the other north african countries. .. >> it was touched on this morning, is that libya has kind of an anti-islamist thing going on. georgia brill's party did get 39 of the 80 seats, his group, and 18 went to the muslim brothers, and the backlash in benghazi,

basically, every young person i met in libya voted for ya breel. so there's a very different dynamic. combine that with libya's the only arab country where positive views of america are higher than negative views. it's a very, very different, most comparable to iran in terms of views of the united states. so there's a very different dynamic on the ground among libyan youth. notwithstanding what we're seeing in the news. um, and i thought the uprising in benghazi was hugely a success, important to think about when 30,000 people rose up a few weekends ago to throw out islamist militias. the population once again taking control of the situation where a dysfunctional government wasn't able to. and i found the intervention very interesting because in many ways i think the main bogeyman was not the islamist militias, but the fear of what the 30,000 would do if things got much worse. which brings up another thing

that i should have said in the introductory remarks, the arab spring, the dynamic, we view it as people against regimes, but just as important is regimes against regimes and people against people, and i'm happy to talk about those in the q&a, but it's not just people against regimes. following benghazi, a well known libyan academic said something which stuck with me. he said libyans have no idea where they're going, but they're going to get there faster than everyone else. quoting a nasa astronaut. and in a funny way, that's libya right now. there's a lot of consensus about moving forward. there's a kind of civilian activism which is superior to egypt, tunisia, and certainly morocco. and the thing that most concerns me right now and doesn't concern most libyans was the attack on the shrines. i visited four of the spots in the medina where the shrines have been flattened. there have been 40 attacks in tripoli and hundreds across the

country, and most libyans dismiss this as, you know, buildings being attacked, you know, big deal, you know? nobody died. but it's much more significant because the salafis are starting there, and they are unearthing 400-year-old graves and smashing quranic verses and just gutting these places, and in one place the madrassa i visited, he had fled to tunisia because he was fearing for his life, then they attacked a greek orthodox priest, so they're starting to attack christians. the thing that concerned me most was the fact that most libyans didn't care about the attacks on the shrines, and i found that problematic because when you start looking at what's actually going on there, this is the first part of a worse trend, um, that is probably going to lead to some bloodshed. on the positive side, libya has,

responding to some of the things said earlier today, better, more resources than the other countries and a very well educated population, although the libyan education system lacks in many ways as we know. but libya, there are scenarios where libya comes out better than tunisia and egypt because it has those special, special types of resources that could come together to avoid a somalia-like situation. just quickly on tunisia, um, and i apologize to those who have heard me speak on this before, i saw the tunisia arab spring as kind of two, split in two to oversimplify, but there was a rural, male, older, more working class, angrier arab spring based a rot on the -- a hot on the algerian protests roiling since 2005, and there was an urban, both gender, younger, more middle and upper class, more

socially network, more employed, more hopeful, more human rights-oriented arab spring which kind of pushed the revolution over the top. and that secondary wrap spring in tunisia, the jasmine revolution, worked because of that, but the first one hasn't been accomplished, and i think the main source of instability in tunisia is that first arab spring that didn't, that didn't succeed. um, we did a a justice and security report that came out last may, and our main concern was an overwhelmed justice system in disarray, and i agree with everything that was said this morning in terms of transitional justice, but i'm even more concerned about the demoralization of the police force, and that played out in the embassy attack and the recent rape case. there's some very serious problems particularly in libya and tunisia, i'm talking about tunisia now, that need to be addressed. but the most important thing in

all these countries is the economics. as we've been hearing this morning, in my opinion -- notwithstanding the fact that economic success does depend on political success -- through 2011 tunisia was the most diverse, the fastest growing, um, best performing arab economy. so what did we get wrong there? i mean, it hasn't been thought through. a lot of people said the books were cooked in due news ya, they were tooked a little -- cooked a little bit, but that wasn't the main thing that was going on. the three main things in my mind that failed in tunisia was the issue of the university graduates who weren't getting deployed because they tipped the balance in the jasmine revolution, and they're a problem all across the region. it's not just all youth, it's the university graduates who are organized and pressing the state. that's a failure of the distributive state, and the solution in part has to come from a distributive state as we were hearing this morning during

the economic panel. the rural rebellion, though, comes from a failure of free markets to create jobs in rural areas, notwithstanding these mining jobs in morocco and elsewhere. but basically, the free market cannot create rural jobs, and i don't know what the solution is. it's not going to be in agriculture. but we need to sort of realize that this very high unemployment in the rural areas of all these countries, including tunisia, and that needs to be addressed. and then as said morning, i completely agree that corruption was the most important thing. i won't belabor the point, but just to point out a factoid for you that ben ali had their hands in 180 of 200, the top 200 tunisian firms. our main concern going forward is that there's a transfer of ownership or control of these monopolistic business interests to even more insaw lube rouse

characters or even more questionable characters, and that's going to have to be addressed going forward. so i'd say the number one ways to address these instabilities are economics first, security second, justice third. not going to dwell on algeria except to quickly point out, as i said before, that the, um, language of protests among youth is largely made in algeria, and it's part of this whole sort of roiling youth rebellion that's been going on for 20 years, and until algeria doesn't, stops having those sorts of spillover effects to the region, we're not going to get progress in the region either. um, i have very little time left. just quickly on morocco, the february 20th movement which we didn't talk about much this morning reached its effigy last fringe -- the previous spring, 2011, 70 cities and towns. they're not completely gone. they've been written off by the

international media, but 70over their activists and leaders are currently in some form of detention. they have regular protests in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands. the bigger protests now in morocco are in the labor movement. there was a recent industrial dispute, and where this is at in the last few days, stuff on youtube, you can see online. but my main conrn about ma morocco is it becomes more likal jeer ya in terms of this constant, hyperlocallized instability. you see it in all these towns in morocco. every week there seems to be another town exploding, and these are social -- local, social and economic issues that aren't being addressed and, um, and this sort of feeds into this highly-alienated youth. i'm not going to -- i met with -- [inaudible] for two and a half hours a week or two, and the pgd's well aware of these issues and trying to address it in various ways, but i don't think they've gotten into the nitty-gritty of how i

