you. [cheers and applause] >> hello, fort stewart. [cheers] >> we are beyond thrilled,

beyond thrilled to be with all of you today and before i get started there's just one thing i want to say, and that is, hoora. did i do that right? good, good. phew. i want to start by thanking sergeant marshall for that very kind introduction and for sharing his story with us today and i thank all of you, our men and women in uniform, our veterans and your extraordinary families. absolutely. for the families, yes!. [cheers and applause] one of my greatest privileges as first lady has been. meeting folks like you on bases all across the country. i always say this but i can

never say enough. i am in awe of you. i am in awe of how many of you signed up to defend our country in a time of war, serving heroically through deployment after deployment. i'm in awe of your familis. the spouses who run their households all alone. the kids who step up at home and succeed at school and stay strong through all the challenges they face. with their service they make your service possible. and, i'm also in awe of our veterans because -- [cheers and applause] because i know that your service doesn't end when you hang up your uniform. for some of you your whole life is a tour of duty and as you become leaders in our communities and continue to give back to our country, you keep serving. and like so many americans,

the more i have learned about the sacrifices you all make, the more i want to fine a way to express my gratitude and that is not just with words but with action. and that's why last year joe biden and i started joining forces. it is a nationwide campaign to recognize, honor and support our veterans and our troops and our military families. and i have to tell you we had barely even finished announcing this campaign when we were inundated with offers to help. i mean so many people wanted to step up and show their appreciation, that we hardly knew where to begin. in our first year alone, more than 1600 businesses hired more than 60,000 veterans, and they pledged to hire at least 170,000 more in the coming years. [applause] national associations of

doctors and nurses representing millions of health professionals are working to improve treatment for post-tramatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. we have tv shows like extreme makeover home edition, "sesame street", nascar and disney working to share the stories of our military families with the rest of the country and these are just a few examples out of thousands all across the country. so if i can leave you with just one message today, i want you all to know that america does have your backs and we are just getting started. we are going to keep at this. we're going to keep on working every day to serve all of you as well as you have served this country. and the man who has been leading the way is standing right next to me. [cheers]

[applause] and, ladies, i think he is kind of cute. [cheers] he was, he was fighting for all of you long before he ever became president. he has made veterans employment a national priority, with tax breaks for businesses that hire veterans and wounded warriors. he is working to end the outrage of veterans homelessness once and for all. he championed the post-9/11 g.i. bill which has helped more than half a million veterans and military families go to college. [applause] and today with this new effort to insure that you all get the education you've earned, that story continues. so please join me in

welcoming your strongest advocate, your commander-in-chief and our president, my husband, barack obama. [cheers and applause] >> hello, fort stewart! [applause] oh, it is good to be here, fort stewart. first of all, how about the first lady, michelle obama? [applause] hoora. she is a tough act to follow. gentlemen, for the gentlemen out there, who are not yet married, let me just explain to you, your goal is to improve your gene pool by marrying somebody who is superior to you.

[applause] isn't that right, general? listen, and as you just heard when, when it comes to all of you, when it comes to our military, our veterans, your families, michelle obama and joe biden have your back. they are working tirelessly to make sure that our military families are treated with the honor and respect and support that they deserve, and i could not be prouder of all the efforts they have been making on their behalf. [applause] it's a privilege to hang out with some of america's finest. the dog-faced soldiers of the 3rd infantry division. the rock. we've got a lot of folks in the house. we have the raider brigade.

we've got the spartan brigade. we've got the vanguard brigade. we've got the provider brigade. and we've got the falcon brigade. let me thank major general abrams and his beautiful wife, connie, for welcoming us. he is doing an incredible job carrying on his family's incredible tradition of service to our country. so we are grateful for him. give him a big round of applause. [applause] a i want to thank command sergeant major ed watson and his beautiful wife sharon. i want to thank someone who's made it her life mission to stand up for the financial security of you and your families, somebody who knows a little bit about military families and military service, and

actually this is a homecoming for her because she spent over three years when posted down here. holly petraeus is in the house. i want you guys to give her a big round of applause. [applause] but most importantly i want to thank all of you. i want to thank you for your service. i want to thank you for your sacrifice. i want to thank you for your unshakeable commitment to our country. you have worn the uniform with honor. you've performed heroically in some of the most dangerous places on earth. you have done everything that has been asked of you and more. and you have earned a special place in our nation's history. future generations will speak of your achievements. they will speak of how the 3rd infantry division's thunder run into baghdad signaled the end of a

dictatorship. and how you brought iraq back from the brink of civil war. they will speak of you and your service in afghanistan and in the fight against al qaeda which you have put on the path to defeat. and to the members of the special operations forces community, while the american people may never know the full extent of your service, they will surely speak how you kept your country safe and strong and how you delivered justice to our enemies. so history will remember what you did. and so will we. we will remember the profound sacrifices that you've made in these wars. michelle and i just had a few moments at the warriors walk paying tribute to 441 of your fallen comrades. men and women who gave their

last full measure of devotion to keep our nation safe. and we will remember them. we will honor them. always. and our thoughts and prayers are also go out to the troops from fort stewart that are serving so bravely right now as we speak in afghanistan. [applause] and i know many of you will be deploying there too. you know you will be in our thoughts and prayers. your generation, the 9/11 generation, has written one of the greatest chapters of military service america has ever seen. but i know for many of you, a new chapter is unfolding. the war in iraq is over. the transition in afghanistan is underway. many of our troops are

coming home, back to civilian life. an as you return i know that you're looking for new jobs and new opportunities and new ways to serve this great country of ours. three years ago i made your generation a promise. i said that when your tour comes to an end, when you see our flag, when you touch down on our soil, you will be coming home to an america that will forever fight for you just as you fought for us. for me as president it's been a top priority. something i worked on as a senator, when i served on the veterans' affairs committee. it is something i continue to this day. since i have hired over

200,000 veterans work to serve in federal government. we made it easier for veterans to access all sorts of employment services. you heard how michelle and worked to secure businesses for tens of thousands of jobs for veterans and their families. with support from democrats and republicans we put in place new tax credits for companies that higher veterans. we want every veteran who wants a job to get a job. that's the goal. [applause] and those of you who want to pursue a higher education and earn new scales -- skills, you deserve that opportunity as well. like general abrams's dad, my grandfather, the man who helped raise me, served in

patton's army. and when he came home, he went to school on the g.i. bill. because america decided that every returning veteran of world war ii should be able to afford it. we owe that same commitment to all of you. so as president i have made sure to champion the post-9/11 g.i. bill, and with that bill and the tuition assistance program, last year we supported more than 550,000 veterans and 325,000 servicemembers who are pursuing a higher education. [applause] because higher education is the clearest path to the middle class. now that's progress. we've got more to do. we can't be satisfied with what we've already done. we've bottom more to do. we've got to make sure you've got every tool you

need to make an informed decision when it comes to picking a school. that's why michelle and i are here today. right now it's not that easy. i've heard the stories. some of you guys can relate. you may have experienced it yourselves. you go online to try to find the best school for military members or your spouses or other family members. you end up on a website that looks official. they ask you for your e-mail. they ask you for your phone number. they promise to link you up with a program that fits your goals. almost immediately after you typed in all the information your phone starts ringing. your inbox starts filling up. you've never been more popular in your life. all these schools want you to enroll with them. and it sounds good. every school and every business should be out there competing for your skills and your talent and your leadership. everything that you've shown

in uniform. but as some of your comrades have discovered, sometimes you're dealing with folks who aren't interested in helping you. they're not interested in helping you find the best program. they are interested in getting the money. they don't care about you. they care about the cash. they harass you into making a quick decision with all those calls and e-mails. if they can't get you online, they show up on post. one of the worst examples of this is a college recruiter who had the nerve to visit a barracks at camp lejeune and enroll marines with brain injuries. just for the money. these marines had injuries so severe, some of them couldn't recall what courses the recruiter had signed them up for. that's appalling. that's disgraceful. it should never happen in

america. i'm not talking about all schools. many of them, for-profit and nonprofit, provide quality education to our servicemembers and our veterans and their families but there are some bad actors out there. they will say you don't have to pay a dime for your degree. once you register they suddenly make you sign up for a high-interest student loan. they will say if you transfer schools you can transfer credits but when you actually try to do you suddenly find out that you can't. they will say, they have got a job placement program when in fact they don't. it's not right. they're trying to swindle and hoodwink you. and today here at fort stewart we're going to put an end to it. [applause] we're putting an end to it. the executive order i'm about to sign will make life a whole lot more secure for you and your families and our veterans and a whole lot

tougher for those who try to prey on you. here's what we're going to do. first we're going to require colleges that want to enroll members of our military or veterans or your families to provide clear information about their qualifications and available financial aid. you will be able to get a simple fact sheet, called, know before owe. know before you owe. [applause] and it will lay out all the information that you need to make your own choices about how best to pay for college. second, we're going to require those schools to step up their support for our students. they need to provide a lot more counselors. if you've got to move because of a deployment or reassignment, they have to help you come up with a plan you can still get your degree. [applause] number three, excuse me.

number three, number three, we'll bring an end to the aggressive and sometimes dishonest recruiting that takes place. we're going to up our oversight of improper recruitment practices. we'll strengthen rules who can come on post and talk to servicemembers. [applause] and we're going to make it a lot easier for all of you to file complaints and for us to take action when somebody's not acting right. this is about making sure you succeed, because when you succeed our country succeeds. it's that simple. after all at the end of world war ii so many americans like my grandfather came home to new opportunities. because the original g.i. bill by 1947, half of all americans who enrolled in college were veterans. and you know what? they did pretty well. they rose to become presidents and supreme court

justices and nobel prize winners. they went on to become scientists an engineers and doctors and nurses. eight million americans were educated under the original g.i. bill and together they forged the backbone of what would become the largest middle class that the world had ever seen. they built this counsel tri. they turned us into that economic superpower. and we can do it again. we face tough times. gone through the worst recession since the great depression. two wars. but you know what? we faced tough times before. and all of you know something that america should never forget. just as you rise or fall as one unit, we rise or fall as one nation. just as you have each other's backs, what's always made america's great is we have each other's backs. each of us is only here

because somebody looked out for us. not just our parents but our neighbors, and our communities and our houses of worship and our vfw halls. each of us is here because we had a country that was willing to invest in things like community colleges and universities, and scientific research and medicine and caring for our veterans. each of us is only here because somebody somewhere had our backs. this country exists because generations of americans worked together and looked out for one another. out of many we are one. those are the values we have got to return to. if we

bless the 3rd division. god bless the united states of america, thank you very much. thank you very much. [applause] now i will sign this executive order. [applause]

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president in georgia today. while they're the house of representatives passed legislation to prevent student loan rates from doubling this summer. the dow congressional action federally subsidized stafford loan rates rise to 6.8% on july 1st. the president also called for the current lower rates to be extended, the white house today threatened to veto the republican sponsored bill because the money for it would come from shutting down a preventive medicine program and the president's health care law. this house vote on the student loan bill was to 15-195. >> the national public radio table. you're still here? [laughter] that's good. [applause] i couldn't remember where we landed on that. >> this weekend on c-span

this year's studentcam competition asks students across the country what part of the constitution was important to them and why. here is this year's grand prize winning video on the fifth amendment titled the constitution and the camps. ♪

stomach the location to the idea of taking men, women and children from their homes, their shops and their farms. so the military and civilian agencies alike determined to do the job as a democracy should. with real consideration for the people involved. >> and i knew that if i did not tell my story, then my four nieces and my three children would really not hear what actually happened to us. we were shocked to see covered army trucks and soldiers with bayonets on their rifles. i couldn't get over the notion that we were going to be taken away and shot. when i got off, i couldn't believe what i saw. soldiers with machine guns stood in 20-foot high guard towers situated as strategic points along the perimeter of a huge

camp. the area was encased in a steel wire fencing topped by three rows of barbed wire. barracks were laid out and regiment for along the flat terrain. it didn't collis citizens because it is illegal to in prison citizens without due process. estimate but they did in prison u.s. citizens without due process. over 110,000 of them who have to be of japanese ancestry. these american citizens were uprooted from their homes, taken away from their businesses and sent to places like this. one of these citizens was my great uncle, john. he was a dental student in california at the beginning of world war ii. he was rounded up along with the

japanese-americans on the west coast and send to a camp far away from his home in california. i travelled to this relocation camp to learn more about my uncle's experience. this camp is over 200 miles away from los angeles. there were ten camps like this in remote locations where japanese-americans, like my uncle, were confined. two months after the attack on pearl harbor, president roosevelt issued executive order 9066 that authorized the removal of over 110,000 japanese-americans from their homes on the west coast. more than two-thirds were american-born u.s. citizens. over 10,000 men, women and children spend several years here at this camp. they brought with them only what they could carry from their homes. i wanted to understand how this

happened to michael john come and i wanted to learn what protects us from this happening again. experts have tried to explain why this took place. >> well, after the attack on pearl harbor, don't let anybody tell you that there was no out of fear on the west coast a japanese sub was sighted off santa barbara and so there was fear that the japanese have also attacked the west coast. the urgency or the detention of the japanese came from the civilians saying we don't have time to find out whether any of these people individually or disloyal. we have to simply interim all of them. >> by 1944, one of the most interesting parts of this is a was also apparent that there had never been a basis for holding these people, never. and at that time, the man in

charge, general dewitt, knew there was no basis. he had been told that by jay edgar hoover. jay edgar hoover told him the fbi doesn't want these people moved. we know who despise are and they are not a. >> the due process clause of the fifth amendment is supposed to bound the power of the government against the rights of its citizens. due process did not protect the japanese-americans during the internment. substantive due process requires that the government live up to high standards that tries to take away fundamental rights like life, liberty or poverty. procedural due process means that the government can't take away your rights without an adequate notice before a neutral judge. the government took people to court who resisted the internment. those trials did not provide procedural due process because

the government didn't present. one example is the citizen named brett who is about my uncle's age when he was arrested for refusing to the internet orders. he argued it is illegal to in prison him in the camps. >> in 1942, he boldly opposed to forced internment of japanese-americans during world war ii. after being convicted for failing to report for relocation , he took his case all the way to the supreme court. the high court against him. but 39 years later, he had his conviction overturned in federal court, in powering tens of thousands of japanese-americans from giving him what he said he wanted almost all the chance to

feel like an american once again he sought that and stood up for his constitutional rights. his daughter has dedicated her life to educating people about her father's legacy. she spoke with me about her father when i met with her recently. >> japanese-americans had to be put into the internment camps without a due process. there was no hearing, there were no trials. my father would want students to know that it was a horrible experience. he felt it was an unjust act by the government, and his question in his mind was am i an american or am i not? >> i finished my tread by visiting the memorial site that commemorated the lives and the liberties that were lost. the japanese characters say that

it is a monument to console the souls of the dead. for the living, it is a reminder that the constitution. we have to be protected of our civil liberties when connors and government decides to set them aside. after two years in the camps, my uncle served in army and became a successful dentist. fred received the presidential medal of freedom in 1998 for his lifelong commitment to our constitutional rights. these stories from the internment camps remind us how vital due process is for protecting our freedom. >> go to studentcam.org to what all of the winning videos and continue a conversation about today's documentary on our facebook and twitter pages. the supreme court this week

considered whether arizona brigadier general marks martins is the chief prosecutor at military commissions overseeing the trial of 9/11 mastermind khalid sheikh mohammed and the co-defendants. the general yesterday said the trial will be fair and transparent. he spoke in washington at the institute of world politics and was introduced by the group's founder and president.