to reform the private sector. they're talking about subsidies, jobs for them. so there's a lot more that could be done in that area. but let me point out something very important, i think, that came up this morning. the pjd won landslide electoral victories with very few votes. pjd got 1.2 million votes in a country of 33 million people and won in a landslide. in many districts in morocco, spoilage of ballots was the second winner after pjd. so it was pjd, spoilage, and then another party. so you still have a highly-alienated and disconnected young people for the most part who are willing to register to vote, go to vote and then do something unorthodox to their ballots which reveals what i'm mostly focused on here which is sort of youth disconnect. although i entirely agree with what mr. terrab said about the importance of seeing youth as an

opportunity and not just as a negative thing. um, finally, in a revolutionary moment the most important thing is entrepreneurship and innovation, but not just in the narrow sme economic sense, although that's really important, but it needs to be in every single sector of life. and i gave a speech in tunisia a year ago at a conference, and we were talking about reforms in the education system, and i remember saying we have to shake up the universities from the ministry of education university administrators applauded. and then i said we have to shake up, release professors from the control of the university administrations and let them innovate, and all the professors were happy. and then i said we've got to release the best students from the control of the professors and let them innovate. and there's some interesting examples of universities across the region now, university of cairo being one, a lot of

incubators, there are huge possibilities. okay, opportunity. there's a massive amount of highly-educated youth who want to solve problems. it's not necessarily about these macroeconomic thing, although those are hugely important, it's about putting youth to work, probably worked around university campuses to solving the whole range of social and economic issues. can be done. it's not that expensive to do, and it involves kind of throwing out the old ideas about how institutions need to be organized to address social problems and kind of read the zoning from the ground up. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bill. that was very concise for you. thank you. thank you for staying within your half hour. [laughter] no, that was great, thank you. i heard sort of a couple of themes when we talked about morocco and algeria today, that demands are for, not for

revolutionary change, but for incremental reform and incremental change. and i'm wondering how governments today, old governments or existing governments, new governments are managing popular expectations of people that things can change quickly enough or in a substantive way, fast enough. and so i guess the question that i'll ask the panel, and i'd request that you answer them, answer the question very briefly, is what will it take to trigger or reignite more widespread protests in a place like algeria or morocco or even tunisia now? what kind of, what kind of triggers could ignite more demands for quicker change. would you like to start. >> regarding algeria, my quick response is what the new government is trying, that is to do away with the informal sector

which employs thousands and thousands of people. and there are, the objective is to have it eradicated by an next ramadan, in other words, by july next year. that could trigger, i think, if there is no substitute for that, then we are up for big, big, big trouble in algeria. and, again, for tunisia it's probably the same problem. not regarding the informal sector, but the economy in general if it continues like this. i think we are also up for trouble, and it applies to the other two countries as well. >> i'm going to jump out of order, and if geoff wants to speak, he's going to have to wait until i finish. >> go on too long again. i totally agree with what you just said. the major source of employment and place where people work is not the private sector which needs to perform better, it's not the -- traditional private sector, it's not the public

sector which needs to perform better, it's first smes and first and formal sector jobs. until these governments stop seeing the formal sector as the enemy and start actually turning the informal sector into a source of tax revenue for macroeconomic stability, but more importantly job, sustainable jobs, you're going to have terrible, um, a terrible economic situation in all these countries. and in tunisia we're seeing the exact down, we're seeing clampdowns on the informal sector as opposed to turning it into an engine for growth. i think the one-word answer to haim's question is outrage. you talk to young people, i spent a lot of time doing that, it's all about humiliation, you know, it's -- and people get outraged enough about whatever the thing is, removal of subsidies was mentioned this morning, that's what gets people out. um, you do have these checks in morocco and algeria which don't

exist to the same degree in libya and tunisia in terms of restraint both by the population that doesn't want revolutionary change and by the police which doesn't want to provoke revolutionary change. the police forces have gotten a lot better in morocco and algeria, although in morocco they've been using a little bit of a heavier hand, i think, in a bad way. but whatever black swan outrages the population collectively enough is what causes these moments of turbulence and turmoil. >> yeah, i agree with, with dr. sue bier and -- zoubir and dr. lawrence, but i think it is important when we talk about potential drivers for change or catalysts for change or -- we have to assign it a sort of likelihood or probability to

them. you know, otherwise, you know, we could envision all sorts of implausible scenarios that could bring about dramatic change. you know, so in -- while i agree with, yahia and bill about the possibility of a crackdown on the informal sector or in the algeria or, you know, the possibility of some large scale corruption case, um, indicting the -- [inaudible] in morocco, serving as a catalyst for widespread protest and demand for political change, you know, i think these are relatively low likelihood scenarios. i mean, i think, you know, we've talked about quite a bit this morning that the algerians, as dr. roberts said, are the master planners. they tend to anticipate these things. they've built a system which is, practice, better than they'd even intended. morocco, likewise, as was mentioned this morning, it's also built a malleable system

which is designed in such a way as to mitigate against the likelihood of these, you know, catalytic moments occurring. >> i'll open the floor up to questions. yes, i have one over here. >> hi. i'm isabelle, i'm a research intern with the middle east institute -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah, it's on. if one of the greatest challenges in moving through these transitions towards stable states is curbing, um, curbing military power and centralizing the legitimate use of force, i was wondering if any of you foresee feasible scenarios in which stability is achieved without a centralized, um, military force or power. and if so, what sort of implications that might have for regional security. >> well, the tunisian military

performed amazingly in the jasmine spring by not the civilian-led military, you know, by not playing the role the ben ali regime wanted them to play. so i don't really see military in tunisia as a major issue. the military -- on libya, there was no ministry of defense under gadhafi, under the ntc, and we don't even have a minister of defense right now in the newly-reformed, so curbing military power in the narrow sense of an early, since you mentionedded armies, isn't the main issue in tunisia either -- excuse me, in libya. and i actually think, you know, probably 95% of the 250,000 or so libyans walking around with weapons are trying to keep the peace, not make mischief which is why these conflagrations on the two reports kind of blow up. as i said, they're nasty, brutish and short. you know, they kind of blow up, and the two groups go after each other, another group comes in,

puts out the fire, and everything settles quickly because most libyans want to keep things stable in the absence of a military, in the absence of a police force, in the absence of any kind of infrastructure or institutional forces. now, in terms of algeria and morocco, again, you know, i don't see the military. about all we've said over the years is criticism of the militaries and their role in politics and all that. we've been hearing this morning. the military aspect of what they're doing is not the main destabilizing force here. i mean, i think the action is, you know, in the nexus between, you know, the pouvoir, the islamists, the youth elements of all the varieties we were talking about and the, um, security forces and in defense of the regime. that's where the action is, but not in the military. but, i don't i don't know if ya- >> i thought the worst case scenario for the algerian military is the situation of instability in northern mali. and, again, you know, what's

going on in the eastern front with libya. and i know that some troops had to be redeployed in the eastern front because of the, um, the traffic of armaments, drugs and can other issues. this is the worst case, so -- >> um, i just want to take the opportunity to answer a question that hasn't been asked. [laughter] but this is something i was thinking about, you know, it's slightly related to your question. but, you know, it's something that dr. roberts mentioned this morning. he talked about, you know, the possibility for a triple transition in algeria where the chief of staff are all indices posed or die -- indices posed or die either together or in short

succession. and one of the things i think is important to understand is that, you know, one has largely civilized the pill tear, it's pushed it out of the palace. now, that does leave the sm or the dos, but, you know, this debate about what's going to happen after -- [inaudible] , i mean, it's so secret that he's old. it's no secret that -- [inaudible] is old. it's no secret that -- is old. everybody knows it, and everybody's had these discussions about how is the transition going to work. i suspect while there is the potential for instability surrounding a triple transition, at the same time, you know, i think it would be misguided to think that the individual actors within these groups haven't been putting in place their own plans for a transition. you know, i don't think anybody in the algerian leadership wants to see instability, and what you do see is whether it's amongst

the oligarchs, you do see compromise. and my more optimistic view is that the military has walked back from the halls of the presidential palace, and even if we do have in this scary triple succession scenario, it's not going to lead to profound instability. >> thank you. working? [inaudible] potomac institute. i would ask the panel for your assessment as to the refugees as the security sector. for example, the camps -- >> sorry, missed that one word. what as a security factor? refugees? >> can you hear me? in algeria. and beyond. as we know from the historical

record that, um, refugee camps, they constitute a source for recruitment and instability throughout the world. so specifically in regard to the maghreb how do you see the situation now? is it the same continue knewty -- continuity that we're going to see situation regarding the solution? of the refugees in the area? >> um, i'm going to also say something else i didn't say as geoff did and then answer the question. um, three other stressors when we're talking about instability in the region in addition to refugees are -- it was mentioned this morning, but just to flesh it out a little further -- are the euro crisis, energy prices and the food crisis.

the euro crisis has affected tourism receipts, they're down 40 some odd percent, and it's quite profound. the economic impact of the euro crisis, the countries are surviving -- well, algeria and libya are surviving on oil recements, morocco and tunisia are surviving due to the movements of their government that were smart in support of the international financial institutions they're getting which has to remain, or you could have serious problems there. energy prices are high, and that's a major destabilizer. i think the moroccan budget is calculated on $100 a barrel, and even at 114 that's, i think, a couple hundred million drums per year of budgetary -- so we have algeria and libya benefiting from the high hoyle prices -- oil prices, you have tunisia and morocco very seriously impacted. and i'm the last person to say there are food riots, there are

almost never food riots. january 2011 was called a food riot in algeria, and it budget. but with the huge world crisis in food hitting us now with russia and american and other -- we're talking about the potential of food riots in this part of the world in the coming future. now, refugees -- mali's thrown off about 200,000 in all depressions, the largest group in mauritania. we didn't talk about mauer -yard mauritania, butnd have a -- it could have a significant destabilizing impact on mauritania. right around mali you've got big refugees, and i would mix with that the constant flow of migrants from africa north and all the trafficking that goes with it. i mean, the numbers in morocco in just the numbers of people coming through seeking refugee status, seeking to get to europe, and they're hiding in the forests, and they're sent back to the algerian border. i mean, country by country, region by region you've got

flows of population as significant and as destabilizing as the refugee flows. so we've got really significant problems, and all of the sort of -- this is the bad side. i usually talk about inform -- in this case all this black economy is mixed in with these people flows, and the results can be quite nefarious. but let me just conclude by saying one thing. we do in washington with our kind of 9/11 prism tend to, i think, overemphasize counterterrorism at the expense of other things. and the u.s.' counterterrorism policies in north africa are highly unpopular. so we need to get better and smarter about how we do counterterrorism, and i think a big piece of it is economic. counterterrorism, i don't know how much it's shifted because they were really smart about it early on, but then the resources put sort of more on the military side even though it tried to be more socioeconomic early on.