>> well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i'm delighted that you are all here. i would like to welcome you to the institute of world politics, and we are honored to have a very special guest here today. general mark martins, who is going to be discussing a fascinating issue, which deals with actually some of the classic policy questions concerning the conflict between our constitutional liberties and our national security. and this has to do with the effectiveness and the legitimacy of military tribunals for the prosecution of insurgents and terrorists who have been captured as your regular forces without -- out of uniform on the battlefield. people who, buy presenting themselves in such a fashion

have not particularly conformed with the law, the international law of the war and therefore who have put themselves in a certain kind of jeopardy when it comes to the nature of how we do about prosecuting them. nevertheless, there is an abiding interest in the united states, and ensuring that there is justice that is needed now for all, including the exoneration of those who may indeed be innocent. but, we also have the problem of trying to maintain the effectiveness of our national security, and the protection of classified information. and so, this is a follow-up to the couple was the issue which our government has wrestled with over the past several years. there's been a supreme court decision about this. there has been legislation, and more recently the president himself has been involved in ensuring that military tribunals

are indeed a legitimate way to go when it comes to handling insurgents and terrorists of this type. and so, we have today really one of the premier authorities in the united states government addressing this issue. general mark martins who is chief prosecutor of the metric commission. he became -- of this last september that he became the chief prosecutor in the previous year in afghanistan he was the commander of the rule all field force afghanistan and had a dual role in the nato rules all field support mission. the prior year also in afghanistan he had served as the first interim commander of joint task force for 35 and then was its first deputy commander upon the senate confirmation of the vice admiral robert hayward, and

these brigadier generals led the effort to reform u.s. detention authorizations and afghanistan and provided field support afghan and international civilian rule of law project teams in contested provinces in the country. prior to his deployment in afghanistan, he led the interagency detention policy task force created by president obama in january of 2,009. general martins has an extremely distinguished career and background prior to these deployments in the war zone. he graduated first in the order of merit in west point over 1983 she served as a platoon leader and staff officer in the 82nd airborne. he became a judge advocate and served in a number of legal and long legal positions. he's been deployed to the armed

conflict for more than five years including service chief of staff of the u.s. force staff judge advocate for the 1st armored division and the the multinational force-iraq. he was a rhodes scholar, a graduating with first honors and a graduate of harvard law school, a magna cum laude. he also holds and m l m and a master's in the national security strategy. he has numerous awards and putting the superior service medal, the nato service medal, the department of state, the legion of the marriage, the bronze star, the army service battle and others. it's a great pleasure to have you join us and to speak with some authority with great authority about these matters. [applause]

stomachs before, john for the generous remarks. great to be in this historic building with a sustained institute having a conversation today about reform military commissions and the challenge on the project of legitimate that institution which i believe is a very important institution for our national security. and our entire justice process. as john, the president here mentioned, there is a challenge in balancing the national security and the implementation of the role of law. he mentioned i was an infantry in the 82nd. i just got back from west texas. i was out in the texas law school trying to make some time to get out to different venues to talk a little bit about military commissions. i was out teaching some glasses

for a former judge and to give the army who was out at texas tech will school and brought back to memory my time there is a lieutenant as my platoon sergeant, sergeant first class smiley. we were out in a field exercise all day one day in the hot texas sun a little after midnight when we finally got to bed and had a grizzled to time vietnam war veteran next to be airborne sergeant first class on the green infantry lt.. we get to sleep two hours later and by getting nudged by the sergeant smiley says look up at the sky and tell me what you see. i looked up and i saw this heaven full of west texas sky. heaven full of stars. he said what does that tell you? he said he wasn't really sure where he was going with the

question, so i didn't want to impress him, so i said sergeant first class, astronomically it tells me there are billions of stars over hundreds of billions of planets, some of them may have life. theologically it tells me we're small and insignificant we are going to have a great day of trading tomorrow. thinking ahead overwhelmed them with a profound response what does it tell you, platoon sergeant? >> tawes the semidey stole our tent tv to -- it tells me somebody stole our tent. [laughter] that is the time i tried to be profound. it was a good grounding moment of the kind you can only get a airborne infantry. let me talk about military commissions. we are dealing here with an institution that in its previous

iterations were flawed. they worked hard on reforms and believe strongly that these military commissions can be fair and can do justice and talk a little bit about some of the procedural protections with some emphasis on the reforms that have come in the 2009 military commissions act, and then i will talk about some of the actors in the system, some of the officials. it's very comfortable in a lot of ways to the court system that you know about but it's worthwhile to talk about some of the different officials in the system. then i will raise several to get you thinking so we can start the conversation and maybe you will be warmed up. i will raise some of the criticisms and what i believe are now decisis counters to

those criticisms. o.k. so, military commissions. in military commissions presumed is innocence. the prosecution must prove the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on specified elements of offenses. to be provided notice in writing, the charges have to be written down. of what he is charged with. then the accused has the right to legal counsel and a choice of counsel and he accused facing an offense for which the death penalty is authorized by congress received counsel what government expense, and someone who has experience in the death penalty matters come so-called learned counsel under the statute. and the accused may not be

required to sell the credit and right against self-incrimination there was a right against the introduction of statements obtained as a result of torture with the standard of debt is a devotee for states accused is voluntary. this is one of the areas that's important reform of the 2009 act. the accused has the right to see all of the evidence the government is going to present. this is the discovery if you're familiar with this in our criminal civilian legal system. that's fairness. you have to see with the proof is, you've got to the will to confront it meaningfully, confirmed that and challenge that evidence. you have the right to cross-examine the government witnesses and accused has the right to compel using the authority of the government. witnesses on his behalf.

they have to appear if they have jurisdiction the ability to compel anybody for the government does and is available to the accused to compel witnesses on his behalf. the accused is protected by exclusionary rules of evidence that prohibit the introduction of information that is overly prejudicial or not progress or otherwise be the truth of the poisonous tree, different kind of exclusionary rules that are against similar to those in civilian criminal practice. protection against double jeopardy can't be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same charges. protection that has a right to represent himself if he is competent and if he has made -- has been clearly put on notice of the right to counsel in the

opportunities. you can't be forced to be represented by a lawyer. and the right of appeal come armed conviction to a court of review, a military commission court of review the congress established in the act as well as the federal district court or the federal appellate court for the district of columbia circuit, federal circuit court. so it goes through the federal system, the article 3 federal courts to the supreme court. so it's a broad comprehensive body of protection and i've nearly just summarized them, and with again the reforms in the 2009 act prominently including the provision on the introduction of treatments, and

a modification of here say. there's a slightly broader aperture for the introduction of hearsay evidence than any federal civilian court because a judge is put on notice by the statute to take into consideration operational intelligence factors that involved the collection of evidence on the battlefield or may not have the ability to bring all the evidence into court because the place where the crime occurred or where the individual was captured or arrested is beyond the jurisdiction of the court and a far away place. there are hearsay exceptions in the civilian criminal court that allow for the introduction of here say. this is an out-of-court statement offered. so you don't bring the witness into court and you offer a document or somebody telling you what somebody else said. these are disfavored.

they don't tend to be brought into court because we want again the accused to be able to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against them. so, law, anglo-american law disfavors years a. many legal systems to. hearsay exceptions exist when you have a type of out of court statement that is inherent reliability there may be indicators within it that make it more reliable. it's a regularly produced business record, or it's a dying declaration of somebody. the deck where it is no longer available, but he made a comment that has some historical indicator that it may be reliable, and in such reduced for a certain purpose at trial. military commissions allow for a slightly broader aperture of here say for the things that operational reasons battlefield we're evidence tends to disappear would make it in the interest of justice to allow the

introduction of probative, that means it provides proof of something relative and material, it deals with the issues at hand in the court, and lawfully obtained. it has to have been of to and through lawful operations of the forces. so again, the statement, an out-of-court statement obtained as a result would not be admissible under this rule. the 2009 act narrowed although it's still a slightly larger a pitcher for the sheer sade and you'd find in a federal criminal court a did narrow the standard that was there in the 2006 military commissions act by requiring the party, the prosecution or the defense that was offering the here say to establish its reliability. previously it had been flat, so it was the challenging party had to establish why the moving

party, the introducing party was offering was unreliable. and i think that is a significant change as well in the direction of fairness. congress, another important reform as congress wrote in the 2009 military commissions act the defense of congress that the resources of the defense function in guantanamo was important to the legitimacy of the tribunals, and that they should be resources. it also stated that the opportunity of an accused to obtain witnesses and evidence shall be comparable to that in an article for free federal civilian court. so this notion of free sourcing the defense and ensuring they have the ability and the wherewithal to mount the defense and to test the evidence this was in the form of free

relationship with the council. this was something of the court or that the 2009 military commissions act in congress felt strongly about. and then, another reform, and the present here mentioned this in passing clarified information procedures. the 2009 act incorporated the classified information procedures act that is used in federal court. so, this goes to the balance that he also spoke of between the national security and data assurance of our cherished civil liberties and how we do things as a country and commitment to the rule of law that we are going to protect our secrets, there really are secrets and sources and methods of intelligence that help protect us from future attacks that could be compromised if they were brought out in open court.

troop movements, methods and ways in which these on uniform the year regular courses operating in the shadow of international boundaries disguised as civilians so they are not in the uniform carrying arms openly and operating in accordance with the law. information about how they are operating, how they are using new off the shelf technology that is powerful and give them such capability that they didn't have before. ways in which to track them down really could harm the public interest and the national security. so, the classified information procedures act congress first passed in 1980 for the federal civilian system, which gives a judge tools in order to ensure that the accused has the right

to challenge the evidence the prosecution is bringing and that is this discovery that i talked about. the key to our system, you can't just be convicted if you haven't had a chance to test the evidence. but to require that the prosecution or the defense if it is going to introduce classified evidence that it put the court on notice in advance and gives the court and the parties an opportunity to figure out how to reconcile those sometimes conflicting interests, that of allowing confrontation, which is necessary to have a fair trial and get accountability under the law for crimes so that that law enforcement if you will interests and the national security interest protect the information, and the classified information procedures act of 1980 says to the judge figure

out how to do both wherever you can and there are ways to do it. you can summarize the evidence in a way, you can have an excerpt of a document that protect the sources and methods but ensures that the accused sees the part of that that is condemning him for inculpating him gets to be reviewed and tested, and this has been in operation and the federal court since 1980. there are a lot of cases. it's a lot of litigation over it because these balancing things are things the require judgment. but it's a body of the law that is now well established. the 2009 military commissions act took advantage of the fact the federal courts have been using this since 1983 and incorporated it almost entirely. what it is incorporated it, and then codified and enshrine into the codified law of the judicial

changes to the interpretations of the classified information act of 1980 that has happened since 1980. so, we have federal classified information procedures in our that reconditions that protect our national secrets but also ensure that we can with a full, fair trial process hold people accountable under the law. so those are the major reforms. the protection -- let me talk a little bit about who is part of the military commission. well, i will start with me. i'm a prosecutor. a very much in the tradition of a public prosecutor in the united states legal tradition represent the government and the prosecution of alleged criminals. has a lot of discretion as a seat with. you have to decide what to charge, who took charge from whom to charge within your

jurisdiction. do you perhaps talk to somebody to offer a plea guilty so that such as you can cooperate with someone else. you've got to determine which issues on appeal may be raises a large amount of discretion. and the prosecutorial function and why we have in our system, and we have it because the -- you need to -- you need to give judgment calls to particular prosecutors to determine what are the most serious and beneficial persecution's to bring. what comes with that though is a great responsibility with all that discretion. we don't give that kind of discussion now unless it is for the purpose of doing justice, so there is a strong doctrine of public prosecution, which means

that we are officers of the court. we are not just seeking to win at all cost to see that justice is done and that is an important part of our tradition. actually a couple hundred years ago in the united states, we had a tradition coexisting with that of private prosecution, private parties would be non-governmental, non-state actors what actually prosecute the case before the court. and this has been supplanted and through the 19th century and currently with this public prosecution doctrine, which requires the prosecutors turnover, exculpatory evidence. this is another right that the accused have. if we find something that makes the accused look less guilty or tends to show that it is guilty, then he is less should be punished with lesser punishment that's something we have an affirmative continuing obligation to turn over. so, that's the prosecutor. in many ways the engine of the system gets it going and starts

it by charging the individual and its subject to this public prosecution effort that i've talked about. there is an official and as the convening authority, and the convening authority as a number of functions. i will allow the ties it to you the federal civilian legal practice. the legal practice you may be familiar with in the state courts. the convening authority does serve a grand jury function, testing function. once i have endorsed charges against somebody and say these are violations of our code of crimes, congress has caught sight 42 crimes that are violations of the law i see that they are charges and the we have the evidence against all the elements of the ascent. i then for them to the convening authority who is an official lunesta separately, with legal advice he is free competent

counsel she is supposed to look at them independently and determine if he agrees with that. if he does, he will then refer is the term he will refer the charges to a military commission for trial. the function i just described functions like a grand jury. it's over simplistic to just say it is the grand jury for our system because he has other duties which include which are assembling that commission and i will talk about that in a minute, and then he has a clemency function on the other end of there's a conviction whether or not clemency isn't warranted after the commission has done it sentencing job. this is very similar to any of you that are in the military, the military justice system which is under our uniform code of system in 1950 and subsequent legislation that created the courts martial for prosecuting

our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who violated the uniform code of military justice and convening in that system also the military justice system is a commander. as of the convening authority military commission is not a commander. he's actually a retired right now vice admiral bruce macdonald highly regarded former judge to get general of the navy is serving in this convening authority function. the convening authority also select a jury so there's a jury around that is the heart of the commission and receives the referred charges. the military commission is composed of army officers and active duty army -- i'm sorry, active-duty military officers if so there's a jury pool of 230,000 officers reserved

worldwide from all 50 states and presently diverse monitored for diversity by the congress, the congress isn't going to let its mother terrie become a separate caste and there's specific attention paid to how representatives pool is. it's not perfectly representatives but i would submit to you in presently represented a differed from a civilian jury that is chosen under our sixth amendment in the civilian trial random the out of the jury wheel where a crime would have been committed under the sixth amendment differs from that jury in net these tend to be with younger than injury and a random error that would be picked in a location for college graduates and their officers, they sell selected for service

worldwide but they're not in random jury and a civilian jury and this is an important distinction between the systems. this was a central institution of our criminal justice and our democracy that connects our government to the people and the jury and we're told we have to have an impartial fact finder and, not somebody that deals with these things all the time to be impartial fact finder is going to come to be essentially cold to the case, not know the accused, not know the charges can be challenged off if they are too close or have some kind of bias. so it's the same notion of the jury trial and the jury first arose in in britain's first

mutiny act in the 17th century, and they had 13 was the number, 14 members, and it was modeled after consciously the common-law jury of britain which was 12 jurors and then the judge or 12 juryman and a judge. .. >> he says famously to them,

facts are stubborn things, jurors. facts are stubborn. whatever your passion say, whatever your desires might think, facts have weight. you can't push aside. that's the heart of the jury's function is to test those facts in an impartial way, and that's very much a part of the military commission process. not randomly chosen, and then the convening authority that i mentioned has the obligation to select jury members. by statute he is required to select them on the basis of age, education, training, experience, length of service, and judicial temperament. and having been a convening authority, also having been a jerk, serving with sergeant smiley, i got tagged for jury duty as an infantryman. then i they staff advocate and work with a lot of military juries. they are selected with the

importance of diversity and the jury panel. you want to have, the classic american theatrical example of this is 12 angry men. you have people who are looking at the facts from a lot of different ways. there's a lot of power in that model. even though scholars who've looked at 12 angry men and said wait a minute, those are 12 angry white males. that's not diverse in some ways. a great judge of the massachusetts roads really good articles about this but nevertheless, diverse in their life experiences and your different people coming at the same source of facts they heard about at trial, testing them for different angles. it's an important part of our jurisprudence and our system. that's the heart of the military justice as well. the military commission, this jury. in this case of officers, like a lebanese-american, two-time afghanistan veteran studied in

cairo, he got a diverse group of people that the convening authority selects 12 from to test those facts. okay, so it's been a little bit of time on a. it's worth it because the jury is a key piece of this but then there's the judge, a presiding judge over this. this is an experienced attorney, someone who's graduated from a law school and is practicing before the bar of, admitted before the bar of one of the states. and he is typically an army colonel, or a navy captain, air force colonel, typically a senior officer who has significant experience training in criminal law. they are judge advocates. they are legally trained officers, certified and qualified. they are not come other important distinction, they are not article iii judges so these are not lifetime tenured judges have been chosen, nominated by

the president, confirmed by the senate. as our federal appellate supreme court judges are. but they are i would submit to you independent, and if you look at their decisions and the things they have done to date, i would defy you to say they are somehow tearing up the will of somebody else. they are doing the law. they are experienced in doing that. so those are the different players in the system. then what they do is try the charges, ensuring that all of those protections and procedures that i talked about that of the protections to the accused happen. it looks like a trial that you will see any civilian world. if you are been on a jury or inotropic prosecution, both parties will make opening statements, tell the jury what the evidence will show. the prosecution presents the case in chief, providing