i think the we need a much more holistic approach to counterterrorism. >> thank you, dr. alexander, for your question. i think that one of the reasons for this situation in northern mali is precisely the issue of refugees. i happen to have recorded some of the what happened, i mean, as a spawn of libya, of what happened already since the return of the, of the tuaregs who were serving in thegy gaze under gadhafi. in may 284,000 fled northern mali. about 60,000 went to -- [inaudible] 61,000 went to mauritania. you were talking about the neighborhood, what's going on. algeria, i think, has 15,000 or 20,000. so if the situation if there is an intervention, you know, as the french are willing, you know, to go for -- they have their own reasons, i don't need

to get into it. so it could aggravate the situation. now, if you're referring to the refugees in the sahar ri camps, that's also another big problem which has been lingering for 35 years now, and for those who are promoting democratization and so on and so forth and stability, you still have and this morning when i was talking about the relations and so on and so forth, you still have those problems that have not been resolved. and as long as you don't resolve those problems, there is no move forward. i mean, we're still at a stalemate. relations between algeria and morocco will still be tense, and i don't know whether behind your question there was some insinuation that things, i mean, that refugees of one part or another may join terrorist groups or something of that nature. of course, this is, you know, this is a possibility, you know,

with the northern malians and so on. according to all the security people that i've talked to, if you look at the groups, you know, they're composed of people coming from all parts. you know, they come from other groups. so, but the big issue this my view when we decide to intervene somewhere and so on is that, you know, the consequences of it especially today if you look -- it's not just the refugees. you have a very, very serious drought issue that is coming up. there is a huge food security issue that also needs to be taken into account if we want to avoid a disaster in the entire region. >> thank you. we have about three minutes left, and i see a lot of hands up. right here in the front, dr. ottoway? i'm sorry? i think we'll take one more and wrap it up, thanks. >> it's on the same issue. dave ottoway from the woodrow wilson center.

what -- everybody's talking about you're going to have intervention in northern mali. what is the attitude of algeria and the other maghreb countries about being part of a force or supporting it? i mean, can they stay on the sidelines while there's a military intervention backed by france or whoever? i mean, what impact is going into northern mali, to have a military resolution of the situation there, going to have on the maghreb countries? >> i think algeria's position on the situation in northern mali was to have a sort of comprehensive approach. as you know, they have set up a committee of the major chiefs of staff of the four countries, what they call the core countries, you know, to try to address that. they even came up with an intelligence unit, you know, for those countries.

i think that the strategy for the algerians if i understand it correctly was to try to separate what are legitimate issues, local issues -- especially the tuareg question -- which algeria had been the mediator several time. it's not born today, the first rebellion was in 1963. and then in the early 1990s it was the algerians who mediated between the tuaregs. you know, basically the tuaregs live under dire conditions, and in algiers the malian government was to address the socioeconomic problems. algeria has been saying that in order to deal with the security issue in northern mali, you have to address the economic problems, the legitimate. so what algeria's policy, you

know, what the algerians are trying to do is to separate, for instance, the mmla and even over the head of -- [inaudible] as you know, he was the malian counsel in saudi arabia, in riyadh. so the the algerians are saying let's separate these two who have the legitimate issues, legitimate concerns because att, the previous president of mali, and surprisingly why was he overthrown three months before the elections? he was going the leave anyway. so, you know, there are suspicions that the french were behind it. so, but the algerians try to separate the two issues; tuaregs who have legitimate claims and, you know, the government had not lived up to it part of the deal, and, you know, achim in french, you know, the al-qaeda in the

islamic maghreb and this muja who purportedly is for west africa, jihad in west africa, but it attacks only algerians. and it even went to camps and kidnapped, you know, foreign workers. so the algerians are saying, wait a second. they suspect, of course, there are france behind it, and a precipitous intervention is not going to resolve anything, you know? and don't forget, algeria has an important population, tuareg population as well. so that's why they are against and initially i think algerians thought the united states was on the same wave. but from "the washington post" this morning i have some doubts about that. >> thank you. geoff, you get the last minute. half minute. >> with okay. i'll try to answer your question in a simpler fashion. um, you know, i think it's important to remember that algeria has three hostages in northern mali, members of the

diplomatic services. four. and, you know, we've all seen the tremendous political consequences of putting your ambassadors in harm's way here in the u.s., right? and i think algeria is extremely concerned about the fate of its diplomatic corps members in northern mali. it's also important to remember that algeria already lost two members of its foreign service in 2005 in iraq following the u.s. invasion there. so algeria is very wary of the unintended consequences of military action and is very mindful of the lives of its foreign service members just as any country is. thank you. >> thank you. this has been a very rich look at the domestic politics in each of the maghreb countries and looking at stability internally, but also across the region. and i've certainly learned a lot. i hope you've all learned a lot. this is concluding the first part of our conference today,

but before we go on to thank our speakers, i just want to make a couple of announcements. one is, lunch is going to be served, a buffet lunch, served in the back of the room. we have a little bit less than one hour to eat lunch. everybody has to finish and be in this room at 1:45 because the secretary of state, hillary clinton, will be coming shortly after that. so i hope everyone is hungry and, please, join me in thanking all our speakers. thank you. prison. [applause] >> tonight on "the communicators," a look at the technology agenda of the obama and romney presidential campaigns. we talk with john kneuer who supports mr. romney's tech agenda and ed paisley who supports president obama's. but neither is an official campaign spokesman. "the communicators" tonight at 8 eastern here on c-span2. and our campaign coverage continues live at 7 eastern on c-span with the indiana u.s. senate debate. republican state treasurer richard murdoch goes against

democratic candidate congressman joe donnelly. the cook political report rates this race a toss-up. >> this isn't about governor bush, it's not about me. it is about you. and i want to come back to something i said before. if you want somebody who believes that we were better off eight years ago than we are now and that we ought to go back to the kind of policies we had back then, emphasizing tax cuts mainly for the wealthy, here is your man. if you want somebody who will fight for you and who will fight to have middle class tax cuts, then i am your man. i want to be. now, i doubt anybody here makes more than $330,000 a year. i won't ask you, but if you do, you're in the top 1%. >> it would be a violation of the rules. >> i'm not -- [laughter] i'm not going to ask them. but if everyone here in this audience was dead on in the

middle of the middle class, then the tax cuts for every single one of you all added up would be less than the tax cut his plan would give to just one member of that top wealthiest 1%. now, you judge for yourselves whether or not that's fair. >> quick, and then we're moving on. >> good. 50 million americans get no tax relief under his plan. >> that's not right. >> you may not be one of them, you're just not one of the right people. and secondly, we've had enough fighting. it's time to unite. in eight years, they haven't gotten anything done on medicare, on social security, a patient's bill of rights. >> all right -- >> time to get something done. >> presidential town hall debates began in 1992 with then-president george bush, governor bill clinton and businessman ross perot. and every election since presidential hopefuls have taken questions from undecided voters in the same town hall style. tuesday night watch president obama and mitt romney in their town hall debate. c-span's live coverage starts at 7 eastern.

>> take a look at c-span's debate hub. here's video of the vice presidential debate as the presidential debate from earlier this month. or see individual clips of each question. and tuesday on this web site you can see live, behind-the-scenes coverage including the spin room. watch and engage with live tweets from political reporters and other viewers. and add your own. c-span.org/debates. >> secretary of state hillary clinton was the keynote speaker recently at a conference on politics, economics and security in north africa. the center for strategic and international studies looked at the situation in northern africa covering libya, egypt and tunisia. the secretary of state said the state department can't prevent every act of violence directed at overseas diplomats. her comments are about 40 minutes. >> none of them are very hard. the first job is i want to welcome my friends, the ambassadors of morocco and algeria, the ambassador of the

arab league. we're honored that you came to join us today. second, i want to ask that after our keynote address is done that you all remain in your seats to help get the party out of the room. and my third task is to introduce somebody who probably needs less of an introduction than almost anybody in washington. general brent scowcroft, a legend in washington, he's a retired lieutenant general in the air force, national security adviser to president gerald ford and george h.w. bush, a graduate of west point, a holder of a ph.d. from columbia. i think for all of us who have worked with him, he's a model of judgment and probity here in washington. he's a counselor and trustee of csis, and it's my pleasure to introduce general brent scowcroft who will introduce our keynote speaker. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon.

it's a real pleasure for me to be able to stand here for john hamre and introduce our speaker today. it's a testament to the importance of north africa to global security that the secretary of state has taken time to address this conference on the maghreb in transition. the forces that are surging through the arab world right now had many of their origins in the maghreb, and some to of the most promising opportunities for positive change in the region also have their origins in the maghreb. we've also seen tragedy in the maghreb, but we cannot forget that we also have seen tremendous hope, and it is that hope which motivates us today. secretary clinton is no stranger to this topic, and she has been

putting energy into strengthening both the u.s. bilateral relationships with the maghreb companies -- countries and the ties between those countries themselves since she came into office four years ago. her term as secretary of state follows a distinguished career in public service as a lawyer in arkansas, as a first lady of the united states and, more recently, as the united states senator from the state of new york. she not only has the highest approval rating of any member of the u.s. cabinet, she has as well topped the gallup poll for 16 years as the most admired woman in the world, besting the previous record of eleanor roosevelt who held the title for only 13 years. [laughter] as america continues to engage in north africa, we are extremely fortunate to be served by a public servant who is

engaged in these challenges day in and day out, who cares deeply about the issues and how they affect america's interests and who believes in an even brighter future for the people of the middle east. please join me in welcoming the secretary of state, the honorable hillary rodham clinton. [applause] >> thank you. thank you all. thank you very much, and a special word of thanks to a friend and someone whom i admire greatly, general scowcroft. his many be years of distinguished -- his many years of distinguished service to our country is a great tribute in every respect. thanks, also, to jon alterman

and csis for hosting this conference on the maghreb in transition, seeking stability in an era of uncertainty. i also wish to acknowledge dr. terrab for his strong support of this important conference and members of the diplomatic corps as well. now, why are we here, and why is this conference so timely? well, to start with what happens in this dynamic region has far-reaching consequences for our own security and prosperity. and we know very well that it is most important to the people of this region whose aspirations and ambitions deserve to be met. but recent events have raised questions about what lies ahead, what lies ahead for the region,

what lies ahead for the rest of us who have watched with great hope as general scowcroft said, the events that have unfolded in the maghreb. a terrorist attack in benghazi, the burning of an american school in tunis, these and other scenes of anger and violence have understandably led americans to ask what is happening, what is happening to the promise of the arab spring? and what does this mean for the be united states? -- for the united states? well, i certainly think it's important to ask these questions and to seek answers as you are doing today. and let me on a personal note start with what happened in benghazi. to one wants to find out exactly -- no one wants to find out exactly wt happened more than i do. i've appointed an accountability review board that has already

started examining whether our security procedures were appropriate, whether they were problemmerly implemented -- properly implemented and what lessons we can and must learn for the future. and we are working as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible knowing that we cannot afford to sacrifice accuracy to speed. and, of course, our government is sparing no effort in many tracking down the terrorists -- in tracking down the terrorists who perpetrated this attack. and we are focused, as we must, on what more needs to be done right now to protect our people and our facilities. we had another terrible attack yesterday. i strongly condemn the killing of a longtime yemeni employee at our embassy in sana'a, and we are working with authorities to investigate this attack and to

bring those responsible to justice as well. but throughout all of this we must not only focus on the headlines, we have to keep in mind the trend lines. we have to remain focused on the broader strategic questions posed by these democratic transitions and their impact on american interests and values. let me start by stating the obvious. nobody should have ever thought this would be an easy road. i certainly didn't. however, it is important to look at the full picture, to weigh the violent acts of a small number of extremists against the aspirations and actions of the region's people and governments. that broader view supports rather than discredits the

promise of the arab revolutions. it reaffirms that instead of letting mobs and extremists speak for entire countries. we should listen to what the elected governments and free citizens are saying. they want more freedom, more justice, more opportunity, not more violence. and they want better relations not only with the united states, but with the world. not worse. i have no illusions about how complicated this is. after all, american foreign policy has long been shaped by debates over how to balance our interests in security and stability with our values in supporting freedom and democracy. recent revolutions have intensified these debates by creating a new birth of freedom, but also by unseating old