evidence, direct testimony, bringing in different types of evidence, forensics, physical evidence, the monsters to evidence is called, charging things to try to explain complex data. and all those witnesses, expert testimony, something really technical and then all those witnesses, the accused council will cross-examine, have the opportunity to cross-examine. prosecution will rest. typically the defense will make a motion or a find not guilty right thing, even before going to the case. your honor, not going under reasonable doubt. that is their burden. because of that motion, it is one where you consider in a light mood favorable to the prosecution for that purpose. if there is enough on particular charges, that motion will be in that case tonight as to particular charges where they

have proven it. defense than presents its entire case. brings forth all of its witnesses to show not guilty. that an individual is not guilty. the prosecution will cross-examine those witnesses. this is all happening in front of this jury, right? the judge will then give instructions to the jury on the law, on how they are to do their proceedings. both parties will give closing argument, explain why, adversarial system, right? this is an adversarial system. test the prosecution's evidence in the most rigorous procedure known to our law. that's what this is intended to do. so you have confidence, and the people who were not watching it gets it okay, i know those procedures were you so i've confidence that those 12 people who were in that room and who would listen to all the evidence heard the contest of ideas and

facts and law that i trust that. i trust that. i should have mentioned by the way, too, the jury, there's a preemptory count on the trees and even if you don't have a causal challenge, someone who the accused or have some other bias, there's a preemptory challenge and you don't have to give your reason. although military juries do use doctrines in civilian jurisprudence with regard to peremptory challenges. if you're familiar with the doctrine where, if someone challenging off a member for and, indeed, he, a discriminatory reason, as the party challenges off a black member of the jury, because the individual is black that is against the doctrine your i mean, that's also observed in military courts as well. so peremptory challenges are a part of a simply this jury pool. so than the jury deliberates,

and you wind up getting a verdict. and then sensing happens, if there is a finding of guilt on any count. and that is preceded by a can and ever shall process where i both sides are presenting witnesses as to activation or extenuation and mitigation. and then you have a sentencing process that began with the jury does the sensing pixel want to spend over time on the. before i go to questions may be let me trigger some questions by raising criticism of the system, and then giving you a sense of the counters that i believe are persuasive, but sort of starting a conversation. i call them the five uns'. that they are unsettled, unfair,

unnecessary, unknown, and/or unfounded. let me go through those five uns, because i believe that, although some of them had aspects that were sound criticisms at various points in the prior versions, now they are either untrue or misleading. and that to continue to oppose the military commission that i summarized and described, after two different administrations in the executive branch, the supreme court, although it invalidated the prior 2001 for of commissions made very clear congress have the ability to make commissions.

and no less than five act of congress have established a strong basis for these commissions to continue to oppose them when considering how justice delayed at some point really does become justice denied, to continue to oppose that framework of the rule of law at this point is my final unwise. so let me go back to unsettled, unfair and unnecessary, unknown, unfounded. the argument that military commissions are unsettled is that you happen to make yourself up as you go along, there are not really settled procedures. it's all changing at that there's so much litigation risk and people will just be challenging it for ever and you will never really get to where you are going. and they will point to the fact that there've been seven convictions by military, and

there have been, over a couple hundred comparable international prosecution by federal criminal court. it's unsettled. why, why use these commissions, unsettled? to that i was a that there is well established law, these commissions are providing. and i would ask you to try to do these or look at the transcripts online. i will talk a little more about the ability to do that. but a judge operating in this system has law, as sources of law. he is to look to courts martial with some minor differences. i spoke about, i spoke about this hearsay think of the hearsay slightly being narrower. no aranda rule, a requirement for warnings to be read, which is different. but with some very isolated differences the uniform code of

military justice and all of the judicial systems and military courts are applicable. he looks there. the judge also, he or she can will look to federal law. they are specifically places but i mention classified information procedures is an area where we draw law. but there's other areas, has the accused been given the opportunity to check some of the discovery rules. there's a place to go for law. this idea that there's no source of law or the chair to make it up i submit to you that is a court is about applying law to an individual case. so the our issues. they arise all the time in trials. that's what our system does. so judges are having to resolve cases, individual cases by applying the law to individual facts of an alleged crime to but that's a different then you have any other system. and the system is built and set up to tee up, to raise these

issues for methodical resolution, in a methodical way. and it's happening. it's happening. so this idea that there's this enormous litigation risk is increasingly dissipating as wicked judicial decisions. they are -- are not going to say that on a continuing issues. there are in every system. big issues that we have included conspiracy and material support for terrorism. these are challenged very fundamentally and substantially by parties. they will be heard by the d.c. court of appeals here very soon in early may. there's going to be an oral argument and the considering the appeals of one of the convicted accused. so i would counter that it is an unsettling. it is a subtle body clock is being applied to that they are unfair. now, this goes to one or more of those protections that a giddy that somehow they are not fair

enough. and i listed all the multiples. again, but i will say that this is a body of procedure and law that will produce fair trials. and that those latest reforms, the reform not to admit any statement obtained as a result of torture is an important one. but these are fair trials, administered by independent people who are not waking up in the morning trying to convict somebody. these are independent, all independent officers who have, although again, not tenured positions our lifetime, within our federal system, are independent, fair, sworn to uphold the constitution, and are doing their duty. so response to the unfair. unnecessary, now, this is somewhat related to that unsettled one that i mention. we have a system.

i am a big fan of federal civilian trials for international terrorism cases. our u.s. attorneys offices and a number of districts have done a great job in dealing with this. and there are, i would say that most cases where you have an overlapping jurisdiction, let me pause to explain that eminent. the key to this unnecessary argument. military commissions try violate the alleged violators of the law of war, and they must have jurisdiction, three different ways. there has to be a violation of the law. it has to be a crime against the laws of war. soy subject matter, it's not, you can't a summit in a military commission for violating a financial law. i mean, it has to be, some of these things are similar to what happened in peace and.

murder, but happening in the context data i will talk about that in a minute. some of this looks more like crimes in the criminal code, but some of them don't. treachery, held in the means of warfare. using perfidy, class use of perfidy, you're in a vehicle with a red cross on it, hiding behind the protection of the international committee the red cross may get on a battlefield. you fire from the vehicle. that's an active treachery or perfidy. you're using your enemies obedience to the law as a weapon. that's a perfidious crime under the law. so you have this body of 32 crimes. you have to have jurisdiction. you can only charge of those, you have to do it over somebody who is the right kind of person to charge. this isn't unprivileged belligerents. and unprivileged deliverance do

so as not in compliance with the loss of the war. so you can't try an enemy prisoner of war, someone whose uniform in any in a military commission, convened under the military commissions act. congress has said these are limited to unprivileged. and then find it has to be in the context of an associated with hostilities. so there's a narrow jurisdiction. hostilities are more than sporadic acts of violence. this is concerted, protracted armed violence of a scope and intensity that justify the use of the armed forces to counter it. and this is a narrow jurisdiction. now, if you look at some of these things come murder and violation of law and poor, conspiracy with others to commit murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, hijacking of aircraft, these are the things that happen in the

context of hostility. if you look at that and say, hey, that looks like a civilian crime, too, we have hijacking statute, we have terrorism statutes. you're right. there's an overlap of jurisdiction and that's the nature of the world we are in. it's the nature of the threats we are facing. is that they can be characterized both as a violation of civil law and civilian laws, and the violation of the law of our -- we have been in, no kidding, armed conflict with al qaeda and associated forces. one of the key indicators of that to congress in 2001, pass an authorization for use of military force which made it very clear, al qaeda and associated forces, and those immediately harboring it our enemy. so you have this overlap of jurisdiction. the unnecessary criticism is hey, why don't you just let all those people by civilian court? and the response to this is that although i believe that is in

our interest, most of the time to do, there is a narrow category of cases where the best choice is a military commission. is a variety of different arguments i will give you on that basis, but some of them boil down to how the crime ought to be characterized. what is the best way to punish and characterized that criminal conduct, what is either war criminal conduct or civilian criminal conduct, there to -- sometimes it is an offense that although on the books in the federal courts, because there has been a war crimes act that allows federal courts to punish war crimes, has never been tried there. this is sort of an inverse version of the unsettled. they have not tried these kind of cases. they have not traditionally been used. others might emphasize the difference in the jury. we certainly want our civilian juries to handle international terrorism cases. the jury is one of the ways our

society gives skin in the game in a prosecution. it causes the people to have to consider a crime. so in new york, southern district of new york, manhattan, alexandra, jurors having to consider these threats and whether or not a crime has been committed is a very healthy part of our process. however, in a particular case of where a case should go, sometimes a military commission is the better choice. for, remember, to use the jury i describe our user in an area that is in a downtown area. again, i believe our cities can handle international terrorism cases, but there are situations in which you put these factors together. another happens to be whether or not the random warnings were given, and is that the right rule for the circumstances. randa makes a lot of sense if

you are insuring against self-incrimination restatements in the streets of chicago. given in kandahar where we were, this unless you come makes no sense at all to have 18, 19 euros troops using miranda warnings. back and play into the question of whether or not you go with military commission. i mentioned the hearsay rule before. so sometime these differences in the proceedings will make military commission the wiser choice. and that is the counter to the unnecessary argument. because when you're faced with this kind of threat, not an existential threat. i'm not going to compare to what we were facing in world war ii, 130,000 humans died in the battle of okinawa alone, in the south pacific. different kind of order of magnitude kind of threat but when you're faced with a serious threat and a threat that defines

us and how we respond to it, and that is changing and involves new technologies and new ways these groups will be coming at us. and, in fact, groups that both the law and simply invoke the law. when you're dealing with threats like that and they're out there, why would any government take an institution or two off the table? this is the counter to the unnecessary argument. flip it around but why would we take that off the table? this is a system, military commission, that has been around since before the constitution. again, both, to administrations now have said it not to be part of our national security apparatus. that is counter, you may want to follow up on. unknown, hey, okay, you are

persuading me mark martins, that there is, these can be fair but i don't know anything about them. i don't know them. i haven't seen any of them. i don't understand them. they are unknown. isn't that a part, being perceived to be fair and being known to be fair and history of institutions is an important thing to consider. i would agree with that. but i would say that we have made important strides in helping them being known. because these are taking place right now, although they don't have to be, but they are taking place in guantánamo, nothing in the military commission's act mentions guantánamo by the way. they are not specific to any particular site. they can be convened elsewhere, but they're happening in guantánamo now in order to assure people understand and can see the proceeds, they are being transmitted by closed-circuit television to the continental united states for observation. the same rule of public proceedings applies to the

military commission as it does in a court-martial of a service member, or in federal court. we have the same rule for public and the meek into it and watch the proceedings, but they can't record them. can't take -- you can have a sketch artist sketch them, but this is a world we are familiar with in our criminal justice system. it's our way of balancing fair press, fair trial, free press, and in some sense national security and protection of information. that's how we balance it in our criminal justice system but we don't tell lies our cash but no do we televise notary commission proceedings. but you can observe. and because it's hard to get to guantánamo, a compensating transparency measure has been to have the proceedings transmitted closed-circuit to an extension of the courtroom, stateside. and that's been happening since last fall. there is also a website where you can see all of the police, all of the motions that have been filed, the court rulings,

the reply, breeze that counter the motion that a party has made. and then there is a transcript of the proceedings but it's an unofficial transcript of this book but a very quick a transcript is produced, put on the web for payment so you can follow if he didn't get a chance to see the proceeds you and go on the web and see what happened word for word through the proceedings. and those are important measures of transparency. and then i spoke of unfounded. this is a criticism of being concerned about expanded military jurisdiction. the commission of our military is to fight our nation's wars, to fend our borders. not to police our streets. borehole the trials.

enforced the laws. and to embrace this military tribunal is to undercut that important value. that we need to have our civilian juries find these cases our society can have skin in the game. the jury being the major institution of direct democracy thinking the government, and if you substitute in this military court, that you're undercutting the. is a lowlight a distinguished cases in our supreme court's opinions going back to export, the trial of an indiana man by military court when the civil courts -- a distinguished line of thinking and dissent against military jurisdiction. and the response to that is, first of all, we have not sought to separate there isn't somebody trying to expand know terry jurisdiction out there. i'm an officer who was plucked

from afghanistan thing as going to another operational assignment because i've legal train. they said martens, go do your job. we don't lobby for missions. we didn't lobby for this one, but if we're given a mission we will do with integrity, we will do it with skill, we are going to do as well as we can do it. we are going to use from across the government every bit of expertise we can get. there are eight u.s. diabetes, tremendous department of justice attorneys who work for me. the federal bureau of investigations assist in investigation to we are using the whole of government but we would use this authority of military courts, because it fits certain types of cases. and our jurisdiction, the other part of counter to this notion that is unfounded thing, is that look at our jurisdiction. congress has very clearly circumscribed in two things that happen in the context of

associate with hostility but that's an element of every defense that i have to prove beyond a result is that it took place in the context of an associate with hostilities. it's not a very at peace that you use. it is circumscribed to unprivileged belligerents. those are not caring arms over so it doesn't apply to other types of individuals and the uniform soldiers, and it doesn't apply to u.s. citizens. those all have to be in civilian courts. and then it has to be one of those 32 offenses. so circumscribe called subject matter jurisdiction. you can find jurisdiction involving officers and personnel come people doing it you are trying to do a job that may have become too political for whatever reason is not able to be done in a civilian court. and a major reason cases can be

done in civilian courts in many respects that is that congress has blocked it. you have got two of those five acts of congress that he mentioned were national defense authorization act in which the congress has said no detainee from guantánamo can't be transported to the united states with any federal appropriations. so i was in that context this is not an unfunded project at all. this is a project that is intended to implement the rule of law, and that cannot see that, not supporter, i'm actually asking those of you, the most unlikely possible spokesman for this. i'm a former infantry lawyer, my last tour of duty, as to why flex is a, the defendant to face or greater. i am trying, to try to explain to folks that we are going to you this day. we are committed to doing it fair. and it can be done, and to not

get behind it now that there's been this resounding all three branches of our government having weighed in, given the face of the threat that we face, is unwise. so that's a little discussion. i think we still have a good full half-hour for questions. so why don't we go ahead. [applause] >> let me start. what i would start here and go clockwise. >> one of the big criticisms is that although it's wonderful that we're given these protections to detainees, that this only applies to detainees who are alive. adventure asking the military to reach an impossible civilian

standard of proving guilt and the response has been since 2009, kill, not capture. particularly with drone strikes but i'm just wondering what is your response to that quickly? >> well, thank you david. i mean, i think you raise an important point. i would push back on your statement of what our policy is to our policy is to defend the united states and we will use all the estimates of national power and authority to do that. the supreme court calls in a number of cases incidents of war. when you have an authorization you use military force as we do, you can use different tools. historical tools, i will talk about it in terms of supreme court, but this makes sense from probably a student of military three. you can target your enemy, those are your military objectives,

your enemy, you can target them. you can surveil them, listen into what they're doing. you can detain them. very important incident before. the supreme court agreed with this in hamdi v. rumsfeld as to the current fight in 2004. they said even though you don't see the word detain any authorization for use of metaphors in 2001, detention is an important incident of war. also an incident of war is to hold somebody accountable by trial under the law of war. long-standing incident of war. and to agree with you, with the thrust of your statement, i'll say, and thank you for asking the question because you helping me put a finer point on this, is if you take away one of these incidents, one of these methods of trying to subdue an enemy, in our case, modern conflicts you can only be righteously at work if you're doing it under the

rubric of self-defense. we're defending ourselves against the threat. if you take away one of these ways of prosecuting that conflict, to bring it to us with and as possible, you create distortions in the system. if you deprive a soldier of the option of detention, think about this, this is a good visual, right? if you have a soldier or a marine in helmand, afghanistan, and he doesn't have a system of humane detention what he can pass this individual off, knows he will be treated humanely, if you don't have that option, but you have the option of still attacking and killing, we are putting young soldiers in a very difficult position. as my previous boss would say, we're encouraging people not to live our values, in that situation.