partners and unleashing unpredictable new forces. as i said last fall at the national democratic institute, we have to be honest that america's policies in the region will always reflect the full range of our interests and values, promoting democracy and human rights and defeating al-qaeda. defending our allies and partners and also insuring a secure supply of energy. and there will be times when not all of our interests and values align. we work to align them, but we do so acknowledging reality. and it's true that we tailor our tactics for promoting democratic change to the conditions on the ground in each country. after all, it would be foolish to take a one size fits all

approach regardless of circumstances or historical trends. but in the long run the enduring cooperation we seek and that our interests and our values demand is difficult to sustain without democratic legitimacy and public consent. weeks before the revolution in this egypt began -- in egypt began i told arab leaders gathered in doha that the region's foundations were sinking into the sand. it was clear even then that the status quo was unsustainable, that refusal to change was itself becoming a threat to stability. so for the united states, supporting democratic transitions is not a matter of idealism; it is a strategic necessity. and we will not return to the

false choice between freedom and stability. and we will not pull back our support for emerging democracies when the going gets rough. that would be a costly strategic mistake that would, i believe, undermine both our interests and our values. now, we recognize that these transitions are not america's to manage and, certainly, not ours to win or lose. but we have to stand with those who are working every day to strengthen democratic institutions, defend universal rights and drive inclusive economic growth. that will produce more capable partners and more durable security over the long term. today these transitions are

entering a phase that must be marked more by compromise than by confrontation, by politics more than protests. politics that deliver economic reforms and jobs so that people can pursue their livelihoods and provide for their families, politics that will be competitive and even heated but rooted in democratic rules and norms that apply to everyone; islamists and secularists, muslims and christians, conservatives and liberals, parties and candidates of every stripe. everyone must reject violence, terrorism and extremism, abide by the rule of law, support independent judiciaries and uphold fundamental freedoms. upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens regardless of

faith, ethnicity or gender should be expected. and then, of course, we look to governments to let go of power when their time comes. just as the revolutionary lib grab transitional -- libyan transitional national council did this past august, transferring authority to the newly-elected legislature. in a ceremony that ambassador chris stevens cited as the highlight of his time in the country. achieving genuine democracy and broad-based growth will be a long and difficult process. we know that from our own history. more than 235 years after our own revolution, we are still working toward that more perfect union. so one should expect setbacks along the way, times when some

will surely ask if it was all worth it. but going back to the way things were in december 2010 isn't just undesirable, it is impossible. so this is the context in which we have to view recent events and shape our approach going forward. and let me explain where that leads us. now, since this is a conference on the maghreb, that's where i'll focus. because, after all, that's where the arab revolution started and where an international coalition helped stop a dictator from slaughtering his people and where just last month we saw such disturbing violence. but let's look at what's actually happening on the ground. especially in light of recent events. we have to, as always, be

clear-eyed about the threat of violent extremism. a year of democratic transition was never going to drain away reservoirs of radicalism built up through decades of dictatorship, nor was that enough time to stand up fully effective and responsible security forces to replace the repressive ones of the past. as we've warned from the beginning, there are extremists who seek to exploit periods of instability and hijack these democratic transitions. all the while al-qaeda in the islamic maghreb and other terrorist groups are trying to expand their reach from a new stronghold in northern mali. but that is not the full story, far from it. the terrorists who attacked our mission in benghazi did not represent the million of libyan people who want peace and deplore violence.

and in the days that followed, tens of thousands of libyans poured into the streets to mourn ambassador stevens who had been a steadfast champion of their revolution. you saw the signs, one read: thugs and killers don't represent benghazi or islam. and on their own initiative, the people of benghazi overran extremist bases and insisted that militias disarm and accept the rule of law. that was as inspiring a sight as any we saw in the revolutions. and it points to the undimmed promise of the arab spring by starting down the path of democratic politics. libyans and arabs across the region have firmly rejected the extremist argument that violence and death are the only way to

reclaim dignity and achieve justice. in tripoli the country's transitional leaders condemned the attack. they fired the top security officials responsible for benghazi. then the government issued an ultimatum to militias across the country: disarm and disband in 48 hours or face the consequences. as many as ten major armed groups complied. now, militias and extremists remain a significant problem in libya, but there is an effort to address it that has now taken hold throughout the country. as libya grapples with the challenges of forming a government, the international commitment needs to sport -- the international community needs to support its efforts to bring these militias to heel and provide security for all its

citizens. consider tunisia, the birthplace of the arab revolutions. last year an islamist party won a plurality of the votes in an open, competitive election. i know some in washington took this as an omen of doom, but these new leaders formed a coalition with secular parties and promised to uphold universal rights and freedoms including for women. and the united states made it clear that we would be watching closely and would assess the new government by its actions, not its words. this past february in tunis students and civil society activists shared with me their fears about extremists seeking to derail their transition to lasting democracy. but also their hopes that responsible leaders and accountable institutions would be strong enough and willing

enough to turn back that challenge. and, indeed, we have seen an intense debate play out in tunisia and society -- tunisian society. for example, early drafts of the new constitution labeled women as complimentary to men, but tunisia's active civil society raised strong objections and, eventually, the national constituent assembly amended the text to recognize women's equality. civil society is wise to remain vigilant and to exercise their hard-earned rights to safeguard their new democracy. like the hundreds of tunisian women who recently took to the streets to protest on behalf of a woman charged with indecency after she was raped by police offers. officers. these competing visions of tunisia's future were put to the

test. when violent extremists attacked the u.s. embassy in tunis and burned the american school nearby. how did the tunisian people and government respond? first, the government increased security around our embassy and promised to assist with repairs to the school, which they have done. then they publicly committed to confront violent groups and preventoux news ya from becoming -- prevent b tunisia from coming a safe haven for international terrorism. following through on these pledges is essential. those responsible for the attacks must be brought to justice. ..