so i would, i happen to be, i will talk because i'm here to talk about the policies of the government, not talk about military commissions. i am high on trust. i believe trials are an important way to vindicate our values. they also give you a form of detention that is the most defensible and lawfully sustainable that we know. although you can detain under the law of armed conflict again, supreme court, hamdi v. rumsfeld, 2004, the most sustainable legal form of detention is incarceration after you've configured somebody of a crime. it's recognize every. that if you convict somebody, probably of a crime and marshal the evidence, prove it, then they have a sentence and are punished, that is a form of detention that is going to stand the test of time. the supreme court also said

hamdi v. rumsfeld that once the conflict starts going away, the authority to hold them, just detain them, will unravel. and that makes sense to your justification is going away to hold them. it won't happen if you convicted them under a crime. i believe that trials are important, partly because they ensure that balance between the different tools and incidents of war that we have to be relentlessly, empirical and pragmatic about using. within the space defined by our values we are to be using all of the tools available to us, and trials, by under law, or one of the most important ways of doing that. we are dealing with an enemy that is fighting in under furniture rain, hence making a strike by a drone into an area where the local government may be unwilling or unable to do so.

we are dealing with a so called asymmetric threat, and i would propose to you that holding someone accountable under law is maybe the most effective asymmetric counter thrust. i mean, you were using, all the fact is methods in war are asymmetric. i mean, the most basic movement in a tactical engagement is happening asymmetric late in the wake of the other side doesn't see. all the effective techniques are asymmetric, even if you are surrounding with a bunch of different ways, you are over matching an enemy. the law over matches those who are flouting the law. because they can provide a legitimacy that the enemy just can't match.

and this is why we can't ever depart our values. these are not luxuries. the rule of law is not a luxury, and we got to use it. it is the ultimate asymmetric weapon. anyway, that's a great question. >> i'm a student here, and i was wondering if you got a little bit more about the defense teams for the detainees, specifically i know a lot of them have civilian lawyers as well you are trying do litigation in the civilian courts or. so i was wondering, in the trials at guantánamo bay, are both the civilian lawyers and the military council that they are given, are they both come are the interacting together? is there one who is in charge, or how -- >> that's a great question. since the bush case in 2008 that went to the supreme court, the detainees have had the right of habeas corpus. so they been able to challenge

their detention in civilian courts. the age-old rift. it is in our constitution, it is the one provision of the constitution that our courts have clearly held does apply in guantánamo. so many of the detainees have civilian lawyers assisting them in habeas petition's. so this isn't a criminal proceeding. this is a civil proceeding conducted under the rules of civil procedure in our federal courts. and they're all centralized in the federal d.c. district court here in washington. and they are determining whether or not there is authority to hold a detainee. so i have been talking about criminal law, criminal trials. these are civil proceedings were a civilian lawyer is, on behalf of the detainee, filing a writ,

petition for a writ of habeas corpus from the court. the court is supposed to determine hey, kevin, what's your authority for holding these people? and the standard is a standard that has been in place since march of 2009, which we states this law of armed conflict principle that a key, which was you can also make it very combat and, if they're belligerent. is this individual a part of, or did he substantially support al qaeda, the taliban or associated forces engaged in our conflict against the united states or coalition partners, including those who committed a belligerent act. that's the standard. and they have civilian counsel to the that are often pro bono, they're often doing it out of their interest in civil liberties. okay now, on the criminal defense side, i had mentioned

before right to counsel. and that is a detailed military council. as judge advocate and who is trained in the law, practicing, or is certified and qualified by one of the judge advocate general, but if somebody who has got a law degree and has been admitted to practice. that person, and has been trained to be defense counsel. that's the council they're entitled to as a record they can also get under the council, a civilian counsel who may do it by pro bono or if the individual can't country and can fund. they get a capital council, capital qualified counsel. unit, different accused down there have had teams of lawyers. that's just been one. and there is, the detailed military council, or two, some

defendants get three. they could be very complicated case, a lot of discovery mentor, a lot of charges. the chief defense counsel who is a marine corps colonel again at this time, senior judge advocate, supervisory judge advocate for many years, very qualified person, is picking that team. he will detail one of the councils to be the lead military council. often in cases where you have a seasoned and experienced civilian counsel, and generally that teen may make the civilian elite for a number of pieces of it, have the civilian be the one leading different pieces. but that's up to that team on how best to represent client, and, of course, it's up to the client. the client to designate who we want to represent him. so that's kind of how it works. and they are entitled to investigate, investigate resources and other things to help them out. these things get litigated. i will be the last to say that a

defense counsel be standing after talking to you saying he is happy, he or she is happy with the level, and that is healthy. you will see that in every system. i believe if you look at the resourcing angelika the litigation of this has happened in some of the cases where the judge has decided some of the requests for additional translators and investigators and other things, then you would see that there is a robust resourcing of the defense function. and by the way, all those choices, our review by the supreme court. ultimately, reviewable by the federal courts. so they are preserved on a field, if some of things there not being fully represented by counsel, not effectively represented. that's subject to review. great question. [inaudible] >> good to see you. >> recently in pakistan a senior commander filed a report for

protection against the united states government. in looking sort of the future of the asymmetric threat and our advantage of the rule of law, do you think that they successfully strategy any later by commanders? how would we plan to address that? >> what specifically strategy of the commander? i know filing on the court. >> this commander filed in a pakistani court commission to protect, how the pakistani government to protect them from united states, like drone attacks to i can thought that put the u.s. in a pickle because we'll have a political sphere, or a military sphere by letting this guy go. >> i think certainly that could be a strategy of, you know, on you know, anwar al-awlaki filed, had his father filed a petition in u.s. federal court, famous decisions are by the judge. so i would say it does present

issues. these are, and other aspect of this type of litigation, whether it comes in the federal court, a prosecution in federal court or in military commissions, that you're dealing with evidence and events that are happening overseas. so it implicates our foreign relations. you, a veteran of policy in the department of defense knows this well. we're working together last year on rule of law in afghanistan and overseas. it implicates delicate and difficult concerns in foreign countries that really are not analogous to regular civilian criminal trials as someone who. so i would say yes, it does raise issue of difficulties, and if it is an increasing strategy of individuals who are harbored in different areas, you know, it will present a challenge but not in a totally different way. something we've already encountered the that's the nature of this kind of conflict

and the nature of this kind of prosecution to any others? [inaudible] just had a question. whether to utilize the military tribunal or a civilian court, who is the decision-maker? >> very good. there is a 2009 protocol between the department of defense and the department of justice, and the ultimate decision-maker is the attorney general. so all the cases i've received i've received through a decision of the attorney general of the united states. there's a process on how that goes. and it looks very much like in terms of the rules that are used, the decisions that are made daily between two different jurisdictions that may have concurrent authority to try something in our courts, reckless in fact very similar

with this, judge advocate trying cases for campbell, fort bragg, would have a case that could also have been tried by civilian courts. we had to decide who was going to get that. we had a memorandum of understanding, still to come with the department of justice on who will try these cases. there's this protocol that covers it and it uses strength of interest factors, you know, who investigated the case, what are the charges that can be brought? and what are the punishments for those charges? where did it take place? sometimes that's important in deciding which jurisdiction will do it. you know, are there laws that bar you from doing and one for the other. that's very important now for military commissions. so there is this protocol that decides which of two jurisdictions will get a. and again, you may have a drug

case across state boundaries between oklahoma and kansas and you have to u.s. attorneys decide who will do it. they use much of the same kind of analysis. it is importantly? specific. it's very fact oriented, and the intent is to do justice and hold accountability under law. but that's a great question. i'm sorry to keep you waiting. go ahead. >> i'm the justice reporter, and i am covering -- [inaudible] regular basis and thinking about criticism, then our motions challenging the secrecy, especially on 800 conferences, and also challenges about the classification of the accused declaration. so is there any hope that

something changed by that? is there any hope that the lawyers obtain outcome of? >> well, first, i think you may be talking about the specific motion swisher will address. i'm not going to address any specific case but i can talk about rules that i think there upon this. and again this is all going to be keyed up for methodical resolution through a process that will all be preserved on the record to be appealed to, ultimately, federal civilian court, appellate court and supreme court. that's the context within which these disputes and concerns about transparency and any other issue and challenge to the commissions will be resolved. but let's talk about. this goes to this what i call unknown. these are unknown conditions and they are not transparent. we are using the same information practices and protection practices we use and

the federal courts? courtspics i'm not going to promise that everything will be publicly available. they really our sources and methods and items that have to be protected. it's not just national security information. the government has a lot of information about individual citizens that we are not at liberty to choose opened our books to the media or to a party in a criminal proceeding. we have to have enumerated authority to do anything with information in the government. that's what people expect. someone may have a sensitive medical file or information. we don't just open it up and show it. it's not just national security information i want to point to. our values require as to our laws that would protect information as a government, and we don't carefully. transparency as a general rule, yes. the supreme court said in the richmond, virginia, case, and open society does not demand in some ability of its

institutions. but it is difficult for them to understand what they are prohibited from reserving. we have a desire to actually see the decisions our government is making. so very important approach to openness and transparency. the main, if we are not going to have something be visible, and you are speaking of an example of, say, a pretrial conference between the two parties and a judge, which by the way we do this in rule 70 and the federal rules of criminal procedure, courts do this in federal court as well where you're trying to set up the trial, and administrative they go through areas but you're not making any decisions on matters of law. you're not litigating anything. that ought to be done on the record, but in any decisions even about administrative matters need to be recorded in on the record. summarized for the record by a judge when they get back in. so i mean, there is some level

of something that public is not seen, but both parties are there to object to it. anything that is actual litigation on issue has to be on the record. we will certainly see how those types of challenges come up in the future and our resolve by judge. but i'm not sure i see the tension with true transparency and understanding how the government is making a decision. anything important has to be on the record, but we do all kinds of administrative things, and are not being done ex parte, right? which might raise a concern. they're being done with both parties there. they are able to watch each other. there's someone watching him and that's an important principle. if it's going to be nondisclosure, the commitments our government makes, and these are all enshrined in the procedure of military commissions, are that there has been overriding interest and reason for not having it be visible. so the protection of sources i

would submit to you in cases of overriding reason, the protection of individual privacy on matters that are not material to the case overriding interest. it has to be done in a catered way. you can't use a blunderbuss instrument. it has to be surgical. right? as now as you can make it. you have to have looked for alternatives to the closure. sometimes you can protect the information in a catered way. and then you have to put on the record and preserve it, right? so these things are, any of the non-disclosures of information that a detainee may say, detainees have access to classified information, that is what cipa isn't it should protected before they can put it out, we have to know that they want to raise it. then we will figure out how we can protect the information while also protecting his rights. you've got to lay that out

anyway that can be reviewed. and even the case of the congresses, the pretrial coverage is again which a lot of courts do, that is being preserved as an issue to the motions. they can raise the issue if they want. it will be litigated. so those are the commitments on the use of information. we have to reconcile the notion of a free press, people understand how their governments are making decisions with these other important governmental interest. they are not always in sync together in interest. but a great question. >> i will come back to you. we will go here and then we will go to you. >> general, good to see you. i'm with al-jazeera inc. you talked about the idea that this is one of the tools when fighting an asymmetrical war. you've also been noted for your

ability to try to break the back law, as it were, of cases at guantánamo. do you ever anticipate that there will come a time where this particular form of the military commission would no longer need to exist? and if not, why not? >> well, you know, thank you. i will go back to this idea that, although most cases i would submit international terrorism cases should be tried in a federal civilian court, there is a category of case where, this instrument, this institution, this instrument which is now an act of congress is going to be the best available option. i don't see any major in being of this asymmetric type of threat. i mean, i tend to think that's the way people are going to try this strike out against his very capable armed forces of a state that i think you'll have stateless but coordinated

efforts. i don't have a crystal ball, but it seems to me that will have those kinds of threats were longtime to come. and again, not existential in a sense that are everyday existence is threatened, but very serious in the way that sometimes even existential threats -- because you get defined in how you respond, don't you? and you get tempted. these kinds of actors who are flouting the rules encourage even peaceful peoples to respond outside of the law. so, having lawful instruments, and this is an institution that for over 200 years has been at the intersection of law and war. having institutions like that, the motto of my office, that our team came up with is justice at the breech. this is a notion in inherent in tension. you're in an airy of war or

armed conflict, how do you apply law? i happen to think of applying law in those areas is a value incident of our national power and authority. and that it can be useful in specific cases. i wanted to be unfounded. don't want to turn soldiers into our civilian court system. but if given that mission that we have to be able to do it. so it is a law on the books. it's on the books. we're developing a specialized practice where we're able to handle large amounts of classified information safely pick we have clearances. we have the compartment of facilities. the defense counsel have the stake we have the ability both to do justice and to protect information did we have relationships with agencies and/or physicians all over the government increasingly with international partners. that specialized practice as an institution is a viable thing to keep going. not just by its own momentum but

you can see it if there is a need for it to keep that going, and even though the number of cases may be small, a national interests vindicated could be hugely important, justifying the expense involved in that. so, you know, congress has invested a lot legislative effort in trying to hold us together in a way that is consistent with our values and that does justice. my sense is it will be here. and again, two different president, the attorney general last month at northwestern has said this is an important part of our national security. let me go over here are one more question. you have the last question. >> rosemary reed with d.c. historical society. i was struck by listing. i know today's focus is detainees and international and serious kinds, but it seems to be your average soldier crime would be, let's say, local.

why are they judged by a jury of their peers? why is it always officers? i'm always struck by that. >> well, i mean, this is the jury function, the factfinders that congress has decided upon in these courts. now, you are pointing out, the military justice system, since 1950, has included a third, if an enlisted man seeks a jury trial under the military commission, or the military justice system, you may elect to have jurors include up to a third enlisted soldiers, noncommissioned officers. but this is the composition of the boards and the juries that congress has specified, and that is what we are seeking. i would submit to you that it is a diverse group with gender

diversity, racial diversity to all of these different things that are policed by our congress, does not include enlisted personnel because that's what congress put officers in the pool. they put officers in the jury pool. perhaps, you know, policy reasons why that might make sense to officers are going to be in force for a while. ..

is it a fair process that is getting at the truth but doing it in a way that it lives up to our highest ideals and then my final point will be that doing so in trying to find out what happened in any event even something that we think we know about, looking at it from the point of view of accountability under law and seeking unspecified charges can be proven to the highest standard nine the system and then recorded, recorded so other people can look at it and see what is it fair that that is a valuable function in an important justification for this process. thank you. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, i just wanted to add one little load about the general martins and that is he did not seek this particular position, but in order to ensure that this job be done until november 2014, and doing so he voluntarily gave up the possibility of having another appointment and promotion to a higher rank of general. this is an extraordinary personal sacrifice that has been done in the interest of ensuring that this job be well done, and i just wanted to make a comment

here about this. this is a model of the type of service to a cause higher than oneself, which is one of the central lessons of moral leadership that we hear the institute of politics try to inculcate and encourage in our students. there are so many people little worried about their careers and their positions in their corner offices and their personal power, and to have officers like the general do this kind of service is really the height of savitt ability, and i just want to thank you for anybody in this and honoring us with your presence here in the outstanding presentation. thank you. [applause] >> these are symbolic things. i mentioned -- we have something

here for two. we brought these that from afghanistan. this is the cup that we used in 14 provinces of afghanistan and officers to go in to help build the rule of law capacity and the provincial afghan institutions. we have these cuts, john for the command of now you have to watch it. [laughter] rub it on your leg. but afghanistan on the front, my favorite afghan proverb, pashtu and proper that this institute in bodies. a country without law is a jungle, and i wanted you to have one of these. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you for coming, ladies

and gentlemen, have a great afternoon. [inaudible conversations]

>> his first memory of the age of renu khator was going with his mom to a place where he grew out to watch somebody get shot and shooting public executions in the camp were held every few weeks and they were a way of punishing people who violated the camp rules and after rising by 20 to 40,000 people lived in the camps to of a the rules from the non.