and publicly condemn the violence. and so we continue to support those changes that are occurring in libya and in tunisia and those leaders and citizens who understand what is expected of them, if they are to fulfill their own hopes. now the situation in the rest of the -- is different. morocco and eel jeer are a -- have tested their values and resolve. rays year when citizens of morocco called for change, more rock can society under came

mohammad the vi answered with major constitutional reforms followed by early election and expanded authority for element. and islamist party leads the new ruling coalition along with a variety of other parties. after thirteen years in the opposition. we have been encouraged that the leaders have engaged all more cook -- more rock cans -- and we continue to urge them to follow through on all of the commitment for political and economic reform. last month with antiamerican protesters in the streets across the cities of morocco, the foreign minister traveled to washington for our first ever strategic dialogue. it could have avoided the cameras, instead he strongly condemned the attack on bonn

benghazi and pledged his continue would continue working toward democracy and the rule of law. al jeer are a has much to gain by embracing the changes that are taking place around it. we have seen some progress. to protect diplomatic missions including the u.s. embassy and diffuse tension in the street. but still algeria has a lot of work to do to uphold universal rights and create space for civil society. amessage i delivered at the highest level in person in february. what do the snapshots and stories from across the region foal us? on the one hand, last month violence revealed strains of

extremism that threaten the nation wells the broader region and even the united states. on the other hand, we have seen actions that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago. democratically elected leaders and free people in arab countries standing up for a peaceful plurrist future. it is way too soon to say how these transitions will play out. but what's not in doubt is that america has a big stake in the outcome. last month the united nations general assembly in new york, i met with leaders from across the region. and i told each of them that the united states will continue to pursue a strait gyre to sport -- strategy to support emerging democracy as they -- to spur economic growth and bolster

democratic institution. we have made those three priorities. the hall mark of america's involvement in the region. we convened donor conferences to coordinate assistance, leverage new partnership through the g8. the community of democracy, the oecd. we stepped up the engagement with the arab league signing the first memorandum with the strategic dialogue between us. we recognize that words whether they come from us or others are cheap. we talk about investing in responsible leader and accountable democratic constitution it has to be involve by actual investment. we have mobilized more than $1 billion in targeted assistance since the start of the revolution. and the obama administration has requested from congress a new $7 70 million fund that would be tied to concrete benchmarks for

political and economic reforms. and i again, urge congress to move forward on this priority. but let me briefly just address the three parts of our strategy starting with security. the recent rites underscore the challenges of safe guarding public safety and free societies and reforming security forces. for decades, those forces presented regimes -- protected regime. now they're job is to protect citizens especially again the threat from violent extremist. for some time, al qaeda and the islamist and other terrorist groups have launch attacks and kidnaps from northern mally in to neighboring countries. they're seeking to extend the reach and the networks in multiple directions. we are using every stool we can

to help our partners fight extremism and meet the security challenges. we recently embedded additional foreign service officers with regional expertise in to the u.s. africa command to better integrate our approach across the region diplomatics, development expert and military personnel are working hand in hand. across the region also we're partnering with the security officials of these new governments who are moving away from the repressive approaches that helped fuel radicalization in the past. and we're trying to help them develop strategies grounded in the rule of law and human rights. we're helping border guards upgrade their equipment and tighten their patrols so weapons don't flood the region even more than they already have. we're helping train prosecutor and build forensic labs that can

produce evidence that stands up in courts. and last month just days after the rites, we launched a new partnership with tee tunisia we were pleased that tunisia agreed to host a international training center that will help officials from across the region develop means to protect their citizens, security, and their lib tip. now the nations are not the first to struggle with the challenge of protecting a new democracy. and one of the lessons we have learned around the world is that training, funding, and equipment will only go so far. it takes political will to make the hard choices and demand the accountable that is necessary for strong institution and lasting security. and it takes changes in mind set to make those reforms stick. in all of my conversation with high ranking officials in these

countries, i recognize that particularly in tunisia and libya, the people i'm talking to were often victims of security forces. imprisoned, seeking exile, beaten, some cases tortured for them all of sudden to find themselves on the side of security forces even ones that are of the new regime takes a mental change, and they have admitted that it is a responsibility that they now understand they must assume. the united states is also stepping up our counterterrorism efforts. helping the country's of north africa target the support structure of the extremist group. particularly al qaeda and the affiliates, closing safe havens, cutting off finance, countern't their ideology, denying them recruits. our transsahara counter

terrorism partnership is building the catch of ten countries providing training and support so they can better work together disrupt terrorist networking and prevent attack. we are expanding our work with civil society organization in specific terrorist hot spots particular villages, prisons, and schools. now the economic and social challenges fueled the revolution. and the calls for reform. and in order to succeed, these emerging democratic governments need to show they can deliver concrete results. so that the second area we're focused on. working with small small and medium sized enterprises that create jobs and alternatives to radicalism. bringing women and young people in to the formal economy. providable capital and training for entrepreneurs. helping emerging democracies

update their investment laws, trade policy so the private sectors can actually flour rich. we're establishing a tunisia-american gunned a captainlation of $20 million to stimulate investment in the private sector and provide businesses with needed capital. the overseas. private investment corporation opec offering $50 million in loans and govern teen and the -- is helping address long-term con straints to economic growth. we have provided export training for small business owners and job training to hundreds of young too knee shans i'm particularly proud of the new $10 million scholarship fund which we launched in august to help too tunisia students study in america. we -- once t formed. one of our top priority is

helping nations trade more with each other. that after all will create new jobs for their citizens, and markets for their products. but today north africa is one of the least integrated regions in the world. it doesn't have to be that way. and opening the border between algeria and morocco would be an important step in moving toward that integration. the third key area in the strategy is strengthening democratic constitution and political reforms. not a easy process. as we can see from the difficulty in forming a government in libya. the political progress has to grow from the inside not from imposed outside or the abroad. there are ways question and are helping. in libya the united states has trained hounders of lawyers and civil society activists on election laws and offered tutor yule to campaign manager and