>> ms. bennetts homeland security committee this week held a hearing on biological and infectious disease research, and the potential of the research could be for bioterrorism. senator joe lieberman of connecticut chaired the hearing. >> the hearing will come to order. good morning and thanks very much to our distinguished panel of witnesses. we used the word distinguished are around here very easily. but it actually does relate to this panel, and i think you for being here if i may begin by looking back a bit at 1851 a revolution in medicine already under way was crystallized in a letter i'm on the edge of

mysteries and the veil was getting thinner and thinner. thanks to the work of the succeeding generations of scientists, the mysteries of the michael real world has been revealed and we are all a lot healthier and living a lot longer as a result. a childhood diseases like polio and measles are vanquished. scientists are able to identify the virus that lead to treatments, and according to one of our witnesses today, the real possibility of a cure for aids is in sight. the last global pandemic that killed on a massive scale, the spanish flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people was almost a century ago. i remember this because it deprived me of ever knowing one of my grandmother's, my paternal grandmother who died as a young woman in new york in that pandemic.

but in addition to all the medical miracles that were underneath that heuvel and he began to peel back there were also dangers. research that can lead to cures extending life for millions also can kill many accidental because it fell into what i recall evil hands, and it is this paradox of the dual use research and that we gather today to consider at this hearing. last fall, the world was shaken by the news the two researchers were working independently had been able to engineer a new strain of the age five in one virus which we know as the bird flew that could easily infect humans. epidemiologists have long feared that it's the fire is ever made the jump from a virus most of the birds to win easily transmitted among humans it could simply cause a pandemic.

the mortality rate for this few reported cases in humans who have been infected is as high as 60% by contrast. the spanish flu, which i mentioned earlier, had a mortality rate of about 2%. the researchers that i referred to a the university in the middle lens and the university of wisconsin announced that they were going to publish the results of their studies in the journal science and nature. this set off what i would call a global ethical debate in the scientific community about whether to publish or not publish these results. and if the experiments were refunded it had been undertaken at all. on the one hand there are those that say that getting this information out could help other scientists better understand so they could prepare for a possible pandemic by

investigating looking for natural mutations and developing vaccines and medications. the fact that these research teams were able to create this strain from existing genetic material means that nature could create it as well infect many scientists said that was quite likely. but given the left, the others are either publishing the results to create a huge security risk because of what offer a blueprint for a deadly biological to the states are terrorists, and of course that is where this committee's interest is joined because of our responsibility for homeland security can read in a recent speech at a biological weapons conference in geneva, secretary of state clinton warned of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula had in fact issued a call for, quote, brothers with degrees and iger by the pledge your

chemistry to develop a weapon of mass destruction, end of quote. and of course there's also a danger that the manufacture strain might somehow escapes so to speak from the laboratory, which is something we've worried about in the past. last september of the department of health and human services the national science advisory board for biosecurity was asked to review the research papers. the nsabb noted more needed to be known before the research was made public and the asked the editors of science and nature to delight publications. both magazines agreed. last month, after further review, the nsabb withdrew its objections and voted unanimously to allow the university of wisconsin study to be published. and by a divided vote of 123 come six to allow the netherlands study to be published with some revisions and clarifications. one of the things that

apparently influenced the board's decision was the revelation that the modified strands of age five and one had become less lethal but as the members of the panel know i'm sure that decision has drawn criticism from dr. michael at the center for infectious disease research and policy than university of minnesota and the nsabb board member himself. in a letter to the nih, he wrote that the nsabb had deliberately ignored the voice of scientists who believed publication of the research was dangerous. and i quote from his letter i believe there was a bias towards finding the solution the was a lot less about a robust science policy based risk-based benefit analysis and more about how to get out of this difficult situation. he then added we can't just kick

the can down the road without coming to grips on the difficult task of managing and i know he was referring to the research, end of quote. so this is a serious charge which as i hope the morning goes on the panel will respond to. the published or not published debate continued earlier this month during a conference of the world's leading scientists convened by the royal society in london. 1. i learned most of the attendees seemed to agree on is we need to put in place better systems to track this kind of research at each experimental stage rather than waiting until it's ready for publication to make decisions about what can be revealed, and that's another question i hope our panelists will discuss today. although this particular controversy about publication appears to have been resolved

it's going to, and as he said we can't just kick the can down the road and a deal with it on an ad hoc basis. what systems were in place to monitor the research that could produce dangerous results at the time the experiments were begun, what new systems are being put in place now are more needed and how we balance these against our obvious valuation on the quest for knowledge of scientific inquiry. etched into the national academy of science headquarters were the words of feinstein one of many words are quote often a feinstein the right to search for truth implies also a duty. one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be

true, but of course the matter before us this morning raises another question that's relevant which is what if peeling away natures avail unleashes dangers to the world? those are difficult questions to balance, and again i repeat that we ask them here in this committee because of the direct connection between the scientific or get the homeland security of the american people which it is our first responsibility to protect. i really look forward to the testimony and the question and answer period and again i thank you for being here. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it has been almost a century since the 1918 spanish influenza virus infected one-fifth of the world's population killing more than 50 million people and

claiming some 600,000 american lives. yet strains of influenza are still a major threat. the h1n1 strain or commonly known of the swine flu claimed more than 18,000 lives during the 2009 outbreak and exposed gaps in our prepared test capability for response to a global pandemic especially in the development production and distribution of lifesaving vaccines. in 2008 this committee held a hearing on the report by the commission on the prevention of weapons of mass destruction which examined the security of biological pathogens on the select agent list. the testimony by the chairman of the commission, former senator

bob graham and gentlemen helped to raise awareness on the issue of biosecurity and the need to ensure that deadly pathogens and the research carried out on them are contained in a secure lab facilities. this committee also held numerous hearings on the nation's efforts to prevent, prepare for and mitigate the impact of a pandemic influenza outbreak. in 2009 the administration's failure to ensure that the government was prepared to rapidly distribute vaccines was and remains the cause for great concern. preparedness also requires investing in critical life sciences research to expand our knowledge base and technologies

to help us better respond to the next potential global pandemic. such a pandemic could even be more communicable than the 1918 influenza virus or as a virulent as the avian flu virus. the who has documented 576 human cases of the avian flu infection and worldwide since 2003. 349 of the cases resulted in def. recently research funded by the national institutes of health conducted in wisconsin and the netherlands resulted in genetic changes to a strain of the avian flu that allowed its airborne transmissible levy. the nih funded researchers plan to publish their findings in the

two academic journals. now, publication, peer review and replication of the findings are obviously important steps in a vigorous scientific process, but others have expressed concern that the publication of the methodology and some of the data could help create a road map for terrorists and others seeking to further modify the virus and to a bio within. that's why government advisory board, the national science advisory board for biosecurity recommended in late december that partial information be withheld from publication. late last month, however, the board with some dissenters reversed course and is now advocating for the full publication of the research done

in wisconsin and the publication of the revised paper on the research performed in the netherlands. the decision and its reversal have been part of a larger debate within the scientific and national security committee's, and there are important arguments being made on both sides. when the american people pay for scientific research intended for the common good, they give their right to expect that their money will not be used to facilitate terrorism. these are not hypothetical threats. before he was killed, anwar al-aulaqi reportedly sought poison to attack the united states. adding to these concerns, the new leader of al qaeda has a medical background, therefore she may yet asia and even greater interest in pursuing

chemical and biological terrorism. at the same time, there is a legitimate concern about government censorship that could kill academic freedom and scientific inquiry or even limit the sharing of information necessary to save lives or improve public health. recently, nih released in a policy for the oversight of the dual use research concern. this policy is intended to improve our awareness of current and proposed dual use research concern and provide some guidelines for mitigating the associated press. this policy, however, is only the beginning at what must be a straightforward dialogue amon science, health, national security, and government experts

and leaders in order to promote scientific research while protecting the safety of americans and others around the world. i look forward this morning to hearing in reviewing the testimony of our witnesses about these challenging issues and how we can strike the right balance. i do want to apologize that i will, however, have to leave early due to a market in the appropriations committee that begins at 10:30 but i will certainly review the transcript of the hearings. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator collins for this demand and i'm sure whether it's particular meeting of appropriation or others will be watching out for the budget of nih, dhs and others that may be recipients on the panel. >> absolutely.

our first witness is dr. anthony fauci, national hero or a least a hero of mine, and i am sure others director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases at nih. we appreciate that you're here today and look for to your testimony now. islamic thank you very much mr. chairman, senator collins, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the mission of performing biomedical research for the purpose of preparing for and responding to naturally emerging and the emerging infectious diseases and a relationship with this type of research to biological security. as you mentioned in your statement the issue at hand is the ongoing threat of the emergence of a h1n1 influence and the research supported by the nih to address this threat. the conduct and publication of the results of such research in the form of the manuscript that you mentioned has focused considerable public attention on the issue of the dual use research mainly research that is directed at providing new

information critical to the public health, that the same time has the potential for a malevolent applications. am i written testimony submitted for the record and in my few minutes of time i will highlight just a few important aspects. first the public health challenge. seasonal influences is an ongoing threat to health worldwide and is among them leading global cause of death deutsch infectious diseases. each year influenza causes more than two entered thousand hospitalizations and at 49,000 deaths. in the united states and up to half a million globally. yet influenza has animal reservoirs especially in birds and the is virus can undergo extensive changes and jumped species resulting in an influenza virus to which humans are highly vulnerable. such an event can and historically has led to global disasters such as the one you

mentioned, the prime example being the 1918 global influenza pandemic that killed up to 100 million people worldwide and caused enormous social and economic disruption. there is a clear and present danger that we will have another pandemic since these viruses continue to circulate in the world and are constantly evolving to a pandemic capability as we have seen in 1957, 68 and in 2009. over the last decade a highly pathogenic influenza has emerged among chickens. rarely the virus spreads to humans. since 2003 approximately 600 confirmed cases have occurred in humans and more than a dozen countries shown in red on this poster. nearly 60% of those reported cases have resulted in death. should the virus to mutate to transmit more efficiently to and among people, a widespread

influenza pandemic could ensue. indeed, nature itself is the most dangerous by a terrorist and even as we meet today, each five in one and other viruses are naturally mutating and changing with the potential of a catastrophic pandemic. this is not a theoretical danger, it is a real danger. for decades, the nih has supported basic influence a research included on the transmissible become a host adaptation. the goal is to anticipate what the virus is continually trying to do on its own in the wild and to prepare for such were pursued by the funded a scientist and could have important positive implications for the pin deck influence of production, prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

the constructive variants of the age five in one avian influenza in order to identify which genetic mutations might alter the transmissible the of the virus. in their studies the in party standard influenza animal model namely the ferret. the slide shows the basic design of the experiments in which the virus was modified to allow the transmission from one to another. i might point out that one of the causes of the public misunderstanding was the widespread belief that the virus that was trnsmitted by aerosol from one to another actually killed the ferre when in fact there was not the case. we feel these studies provide critical information and it was important to determine if h. hyatt in one that has this enhanced trends facility would remain sensitive to the existing influence of drugs and vaccines.

in addition, and importantly, knowledge of the genetic mutations that facilitates the transmission may be critical for the global surveillance of the emerging influenza viruses. yet, since the transmissible buddy of the virus was increased, this constitutes the dual use research concern which is shown on this poster. if a particular research experiment is identified that as a commission doesn't necessarily mean such research shouldn't be published nor even prohibited in the first place. however, it does call for us as you mentioned, to balance carefully the benefit of the research to the pubc health, the iset and biosecurity conditions under which the research is conducted and the potential risk that the knowledge gained from such research might fall into the hands of those with the intent. in this regard the national science adviser report for the biosecurity or nsabb was asked

to advise the government on the publication of these manuscripts. you will hear indy 500 tell from dr. keim, the chair of the group, the board's deliberations. importantly, the public attention and concern generated by this issue has triggered a voluntary moratorium on this type of research on the part of the influenza research community as well as a fresh look at how the u.s. government handles it as manifested by a formalization of a government-wide policy to address the issue. this policy that was released on march 29 strengthens and formalizes ongoing efforts in oversight and is described in my written testimony. the ultimate goal of the nih in its embrace of this new policy is to ensure that the conduct and communication of research in this area remain transparent and open at the same time as the

risk benefit ratio of such research clearly tips to a benefitting society. the public which has a stake in the risk as well as in the benefits of such research deserv rational and transfer and explanation of how the decisions are made. the upcoming dialogue related to this policy certainly will be informative and hopefully productive in its goal of benefiting the public with the fruits of such research while in million reading the associated risks. thank you. sestak thanks very much, dr. fauci there was an excellent introduction to the topic, and i look forward to asking you some questions. next, dr. daniel m. gerstein for science and technology at the u.s. department of homeland security. obviously sharing with the committee that concern about whether this research represents a threat to our homeland

security and if so what we should do about it. thanks for being here and we welcome your testimony. >> good morning, joe lieberman, a ranking member collins thank you for the opportunity to adjust for today regarding the dual-use life science research concern. my testimony to the will describe the department of homeland secure the mechanisms for addressing and mitigating the dual-use concerns arising from the internal life sciences research that dhs funds or performs as well as the dhs involvement in the u.s. government and other efforts to address security concerns arising from the life sciences research. as the department considers the issue, several principles help guide our thinking. first, it's an extremely complex issue for the scientific research and development community. balancing the nation's need to excel in science and exploration of robust technologies with ensuring the nation's security by preventing the issues of such technology. second, almost all research

conducted today in the bioscience and biotechnology contains some degree of a dual use application. third, dual use concerns must be addressed in a variety of different levels from research funded by the governments to the research funded privately to experimentation done by individual scientists. finally, there are both domestic and international dimensions to the issue as the recent h5 in one pavers have demonstrated. dhs provides a variety of different mechanisms including our internal laboratories such as the body of defense and analysis center and back and the plum island disease center. we also sponsor and collaborate with other departments and additionally provide funding primarily through the centers of excellence program. one vignette that demonstrates the degree to which the research is both ongoing and critical to

the dhs mission is the development of the foot and mouth disease vaccine. the vaccine companies are being developed through the center of excellence at texas a&m. the material is then shipped to plum island where it's used to challenge tests employing the virus. at plum island, the dhs and the department of agriculture are working shoulder to shoulder in this effort. once approved for licensor, a commercial company will produce a vaccine. this crosscutting project demonstrates the importance of the collaborative efforts in the dual use research. dhs primary objective in the funding activity in the life sciences is to meet our homeland security mission. we therefore exercise control of the information where necessary through non-public asian or nondisclosure mechanisms. research conducted or funded by the dhs in the areas of biological and chemical defense undergo particular scrutiny and high-level department will review because of the potential to raise concerns regarding

security, nonproliferation and treaty compliance. at the dhs, our approach for the dual use research is multi dimensional. at the lowest levels, project managers are trained to understand and assess their programs for possible dual-use implications. the national science advisory board for biosecurity come nsabb definition embodied in the nsabb seven experiments of concern serves as the basis for this understanding. the same criteria have been identified for use in the new federal wide policy. the dhs compliance office refused projects that are to be conducted. this divides potential projects into tears based on whether the include the experiments and concern of the control agreements the utilize select agents, have the potential to generate or reveal national security vulnerabilities or provide information on threat

agent production or dissemination. at the highest levels in the department, our compliance review group dorcy r-ga chaired by the deputy secretary with full participation across the staff reviews with a particular eye towards ensuring compliance with chemical weapons convention and biological weapons convention. dhs contracts for life science research that involves solid agents and toxins or the require special bugliosi fee provisions. in all cases we ensure that contracts contain clauses to ensure conformity with applicable laws, regulations and internal policies. in addition, research contracts for life science work typically provide for the dhs to object the publication or disclosure. further, depending on the type of proposed publication or disclosure, the information to be released must go through an internal review process. in the unlikely event sensitive

or provide material is produced from research projects funded from grants to academia, dhs requires grant recipients to create information protection plans which detailed how the information would be identified and secured. now i've been discussing the internal management within the dhs. now let me now turn briefly to the broad issue. dhs has been an extremely active participant in the formulation of the u.s. government policy on little use research and getting the 29 government policy oversight we are in complete agreement that strengthening the oversight and establishing regular reviews of u.s. government on the door conducted research is both necessary and a responsible approach. however, even with the kind of internal oversight policy despite a previously in the u.s. government wide policy on oversight of u.s. founded life sciences research, dhs believes that security related concerns cannot be entirely resolved by

former u.s. government policies. the international nature of the life sciences research coupled with the explosion in biotechnology funded by private sources means that much being conducted is not under the direct u.s. government control. advances in the life sciences will undoubtedly create technological capabilities the will be of tremendous benefit to humankind but will also require careful stewardship including the development of appropriate regulations and policies as well as continued emphasis on strong bio risk-management programs and that emphasize by you see fi, biosecurity and bioethics. working through this issue we must find ways to mitigate risk associated with the potential malicious use one with the same time allowing for open unfettered innovation by the nation's scientists and laboratories. at the end of the day, the dirk issue comes down to the risk of benefit evaluation of whether the balance is in favor of sharing the information for the

good of humankind, for public health, medical or biotechnology advancement versus the potential for misuse. ultimately the the international life sciences community must appreciate the problem and internalize these concerns while developing and conducting research. in this regard, the age five and one papers served as a necessary we could call for the life sciences community. thank you for giving us the opportunity to testify today and we look forward to questions. thanks, dr. gerstein. while we have you, clarify for the record and for me what the role of the department of homeland security is with regard to the dual use research happening outside of the guarantees. >> welcome senator, we set as part of the interagency body the delineate and so we have a strong voice. and in fact, sure we will talk more about later, the policy

actually reflects much of the work that we had been doing previously and fulfilling our biological weapons requirement. we made use of the nsabb experiments of concern and we have always looked at the select agent program to make sure that we are in accordance with the requirements and reporting requirements, so we do that process in order to take short that excrements fall in compliance with the bwc. because of the alignment of the 29th of march policy and the work that we've done previously, we've essentially have a leg up on the implementation of the 29 march policy. >> okay. and, just to take this one step further and, the border in which you sit, is this to determine the government policy or also to approve of particular projects

or evaluate particular research projects. >> these are internal words that are designed to look at the department's experimentations. the project that we are to be conducting. >> okay. and then finally, just give us a sense that -- and i don't and you have to go into much detail here about how widely their graduates are being carried out or funded in the federal government. in other words, the natural place to think about is nih but i presume the dod is also doing funding projects, etc.. >> welcome senator, i would like to stick to my department and just tell you what we are doing in the department of homeland security. we come through our review process, compliance review look at a total of about 200 projects that fall into what we call your one regular experiments that don't rise to the level of concern. in that year to that could have

some issues with perception we do well to 15 and then in the highest category we do five to ten. as of a total of about 225 experiments per year of which all of them run through our compliance review process. islamic those are all funded within the dhs. >> they are. >> need your the one to turn to to give us for the record a kind of broad sense of how widely the research is even being done or in federal agencies funded by federal agencies. islamic that's a very good question and it's important as you did yourself distinguish between the dubious research and research concern almost any time you even go near a microbe is dual use research if you are talking about the research concern we actually just for this purpose as a part of the implementation of the march 29 the government white policy we did in inventory of what we do with our own scientists at the nih and the funded government

science as well as the external guarantees and contractors. just to give you some examples. when we did an inventory of what we do on the bethesda campus and in the rocky mountain campus, there were 404 projects that could be dual use plus 147 and a script scum and none of them were found to be dual use research of concern. when we did the inventory of all of the grantees there were 381 grantees were contractors. ten of the grants were designated as dirk, seven of them were influenza, and trucks and a plague and botulism. out of the 381, there were only ten and those are the ones that we are now going through the process that delineated very carefully in the new policy. so that is the scope of what we are doing. >> that's very helpful. just generally, am i right to assume that there is -- that there may be dual-use research

projects of concern for instance at the -- funded by the department of defense? >> as dr. gerstein and i hesitate to make a statement that we collaborate a lot of them and yes, i cannot imagine that they are not giving some. but probably is all about. but they clearly are doing some. >> so most is probably coming through nih. okay. thanks very much. next, doctor of the national science advisory board we thank you very much for being here. please proceed with your testimony now. >> chairman lieberman, think you for holding the hearing on biological security for the rest of the door use research. i am appalled keim the national science advisory board for biosecurity. i appreciate the upper kennedy to see that the dual use research and in particular about the border activities and the recent evaluations of the

scientific papers concerning the age five and one influenza virus. recognized for many years that science and technology can be used for both good purposes and bad there's a two sided coin that we refer to as dual use research. the problem is that all biological research can be construed as having potential that applications as well as good ones. the nsabb created a new term of the dual use research concern as we've been singing to distinguish normal research from that with exceptionally high potential to be misused. the parameters defined durc are balanced against the overall benefits of the work. over the last eight years, the board has advised by u.s. government on best practices and policy approaches for the research communication personnel reliability standards codes of conduct and the international engagement for issues associated

with durc. the board has recognized the policy needs to protect within the necessary regulations. for the country to the safe, productive and remain a global leader. the national science advisory board provide security of well respected scientists, lawyers, infectious disease experts, scientific editors and public health experts. we have an eight year track record of protecting academic freedom while seeking policy recommendations and would minimize the misuse of biological science research. with that in mind recognizing the significance for the boards unanimously recommended publication of the scientific papers in november of 2011 due to their potential to be misused. the u.s. combat asks the court to review the studies reporting that allowed a highly dangerous bird flew virus the board

instead recommended to the government the key elements that this study not be published in only a redacted peepers were acceptable for the general distribution. these recommendations were based upon the board's finding that if this avian influenza virus acquires the capacity for human to human spread, and retain its current virulence, the world could face a pandemic of significant proportions. we found that the potential risk for the public harm to be unusually high magnitude. the board has published its recommendations to the u.s. government along with its rationale. importantly be pointed out that in international discussion was needed among the multiple components to develop policy in this area of high consequence durc and i would note in a few months since the recommendations were released there is been a flurry of u.s. and international meetings to discuss the risks and benefits of these experiments. the research issues and was the consequence are now commonly

known and being debated. this continuing in global conversation is important for the scientific endeavor and for our biosecurity. in late march, 2012, the u.s. government task nsabb with revealing revised versions of the two original manuscript. this is coupled with a face-to-face meeting such as the board could hear directly from the investigators about their research. in this meeting the board received non-public information about the risks and benefits to the research from the international public health and research community as well as from the united states government intelligence community. in a classified briefing from the national intelligence council and national counterterrorism center representatives, the board heard in this end of the risk for misuse and of the global political ramifications associated with these papers. the details of the briefings are classified, but i can tell you that many of the board were left with the impression that the use did not increase the full publication and there's a high

likelihood of undesirable political consequences to not publishing. in addition, the u.s. government has recently issued new policy guidelines targeting hi consequence. this was based on the nsabb's definition of durc and seven categories of experiments that weren't special consideration. and targeting particular high consequence pathogens. it is in this context that the board arrived at the different recommendations for the revised manuscript. one paper was unanimously recommended for the full publication while the other was recommended by a split vote of 12 to six. balancing the risk to give the benefits of the revised manuscript in the context of additional intermission and new u.s. government policy the board shifted its position. in my opinion the voter is highly significant in the signals to the board still believes that there is a great potential for misuse of information generated by these types of experiments. the majority of the board members voted for publication,

but they were clearly still troubled by this research and its potential to be misused. it's fair to say to the board believes that these types of experiments will arise again and that these issues are not fully settled. as one board member noted, we've only kicked the can down the road and we will be dealing with it again in the future. it is critical that we establish a policy that intensely martyrs' high potential nih research from cradle to grave in order to protect us from its use but also for the low potential research from the onerous regulations we must be careful that we don't destroy the enterprise as we try to protect the misuse of some research. thank you. >> thanks very much. let me ask you what did you mean when you said refer to the undesirable political consequences from. stand this was a classified briefing and so in this environment we can't talk about it in detail. but there are many international

collaborative projects going on in public health to try to control and predict and understand the influence of panamax. many of those political agreements are very fragile, and i think it's fair to say that not releasing this information was seen as having a detrimental effect upon. >> thank you. final witnesses, chief executive officer and director center for biosecurity, university of pittsburgh medical center, welcome back. >> mr. chairman, thank you for the chance to speak today. i'm the director for the center for biosecurity. infectious disease by training of a loss to the kids i've seen many patients with influenza by despite excellent medical care in american hospitals. for many years my colleagues and i have been studying the gm pandemic flu and the public health actions that need to be taken to protect us from those

challenges, and like all of you lamb deeply concerned that age five and one is a major global threat. i've been opposed to the publication of the manuscript. the break through network was looking at transmissible through the air first. just as it calls ferrets when it's still in the tricky it also kills ferrets the same way so there's no evidence i've seen publicly presented that this virus would have less virulence in humans than the wild infection would. it could acquire new unpredictable properties, so this work replicated after the publication and if it led to the human infection following misuse we can't rule of the chance that would lead to high fatality in the spring of endemic difficult to stop with quarantine vaccine are anti-viral. as you noted, there are others in the scientific public communities that share this concern. that said, i appreciate the

lubber this process has taken place in the last six months. the majority of the nsabb members, government agencies and general science have decided that the work should be published. i'm concerned about this but i recognize the decision has been made so now it's time to look ahead and is of the future of the transmissible the research which scientists are now poised to pursue. here are some thoughts on the benefits and risks of the further pursuing this line of research. will further engineering devices help improve surveillance? in my view in the short term is unlikely. genetic mutation data is widely collected in the surveillance systems and very few sequences are analyzed in real time. even if we could identify the experimental musicians and birds in real time prescribed response would still be the same. infected birds all flocks regardless of the limitations of the virus. until we have a surveillance system in place of collects more

genetic sequence does seven time frames that are meaningful and have predictive value is to lead to additional action in the field this research seems unlikely to practically improve surveillance. nor is the research necessary to making it presents i explain my written testimony. what could go wrong with a million transmissible the. by using fi at the labs is generally excellent. actions are uncommon and most have little capacity for the spread. kai the catastrophe. although it is uncommon accidents do happen. 97 h1n1 calls dependent from allow the escape. there were placed three incidents since in which leaders were working in the love and singapore, taiwan and china accidentally infected themselves. i'm not meaning to single them out for the criticism, mistakes are made by all tied of professionals on doctors, rocket scientists, all of us because we are human.

we have the possibility of errors surprise into a hour calculations of the risk of this research. can we assure the research won't be replicated and deliberately misused? no. aubuchon a potential adversary will have the competence or the intention to pursue this and but we can't predict the chances the work will be replicated by a malevolent scientist somewhere in the world or a terrorist group or nation state. what happens if a transmissible starts to spread? seasonal flow effects ten to 20% of what appears much as a billion people are more. the fatality rate in the database is nearly 60% as you indicated. of restraint with that facility rate were engineered to spread seasonal flu, hundreds of millions of people's lives would be at risk. even 100 times less failed please at risk millions of people's lives. so what should be done in the traditional research going forward?

first i would extend the moratorium that dr. fauci discussed. the reason many experts agree a moratorium are valid. before proceeding with it have confidence the research will lead to the benefits and we shall look for other ways to study the trends visibility that doesn't require the transmissible strains. if it is about to continuation limit the small number of labs. my understanding is the u.k. and canada have their concern by dividing the work cannot be performed in the labs. we should have the discussions in an open and transparent way that includes the public of communities. second, to decide if there are red lines that shouldn't be crossed for example increased with somebody engineer and to the transmissible strains to understand variants? should other avian flu strains be in geneva for the transmissible the? should transmissible strands make them so we can understand the genetics of those problems? we should decide now if there are in the lines. third, the u.s. continues to strengthen the pandemic preparedness efforts.

plater these include the capacity timoney factor food on a large scale, universal the flu vaccine, anti-viral come and better surveillance and calling an infected flocs preparing for the pandemic avian flu is important. let me turn to the policy for the research concern recently announced this policy is a good step towards addressing the kind of issues raised by the controversy. the success of the policy will depend on how it is implemented. in my testimony providing recommendations for the success of a policy and i will highlight them here. number one come implement effectively a the local level scientists and institutions of the biosafety committee will be crucial to the success of this policy. this is new territory for them as a training and education will be key. they also need new members and resources and process for elevating concerns. number two, learn from experience. this process will need to evolve as we have learned. i never said that the review of the portfolio front-end experiments warranted further risk management. it would be a valuable learning

tool to understand these cases. what caused the concerns, hauer the risks mitigated and this can be done in an unidentified right to protect scientists to read also to learn as much as we can from the risk assessment and risk management process of the risks are assessed and conflicts of interest and process control of and the judgment considered in the data. going forward, the success of the policy will depend on these issues. third, the regulatory burden. this policy would add another process to be navigated by the community that's already heavily regulated. we have to make sure we don't impose such a burden that scientists can't continue their important work and for this and i would recommend asking the national academy to examine the effect of an existing policies regulatory burdens on u.s. scientists. last, reaffirming the role of the nsabb. it deserves a lot of credit for its work and the members of the substantial public service. the prepare de dalia bald guidelines and spend energy and time on this debate.

independent and strong nsabb should have a strong role in the durc policy going forward and i would hope the nsabb would rarely be in the position of getting invited in the process after manuscript have been submitted. i think we all agree in this run the risk assessment and management process should happen early in the research process. to conclude, scientists with research and forensic and other infectious diseases are working to improve our understanding and better the world. the u.s. needs to continue supporting the entrepreneurial talented scientists with the best ideas and at the same time we need to acknowledge the situations are the consequences are so serious that special process his are needed to manage the public and this new durc policy is a step in that direction. >> thanks, doctor. help us just, the public including me when we hear about accidentally skin of pathogens we get alarmed.

talk a little more about it. does that normally happen in the example used eight of the infection of workers. >> in other cases that is typically the way that an infection with the scale lab. usually when they are infected though they don't spread it to anybody else. so, the risk is primarily to the person in the laboratory. it is rare to pose a risk of side of the lab. >> i assume all of the regulations worked before and after march 29 were intent on limiting the possibility of exposure to personnel. >> different, mr. chairman. in general, definitely, and specifically in the two cases that were discussed as prototypes here today, the large trees, one in wisconsin and one were highly qualified and inspected multiple times and

given a rating to meet or exceed the standard for the kind of protection that we are talking about. >> let me ask you first about the laboratories that were the subject of this concern. to the extent that you can, why was the ultimate decision unanimous in the case of wisconsin and then next in the case of ross must? >> the underlining the took in these experiments was a different. they did one together a lot and so one of the approaches was viewed as having a greater biological control of the risks. it's one of the aspects that we have instituted across-the-board in the biosafety experience in the united states which is to try to do these experiments in a biological context the would be less dangerous to read and so, for a simple, if we do in mixed amid where we are going to add to something we usually like to do that with a pathogen that has

been disarmed or attenuated before we ever get there and so distinguished in the two groups and their approach as i would say that was the biggest difference was one who worked in a plot from a few well that was viewed as less risky not as varied as the other one that was taking the wild side, the raw material from nature and then changing the transmissible buddy on that platform. ..

>> dr. keim and dr. fauci, i want to give you an opportunity to respond to the dissent in the letter which was, i gather, a racially a confidential letter and then was leaked from michael osterholm in his criticism of the nsabb decisions. and to some extent, not totally reflected by dr. inglesby but also dr. inglesby expressing some decision. dr. keim, why don't you begin? >> so, first off on the committee we again are you bored of almost 2500 or five individuals. we really agree on anything. >> sounds like congress. [laughter] >> i know. spent although we may not be highly qualified. >> i must say that we actually embrace this dissent, and we use it, we actually cherish the

different members and their opinions, and it's true for this particular example as well. i did, this was, in fact, a letter that was meant for an integral type of the process for us to understand in a retrospective fashion what we've done and what we've come through. as such it was, i could as a very constructive type of a communication. it was unfortunate it was late and it became part of the public dialogue. it makes it harder to have a constructive and proactive type conversation there. many of the things that he said are worth examining. one point that he makes in the letter is, in fact, that there was a bias in the witness list. i think that is true. the primary witnesses that we brought in for briefers that were brought in for this hearing were in fact investigators themselves. they inherently are biased. he wanted their work published. we brought in a second

investigator who has been clambering with them and work on how you use this information for surveillance purposes. again, somebody would like to see their work published and sees the benefits far clear than the risks. i don't think this was a great concern though, mr. chairman. we are scientists on this board and what we do is look at scientific and look at other scientists were, it would be very critical of that. and so the biases that were inherent in those types of witnesses i think was not a problem for us. and so we effectively dealt with that very well. we were able to ask very tough questions of investigators over a series of time. dr. fauci for example, was in front of us for two hours with lots of intense questioning and answer about the. something those biases were something the board could deal with quite well. one partner was clearly not, was independent of all the other aspects of the science was the intelligence briefing your this was a briefing that was set up

by the u.s. government intelligence community, and we came into that as scientists, and pretty much took this on faith that what we were hearing the assessments of the risks and the political consequences were fact. that was an environment where the board is perhaps a little bit naïve. we don't have the capability to look behind these assessments. the briefing was held at a secret level and we are only able to ask so many questions. but they were quite confident, and that briefing, in fact, suggested to us that, in fact, the risks were minimal and the political consequences again were great. and i think that a great effect upon the board. so that's one aspect of doctor osterholm's letter which i think, you know, is an attribute of the process itself. we didn't set, this was never set up as a point counterpoint so we didn't have time in six hours we had witnesses in front

of us to action of everybody in the world there, but the most important that we did have were inherently biased. >> interesting. so if you had to do over again, would you try -- >> i would do me things different, mr. chairman. one is i would probably make sure that this was being a lot of work was being done before it ever came to the board. we were brought these papers under a very tight timeline back in october. you know, in retrospect the amount of time it took and the timeline we are on was much too tight. a process and the number of hours we put into reviewing the two papers was massive. it's clear that the new government policy identifying early on is going to be critical for moving much of this evaluation, earlier on before -- >> it's a very important point. i agree with you that dissent even to some extent the bias is not of itself a concern, particularly in scientific

debate and discussion. but obviously from homeland security point of view we are concerned about the impact, am i right, that you were essential essentially, to the best of your ability, dividing assurances that information is not going to be released in the two studies, particularly in the study that was significantly increase the risk of deliberative or accidental release of modified h. five m1? >> no, the board was pretty confident in the case of the paper and was again unanimous but in the case of the paper, it was a split vote, and there were strong feelings on both sides. i would say that i can come in this type of report process each of us had to wait evidence. coming, they were great uncertainties in this type of research. a very small number, rosalie small number of ferrets were asked to use in this experiment the to understand the biological

properties of these viruses is not 100% certain. we don't know everything there is about these, and so these 20 board members had to wait evidence as best they could. i will tell you, you will find a better group of people to do this. this board is extremely qualified and able to do this, and work very hard in understand the risks and benefits, and came to a split vote on the paper. >> dr. fauci, do you want to respond to the osterholm complains to some extent to dr. inglesby is concerned? >> sure. well, with regard to the letter, there were, as you probably know, because i'm sure that your staff, or you have a copy of the letter, there were several issues that were brought up in there. i have to say that i agree with many of the things that dr. keim said in the sense that this is a strong board, a really good board. we have worked with him for a long time, and i don't think

they're going to be significantly influenced by what they might perceive as a bias. so if they did, i believe, as paul has done in the past, if you haven't issue is something you bring you bring it up. the letter was sent to the executive secretary of the nsabb, who is at the nih, dr. patterson your we have responded on a point by point basis to everything in that letter. so we would be more than happy to make that response available to you so that you could see the point by point discussion. again, there were important issues about looking for. there were several things in there that i must say quite frankly, mr. chairman, that i actually disagree with. one of which was the concern about the security briefing. as you know, i have a great deal of trust and the director in the director of national intelligence to tell us what we need to know. so that's just one example. the idea, as you mentioned about

the picking of people who were beyond, we did not get any indication from doctor ostrom about people he wanted to see their who were not there. so rather than go tit for tat on that i could just say that i think the general printable summer brought up by dr. keim i don't agree with. i just have to say for the record that a disagree with many of the things in his letter. >> no, i appreciate that, and i thank you for it. do you have a reaction to dr. inglesby suggestion that the moratorium should be extended? and if so, for how long? >> i totally agree with dr. inglesby about an extension of the moratorium. the real critical issue is for how long. >> right. >> this is a voluntary moratorium, and i think something that the public needs to understand, this is a voluntary moratorium on the part of the scientific community. i had discussions with the

influence scientist and encouraged them come and actually to their credit and to the discussion that dr. keim himself had in the nsabb, this was something that they agreed upon. exactly what to call it off i think we need to see how we can have come and we are very actively involved in pushing forward the principles and implementation of a march 29 governmentwide policy. that will have an important impact on what we can feel comfortable that we can then go on. so as long as people understand both the principles and implementation mechanisms of how you address it? several of the labs that are involved understand that now. we need to make sure that that is broadly understood. so i doesn't agree with the. i just want to make one point. >> go ahead spent a minor disagreement, if you want to call it that, with my esteemed colleague, dr. inglesby. that if we only look at the short-term benefit of research,

we wouldn't do a lot of research at the nih here because you very often have a situation where it's incremental and you build up into something that really becomes important. so although i understand the point is being made, if you look at what immediate benefit of those mutations will have right now, sure, you can say there isn't a lot of surveillance capabilities of high sequencing, et cetera, but the incremental accumulation of knowledge is one of the fundamental principles that the nih research agenda is built upon. so i think a little bit of a disagreement on the. i don't think you need to have an absolute immediate benefit for research not to be ultimately important to do, and to publish. >> a response? >> yes, i completely agree with what you just that i don't think we disagree on the. i agree that fundamental research and understand biological principles is critical, and it's a part of the science, critical part of site submission. this is just one very specific

and red example where i think the bar, for whether to proceed with this line of research should be beyond a deeper fundamental understanding of biology. but in general, i think i completely agree that the tests for basic science should be whether it has practical benefits in the next year. but in this case, there's been a lot of proponents of the research have been arguing for urgent practical benefit, and invite you i just haven't seen a compelling case. >> this leads me to ask you, dr. fauci, anyone else who wants to answer, some since it's a question in the margins, when considering future research that would be seen as of concern, can you imagine instances in which you would conclude that research should not be undertaken under any circumstances? >> i do. i don't think, i think it would

be scientific hoover's for scientists to seek we can do anything we want to do regardless, just for the curiosity of it from understanding it. so i do think there are some experiments that would better not be done. i think that the a very rare situation, mr. chairman, particularly, i mean, you can fantasize about ridiculous and dangerous experiments just for the sake of doing. those who don't even bother with. but in the realm of trying to keep up with something that is a clear and present danger of it happening in nature itself, that's the critical thing that we're dealing with your. and that's the reason why we agree so much on it, and yet all of us at the table know that this is a delicate issue. if you are doing something in an experimental fashion that you might be pushing the envelope of creating something that would give you some information, but it isn't really addressing any danger, then i think that that's very ill-advised to go there.

but when you have a situation where nature itself is already doing some of the things that you are trying to stay ahead of, that's when you have two shows to consider the short answer to your question, the principles of the new governmentwide. policy that we put out on march 29, actually put that into the consideration. so when you look at the number of experiments that you can do, look at the same, there are now some classic experience that if they come up, you have to decide, do you have a risk mitigation for that particular result or that particular experiment, one of the risk mitigation is very well may be don't do the experiment. so it really falls very nicely into the answer to your question, it is built into the new governmentwide dirk policy, that that is, in fact, an option. >> so i presume that this is not an area where you can draw a

very clear red line, right? in other words, what you described is the standards adopted in the policy, particularly with regard to the risk mitigation. and that in a given case the decision-makers might decide that in the interest of risk mitigation, the research simply should not be conducted? >> it's essentially a continual evaluation of risk-benefit. you take each individual case and you look at it, and if it turns out that clearly the risk, and our ability to mitigate the risk, is such that it's just not worth doing. >> dr. gerstein, from a homeland to get a point of view, why don't you talk to us all little about this, and whether you think there to be clear red lines here, or whether this is an area, scientific inquiry where it's simply impossible to

state a red line, and lest you see at any particular proposal for a research project. >> senator, i agree exactly with what dr. fauci said. i think there are some experiments that should not be done. in fact, that it's likely the intent of the compliance review group, looking at the nsabb seven experience, and looking out the type of pathogens we routinely work with in the sort of threat analysis and characterizations that we do. so we look at these very hard. we make sure that all of them army. we make sure that we're doing them in the safest possible ways, in the appropriate facilities. but at the end of the day we recognize that national security, homeland security needs to look at some of these different capabilities and assess what sort of threats they pose. steel, we're doing that and the highest containment for the department. we do most of our internal work in our facilities, the fort

dietrich facility, and back, and the long island facility. so we are very keen on that. >> okay. we have talked so far about the u.s. government response to this challenge of dirk research of concern. but obviously scientific research is global. and in this case, one team in wisconsin, one team in the netherlands. so help me understand, and the committee understand for the record, was the state a discussion of standards internationally? on their scientific international scientific bodies that are moving to adopt standards such as the march 29 the u.s. policy, or different? on their national standards being adopted in individual countries throughout the world? what's happening? because obviously we're talking here about a fear in one sense, a global pandemic.

so if something wrong happens in a laboratory halfway around the world, he could still affect the lives of people here in the u.s. >> let me take a shot at that, mr. chairman,. >> police. >> it's very interesting because this gets into what we referred to as the culture of responsibility. a global culture of responsibility. back in the '70s when the revolution of dna technology took place, globally but fundamentally here in the united states, scientists got together and tried to develop, you know, it's strikingly similar to the challenges that we are facing now, and came up with what we ultimately have right now, the dna recombinant advisory committee, the rack as it is called. and although the only pertains when you talk specifically about government-funded research here in the united states, what happened is the fundamental principles, the codes of

conduct, the culture of responsibility that was engendered by the discussions back in the '70s regarding recombinant dna technology, without any capability of enforcing a lowly, essentially permeated the global approach towards recombinant dna technology. so although we didn't have any enforcement capability, it became something that was widely shared throughout the world. now, other countries, including the netherlands right now, are addressing in a very serious manner how they are going to approach this because it was one of their scientists. but there's also going on in the uk, in france and places like that. so what we hope in what we envision is that as a result of this, there will be a culture of responsibility, that even though we don't have the carrot and the sticker fund and withdrawn funding, that these kind of principles will actually be intimated throughout the world. we are all hoping for the action have confidence that it will.

>> good. dr. gerstein, i know that secretary napolitano and people in the department now are developing ongoing relations with homeland security departments, or the comparable departments, around the world. is there discussion of this particular concern in those international meetings? >> senator, there is. we've had, we have a number of bilaterals for example. we have 12 nations we do bilateral discussions with. and we have had these discussions. the nation's feel very similar to us, but there is not all good news as far as this is concerned. and i would take you back to the biological weapons convention, some interesting things come out when you look at it. there's a london-based verification research training and information center, and in one analysis they did, a couple of years ago, they discovered that very few nations of the 87

that they surveyed even had lost our definitions of what a select agent is. they didn't have laws against developing, stockpot or storing biological material. and the news doesn't get any better when you talk about export control measures. so it highlights the fact that we may be working very hard in this country and we may put in place the proper provisions, but it's important we do the international outrage, especially into some of the country that may not have the same sense of a life science issued the dirk issue that we do. >> yes, doctor. >> good news side of the story. first of our think the h5n1 debate has been somewhat useful internationally because people are all paying attention to this issue. so i think that has one could consequence of this has been an enlightenment or awakening in many places in the world which were not paying attention to the. the second point is at a science meeting two weeks ago when this question came up, and there was

concern that private foundations wouldn't follow the lead of the u.s. government and to policy, a representative from one of the most important science foundation stood up and say let them include the u.s. government is going to pursue this policy. we intend to follow it ourselves. and i imagine that others will. and a three-point of good news was an article published in nature magazine yesterday in one of the most important science journals in the world which said that the u.s. is taking an important leadership position on this dirk policy and other nations should follow suit. so there's some indications that maybe this woman in a direction were other people are doing similar things. >> that's encouraging. me go to a different aspect of the dirk policy, which interested me. which is that it requires departments and agencies to report to the white house national security staff in the next several months on their current dirk projects and risk mitigation measures.

the concern i want to express is that given, put it this way. the national security staff is probably larger than most people think that it's still relatively small for the range and responsibilities it's given, particularly those on the nsc staff that work on bio security and bioterrorism issues. and i wonder whether you have a sense of how the information is going to be used to support oversight of such research, and whether any of you expect your agencies, and for the nsabb will be asked to support the oversight at the white house nashe security staff is charged with carrying out here. maybe i will start with you, dr. gerstein. >> that would be somewhat speculative. i would just like to take you back to deliberations today. we have used as deliberations to

better understand what has gone on with the papers. we have been briefed on the science. we've been briefed on the policies, the issues that have surfaced. and i think what's come out of the 29 march white house led effort is a good first start. what we expect is that this will continue, that this is not an endpoint, so to speak, but it is the beginning of a process that we will continue to look and try to ensure that our policies with regard to dirk are as good as they can be to ensure national security. it also homeland security as well as ensuring scientific work goes on unfettered. so in that regard we are very hopeful. it's a reporting requirement. all departments and agencies are submitting to that. and we have not come up with a next step, so to speak, in trying to finalize the policy.

i know this has generated though in credible discussions across the agency -- and agencies or departments are getting together and discussing how they're handling it. we received several phone calls to see how we were dealing with our university grants program and the language that we have inserted that provides us at least a stopgap measure, should it be necessary to ensure that publication of certain materials would not proceed. so this is actually been a very positive outcome. i think across the government. >> good. dr. keim, do you anticipate that the nsabb may be able to help the white house in these few? >> you know, we do whatever the administration asks us to do, and we don't do anything they don't. >> good standard. i thank you for the. dr. fauci, do you want to comment on that at all? >> if you look carefully at the dirk policy, what really, within

about 60 days to give an immature, within 90 days to determine how you're going to do risk mitigation. that was really the first cut in the future we know what's going on right now. i think this'll be an evolving process. ultimately, we're going to try to make sure that when we get down to the local level, the institutional biosafety committees, a lot of the time of monitoring that we be done will be essentially automatic by well-trained people. >> i agree. let me ask this question, in your testimony, travel, and you discuss nih funded efforts to develop the universal influenza vaccine, and dr. inglesby highlights the ongoing efforts to develop vaccines focused on h5n1. i wonder whether the findings of these kind of studies will lead nih and other organizations that fund vaccine research to increase the priority, that you're placing on these kinds of research efforts.

>> the answer is a resounding yes. the situation, there a couple of ways of getting rid of this problem. one of them i think dr. inglesby mentioned in his testimony, certainly in some of the discussions we've had, just kill the chickens that have h5n1 and make sure we get rid of the reservoir. that's are difficult to do because your countries that are not necessary interest for economic and other reasons. the other thing is to have available countermeasures that actually worked, and worked really very well. and the idea of getting a universal influenza vaccine is not only going to be very important for seasonal influenza, so we don't have to keep chasing each year getting the right combination and matching it with what is for good and out there, but also it is a major, major countermeasure against the emergence of a pandemic. so we are putting a considerable amount of effort, and we've had some very encouraging scientific advances over the past just year

and a half, two years, on understand much better the type of immune response that you need to induce in an individual to cover virtually all strings. we are not there yet, but this is something that we see the light at the end of the tunnel. it's always risky to predict when you're going to get a vaccine for whatever, but unlike it was a few years ago, we now see that we have the scientific mechanisms and wherewithal that we are on the road to developing universal flu vaccine. >> well, that is tremendous encouraging. and, of course, that's exactly the kind of work a budget constraint atmosphere that i hope we will find adequate funds for. you want to comment on that at all, doctor? >> sees best director is a complete guide to the 112th congress. inside you'll find each member of the house and senate come including contact information, district maps and committee assignments. also, information on cabinet

members, supreme court justices and the nation's governors. .. >> senators marco rubio this week gave a foreign policy speech at the perkins institute in washington.

he said president obama lacks a firm leadership role in the world and he criticized what he described as growing isolationism in the republican party. brookings institution president strobe talbott opened the event and senator joe lieberman introduced mr. rubio. >> good afternoon to all of you. i am strobe talbott and it's my great pleasure to welcome you all here to brookings today and a particular welcome to those of us who are going to be viewing this event on our webcast. we have got a lot of other media here as well which of course is a great complement to our two guests of honor. we are also especially pleased to have five distinguished members of the diplomatic corps here today as well as for brookings trustees and it's always an honor to have a member of the senate come down from the hill to think-tank row, so it's

a double honor when we get to senators. and the fact that they represented different parties testifies to their bipartisanship, which is a rare but not endangered commodity in this city today, one that we here at workings do our best to foster and protect. senator marco rubio is a member of the senate foreign relations committee. he is a member of the select committee on intelligence and he's has already established himself as a vigorous advocate of an intense and widespread u.s. engagement and leadership in the world. he is an internationalist. and from that perspective he is going to be talking to us today about american foreign policy and the challenges facing american leadership. he will be introduced by joe lieberman, who is a long-standing friend of this institution and i might add a very good friend of quite a

number of us here today. joe we are going to miss you when you leave the senate, but i have no doubt you will remain a forceful voice in the national and international arena. when senator rubio finishes making his remarks, marvin kalb of our foreign-policy program is going to moderate the discussion here on the podium and then engage as many members of the audience as he can for the remainder of the program. so joe, over to you. [applause] >> thank you. thank you area much. thanks to strobe talbott and take us to brookings and the special thank you to bob kagan for orchestrating and inspiring this event today. i am really honored to have been asked to introduce senator marco rubio, a rising star in the next generation of america's foreign-policy leaders.

marco came to the senate at a moment in our history when america was looking inward, focused on our economic woes. it would have been very easy for him and that political climate to have given attention only to domestic issues, and i would guess that many people advised him to do exactly that, including probably a media consultant or two, but instead, marco soth membership as strobe has said on the senate foreign relations and intelligence committees, and has devoted much of his time and energy to foreign-policy and national security. he has not done so because there are votes to be gained, but because of his steadfast belief in the importance of american leadership in the world, and his understanding of how much that leadership determines our security and well-being here at

home. marco rubio's foreign-policy foreign policy is principled, patriotic and practical. it grows i believe from his own life's journey from tyranny to freedom, but also from his dedicated study of history and contemporary challenges. his foreign-policy, as i have come to know it, puts him in a crowd i've partisan tradition that links together our greatest republican presidents like ronald reagan and our greatest democratic president like harry s. truman. it is a tradition that recognizes that america is defined not by the land under our feet or even by the light in our veins, but by our founding values. first among them being freedom and equality of opportunity, whose promotion and protection will always be our first

national purpose. it is a foreign-policy tradition that is bipartisan and idealistic, and recognizes that there is evil in the world that we should not need afraid to call it by its name, that we have enemies who cannot he negotiated into the peace, but must be confronted with our strength. and it is a bipartisan foreign-policy tradition that recognizes that the survival of liberty and prosperity in our country ultimately depends on the expansion of liberty and prosperity throughout the world. in word and deed, marco rubio has become a leading advocate for freedom fighters and political dissidents throughout the world, from venezuela to iraq, from syria to north korea. you can regularly find him on the floor of the senate speaking

out for those who did taters seek to silence. at a moment when america faces many serious challenges, both here at home and throughout the world, and when it has become fashionable to suggest that our best days are behind us, and we ought to pull back, senator rubio brings to the public arena a contagious personal optimism and an abiding and patriotic faith in america's destiny. ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you, senator marco rubio of florida. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you senator lieberman. one of the best things about working in the senate is the opportunity to learn and to know the statesmanship as an example

for the rest of us. in my brief time in in the senate i've had the chance to get to know joe lieberman. he represents a view of america's role in the world in the tradition of democratic leaders like franklin roosevelt and harry truman to john f. kennedy and scoop jackson. my every experience with him it is evident joe lieberman as a statesman who takes positions on every important national issue, because he believes they best serve our country's interests and values. so thank you joe for your introduction and more importantly thank you for your example. i'm privileged to serve with you. i want to thank brookings for this opportunity. i wanted to contribute today a few thoughts of the current debate over america's role in the world and this 21st century. i wanted to give this speech today to share with you my observations of someone who is a long-time interest in foreign-policy now finds himself in the role of foreign policymaking. i am always cautious about generalizations in politics but

until very recently the general perception was that american conservatism believes in robust and muscular foreign-policy. that was the hallmark of the foreign-policy in both president bush's and president reagan's. when i arrived in the senate last year i found that some of the traditional sides in the foreign-policy debate has shifted. on one hand i found liberal democrats and conservative republicans working together to abdicate our withdrawal from afghanistan or staying out of libya. on the other hand i found myself partnering with democrats like love menendez or senator casey on a more forceful foreign-policy. in fact the resolutions i co-authored with senator casey on syria and the resolution i cosponsored the senator menendez condemning fraudulent elections in nicaragua were held up by republicans. sawyer recently joked the other day that today in the u.s. senate on foreign-policy, the further you move to the right, the likelier you are to wind up

on the left. and i found the senate, not just in the senate that back home as well. for example many of my loyal supporters were very highly critical of my decision to call for a more active u.s. role in libya. now the easiest thing for me to do here today is to give a speech on my disagreements with this administration on foreign-policy, and they do have many. but i wanted to begin by addressing another trend in our body of politics. one that recently said it's time to focus less on the world and more on ourselves. now i always begin by reminding people of how good a strong and engaged america has been for the world and in making that argument i have been recently relying on, heavily on lob kagan's timely book, the world america made. he did not pay me to say that. he begins his book with a pretty useful exercise. he asks readers to imagine what the world order might have existed, what world order might

of existed from the end of world war ii until the present if america, absent american leadership? can we say for certain it would look anything like america's vision of an increasingly freer and more open international system for catastrophic conflicts between great powers, democracy and free-market capitalism flourished or prosperity spread wider and wider and billions of people emerge from poverty. would it have occurred if after the war america had minded its own business and left the world to sort out its affairs without our leadership. almost surely not. as persuasively argues every world order in history has reflected the interest and the beliefs of its strongest power, just as this world order still largely reflects hours. of course many of these things were not achieved by us on our own. they weren't achieved because we succeeded in all our

international endeavors. they were to cheat because everyone always agreed with everything we did and they weren't achieved because we were the most popular country on earth. they were achieved because the united states had a vision, the will and means to do the hard work of bringing it into existence and then of maintaining it. we have the will and that means to defend its norms and institutions and the security of our partners. face down its challenges, assist other people in obtaining their liberty, keep trade routes open and support the expansion of free-market capitalism that accelerate the growth of the global economy and we did it without other countries territories or seizing their assets are robbing them of their opportunities. the purpose of institutions we established and the united nations to the world bank and the imf was to spread these and prosperity, not to assert narrow american interests. other nations consented to our leadership because they saw what

the economic and political values of the american worldview had achieved for us and they wanted the same for themselves. they followed us to cut they believed that are way, the american way, and suppose a free people and free markets, was the best way to advance their societies. but as bob also points out we haven't really stop this role yet despite our worries, doubts and occasional resentment, we are proud of it and we should need. bob's book highlights a number number of facts worth repeating here today about the post-world war ii world america made. for example but global gdp has risen 4% annually since the end of world war ii. four times faster than the average. 4 billion people mostly outside of europe and north america have been lifted out of poverty during that time. the number of democracies in the

world have proliferated nearly 10 fold. and we have had the longest period of peace between the great powers ever. before anyone accuses me of claiming that america has ushered in the biblical promise of the new heaven and the new earth, let's stop and remember the world america it is better but it is not perfect. but it is vastly more peaceful, prosperous and then any other age in recorded history. so this is the world america made, but what is the role for america now? it is now finally the time for us to mind their own business. it's now time for us to allow others to lead. is now the time for us to play the role of equal partner? i always thought by reminding people what happened all over the world is our business. every aspect of our lives is directly impacted by global events. the security of our cities is connected to the security of small hamlets in afghanistan, pakistan and yemen and somalia.

our cost of living, the safety of our food, the value of the things we invent are just a few examples of everyday aspects of our lives that are directly related to events abroad and make it impossible for us to focus only on our issues here at home. the next question i'm asked then is why doesn't someone else lead for a change? why do we always have to be taking care of the problems of the world? isn't it time for someone else to step up? and i always begin my answer to that question, with a question of my own. if we start doing less, who is going to do more? for example a world order like china, at least as we know china right now, was the leading power disposed of the political and economic aspirations of other nations as we are? i still have hope that behind the curtain of secrecy that fails the chinese faith that there are voices that advocate for the peaceful and responsible rise of that nation, voices that

reject the idea of a global power is the zero-sum game. we hold out hope for a new china tomorrow, but for now, we must deal with the china we know today, a china which enjoys his closest relationships with countries like north korea and iran. so at least for now, it would be foolish to be constant and the idea that china can be counted on to defend and support global economic and political freedom or to take up the cause of human rights. by the way the rest of the world has especially their neighbors, figure that out too. and they would prefer not to take that risk. the short answer is that at least not yet anyways, there is no one else to hand off the baton to, even if that were a good idea. on the most difficult transnational challenges of our time, who will lead if we do not? the answer? at least today, no other nation or organization on earth is

willing or able to do so. finally i will be asked, if we still have to lead, can't we at least be equal partners with somebody else? infection we rely on other nations to carry more of the burden? after all, we all know that they resent us telling them what to do, right? in this century more than ever before, america should work with her capable allies in finding solutions to global problems. not because america has gotten weaker, but because the partners have grown stronger. it's worth pointing out by the way that this is not a new idea for us. greater successes have always occurred in partnership with other like-minded nations. america has acted unilaterally in the past and i believe it should continue to do so in the future when necessity requires, but our preferred option since the u.s. became a global leader, has been to work with others to achieve our goal.

so yes, global problems to require international coalition, and on that point this administration is correct. but effective international coalitions do not form themselves. they need to be instigated and led and more often than not, they can only be instigated and led by the united states. i believe that is what this administration sometimes fails to understand. yes, there are more countries able and willing to join efforts to meet the global challenges of our times, but experience has proven that american leadership is almost always in success. you can see this in the actions, or sometimes lack thereof of the world trade organization's are the u.n. security council and when american influence is diminished for example but the one nation, one vote formula of the u.n. general assembly for the u.n. human rights council, ec absurd and often appalling results. multilateral international

organizations can be a forum for forming international coalition but as we have repeatedly seen over the last few years, the more difficult the problem, the likelier it bad actors will spoil meaningful solutions within the current system of international organizations. for example we can't always rely on the u.n. security council to achieve consensus on major threats to international peace and security. as we have seen in north korea, syria, on iran, china and russia simply will not join that consensus. when they do not perceive the problem is a threat to their narrow national interests. instead they exercise their veto or threat of a veto to thwart effective and timely response. the security council remains a very valuable for him, but not an indispensable one. we can't walk away from a problem because some members of the security council refused to act. and those institutions with a veto power of either china or

russia impede the world's ability to do deal with a significant threat. it is the united states i will have to organize and lead coalitions with or without security council resolution. this concept by the way is neither novel nor -- president clinton stated it exactly as when kosovo. with the support of congressional leaders like senator lieberman, everywhere we look we are presented with opportunities for american leadership to help shape a better world in this new century. and we have to view these opportunities through the context of the fact that every region of the world other countries look out for the growing influence of newly emerging powers in their midst and look to the u.s. to counterbalance them. in some instances these emerging strategic realignments are not inevitably destined for conflict. for example of china chooses to conform its rise to the international order, there is much to be hopeful for in the

pacific region. on the other hand, there is no reason for optimism about iranian design of regional dominance. and it's indeed in that region where multilateral cooperation is most urgently needed right away. weather in bringing an end to the bloodshed in the a side tyranny in syria or helping egypt overcome economic hardships and move towards the establishment of a church democracy or addressing the threat posed by a nuclear iran. our america should not try to solve these problems alone but neither will any of these challenges be addressed without strong and creative american leadership. no other nation has the influence, relationships or the reputation for seeking lasting solutions to intractable problems in the united states. iran's nuclear ambitions by the way are more than just weapons. iran wants to become the dominant power in the middle east. but given iran's history of human rights abuses, fomenting sectarian conflict and sponsorship of terrorism of

statecraft, the world must never allow that to happen. fortunately, preventing a dominant iran is a goal we share with virtually every other nation in the region. now certainly we we welcome rusa and china's cooperation in facing this challenge, but the prospect of a nuclear-capable iran is so unacceptable that we must be prepared to act with or without them. we have a host of willing partners in every region of the world who share our concerns and our relying on our leadership to compel iran to abandon it. preferably, we can succeed through coercive means short of military force. we should be open to negotiations with iran but always from there they should not be deemed a success when they only need lead to further negotiation. stronger pressures should not be postponed in the expectation of our forbearance will encourage iran to act in good faith.

nothing in our experience with iran suggests that considers such gestures anything other than a lack of resolve on our part. ultimately however we must remember their ambitions so far have come with a high tolerance for pain. there for even as we work through the united nations and with the international community on sanctions and on negotiations, we should operate on a dual-track. we should also be preparing our allies in the world for the uncomfortable reality that unfortunately, if all else fails, preventing a nuclear iran may tragically they tragically required military solutions. the goal of preventing a dominant iran is so important at every regional policy we adopt should be crafted without overriding goal in mind. the current situation in syria is an example of such an approach. the fall of us thought it would be a significant blow to iran's ambitions. on those grounds alone we should be seeking to help the people of syria bring him down.

but on the foreign relations committee i've noticed some members are so concerned about the challenges of a post hassad syria that they lost sight of the advantage. first iran would lose -- lose its ability to cause trouble and the region would be reduced. but hezbollah would lose its most important ally too along with weapons supplier and the prospects for a more stable, peaceful and free freer lebanon but improved. secondly, the security of our allies, the strongest and most enduring democracy in the region, israel with whom we are bound by the strongest ties and mutual interests and shared lun affection would improve as well. and so would the prospects for peace between israel and its arab neighbors. finally come the nations in the region sees syria as a test of our continued willingness to lead in the middle east. if we prove unwilling to provide

leadership, they will conclude that we are no longer a reliable security partner and they will decide to take matters into their own hands. and that means a regional arms race, the constant threat of arms and crippling fuel prices at home with instability. the most powerful and influential nation in the world cannot ask smaller, more folder but nations to take risks while we stand on the sidelines. we have to lead, because the rewards of an effective solution are so great. forming and leading a coalition with turkey and the arab league nations to assist the opposition by creating a safe haven and equipping the opposition with food, medicine and communication tools and potentially weapons will not only weaken iran, it will ultimately increase our ability to influence the political environment of a post assad area. the spread and success of political and economic freedom in the middle east is in our

vital interests interest and it will certainly present challenges and a new league franchises had elected leaders who sees and purposes oppose and even offend ours. but in the long-term, because governments that rule by the consent of the government must be responsive to the material needs and demands of their people, they are less likely to engage in costly confrontations that harm their economy and deprive their the people of the opportunity to improve their circumstance. the expansion and success of clinical and economic freedom is critical to our interests in every region of the world. and nowhere more so than -- gets no points and set the rise of economic prosperity in the western hemisphere is directly related and directly coincides with the democratic gains of the previous two decades, mexico, peru and colombia are three examples of nations that have weathered global economic downturns in a stronger position than ever.

our goal for our region should be pretty straightforward. our coalition of neighboring democratic nations that trade freely and live peacefully with one another. other than overcoming our own difference in the lack of focus on the school there were two other challenges. the first is as venezuela and the other -- who is over and tie americanism. they make a lot of noise and we can't ignore the anti-democratic muses over there growing closeness to iran that are greater challenge really is a second more subtle one and that is the effort of some nations to replace our influence with their influence and to use protectionism and unfair practices to that and. the anecdote for both of these problems is to reengage energetically in the region. first we must be a clear and consistent advocate for freedom and to be free fresen just limited to elections, it's a way of governing. and as venezuela nicaragua

bolivia and ecuador elected leaders have used their power to undermine fundamental freedoms attacking the press, the ports and political opponents. second, we have to commit to being a reliable partner as her neighbors cope with significant security challenges. both mexico and colombia, they need their continued commitment to win their respective wars against criminal organizations. we must also make it abundantly clear that we will not tolerate iran exporting violent terrorism to our hemisphere. third we must project protection and embrace the ultimate goal of a free trade area of the americas. the recently approved free-trade agreements was a good step. we need to move forward to bring both canada and mexico into the transpacific heart worship and forth, we should move aggressively to form a strong energy partnership with canada, mexico, brazil, colombia and a post chavez venezuela. stable western hemisphere displacing an unstable middle

east and increasingly belligerent russia as the center of the world energy production would create countless jobs for americans and energy security for the world. in asia the question of whether -- the question of whether china's rise will be peaceful and respectful of their neighbors is one of our biggest long-term challenges, but we must make it and it lay clear that we are firmly committed to bar defense agreement and firmly committed to our allies for the freedom of navigation. and the growing strategic importance of asia actually heightens, not diminishes, the importance of europe. the u.s. european cooperation is a valuable complement to our work with her east asia allies. asians, americans come europeans have a common interest in seeing china eve falls in a peaceful and democratic direction. and we have a common interest in seeing china abide by the rules of the international economic