campaign in the runup to the recent election. -- in drafting a new constitution that will protect the equal rights of all libyan citizens. similar efforts are underway across the tailored to local needs and conditions. and none of this is happening in a vac vacuum. the transition is occurring are linked as you well know with developments across the wider middle east. egypt, of course, the largest arab nation, corner stone of the region, we have seen the new elected leadership say that the success of egypt's democratic transition depends on building consensus and speak together needs and concerns of all egyptians, men and women of all faith and communities. now we stand with the egyptian people in their quest fur universal freedom and protection. and we have made the point that egypt's international standing

depends both on peaceful relations with the neighbors, and also on the choice it is makes at home and whether or not it fulfills its own promises to the own people. in syria, assad regime continues to wage brutal war against its own people even as territory slips from the grasp. i recently announced major new contribution of humanitarian aid and assistance for the civilian open opposition and we remain commitmented with the like-minded partners to increase pressure on the regime. and in yemen, where we supported negotiations that eventually a chiefed a peaceful transition, we are working to prevent al qaeda and other extremist from threatening these emerging fragile, democratic institutions and prevent them also from finding a safe haven from for

which to stage new attacks. when i met with the king of jordan last month, we discussed the importance of continuing reforms to move his country toward more democracy and prosperity. so in all of these placings, and many others, the united states is helping the people of those nations chart their own destinies and realize the full measure of their own human dignity. dignity is a word that means many things to different people in cultures. but it does speak to something universal in all of us, as one egyptian observed in the wake of the country's revolution, freedom and dignity are more important than food and water when you eat in humiliation, you can't taste the food. but dignity does not come from avenging perceived insult

especially with violence that can never be justified. it comes from taking responsibility for one's self and community. if you look around the world today, those countries focus on fostering growth ran grievance are pulling ahead. building schools instead of burning them, investment in the peoples' creativity not encouraging their rage. empowering women not excluding them. opening their economies and societies to more connection with the wider world not shutting off the internet or attacking embassies. i remain convinced that the people of the arab world do notment to trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. there is no dignity in that. the people of benghazi told this world loudly and clearly when they rejected the extremist in their midst. what they hoped for.

so did the leaders of libya when they challenged the militia and so did the too knewsha who spoke out against violence and hate tried. a this is the message we should take from the events of the last month. now i want to add and close with one more thought about what happened in benghazi, as you might expect, that is for me and for all the men and women in the state department very personal. diplomacy by its nature, has to be often practiced in dangerous places. we send people to diplomatic posts in 170 countries around the world, and yes, some of those are in war and conflict zones. others are in unstable countries with complex threats and no u.s.

military presence. that is the reality of the world we live in. and we will never prevent every act of violence or terrorism or achieve perfect security. our people cannot live in bunkers and do their jobs. but it is our solemn responsibility to constantly improve to reduce the risks our people face and make sure they have the resources they need to do those jobs we expect from them. and of course, nobody takes that more seriously than i and the security professional at the state department do. chris stevens understand that diplomats must operate in many places where soldiers do not or cannot, where there are no or boots on the ground and security is far from guaranteed. like so many of our brave

colleagues and those who served in our armed forces as well, he volunteered for his assignments. last year our ambassador to syria, robert ford, was assaulted in damascus by proregime thugs, but he insisted on continuing to meet with peaceful protesters and serving as a living manifestation of america's support. and when we drove to the battered city, people there covered his car with flowers. people like chris and robert represent diplomacy and america at its and our best. they know that when america is absent, especially from the dangerous places, there are consequences extremism takes root, our interest suffer and the security at home is threatened. so we will continue sending our

diplomats and development experts to dangerous places. the united states will not retreat. we will keep leading and we will stay engaged and everywhere in the world including in those hard places where america's interest and values are at stake. that's who we are. and that's the best way to honor those whom we have lost. and that's also how we ensure our country's global leadership for decades to come. thank you all very much. [applause] [applause] tonight on ""the communicators" a look at the technology agenda of the obama and romney presidential campaigns. we talk with john who supports mr. romney's agenda and ed paisley who supports president obama. but neither is an official campaign spokesman.

""the communicators" here on c-span duoat 8:00 a.m. -- indiana u.s. senate debate. republican state treasurer richard murdoch goes against joe donly. they rate the race a tossup. >> this isn't about governor bush, it's not about me. it is about you. and i want to come back to something i said before. if you want somebody who believes that we were better off eight years ago than we are now, and that we ought to go back to the kind of policy we had back then, emphasizing tax cuts mainly for the wealthy, here is your man. if you want somebody who will fight for you, and who will fight to have middle class tax cuts, then i am your man. i want to be. now i doubt anybody here makes more than $3 30,000 a year. i want to ask you. if you do you would be in the

top 1%. >> it would be in violation of the rules. >> i'm not going ask. if anyone here in the audience was dead on in the middle of the middle class, then the tax cut for every singling one of you all added up would be less than that the tax plan would give to one member of that top wealthiest 1%. you judge for yourself whether or not that's true. >> >> moderator: quick and we're moving on. >> 50 million americans get no -- that's not right. secondly we had enough fights. it's time to unit. you talk about eight years and eight years they haven't gotten anything done on medicare, social security, the bill of rights. time to get something done. >> moderator: presidential town hall debates began in 1992 with george bush. and every election since

presidential hopefuls have taken questions from vetters in the same town hall style. watch romney and president obama in their town hall debate. last week national security advisers to the romney and obama campaigns took part in a foreign policy debate. they talked about the u.s. presence in afghanistan. iran's nuclear program, and recent changes in the arab world. the hour and a half discussion was cohosted by the center for new security. american enterprise substitute and new america foundation. >> welcome and thank you for joining us today. my name is richard. i'm the president at the center for new american security. it's a pleasure to welcome you today to the debate. [inaudible] among the american substitute the center for american security and the new america foundation. the event is the sixth in the

series that the three constitution have held throughout 2012. each of them ff handgun the national security debate during the presidential campaign. we had dugses on cover's americas overall defense budget, the pacific, the middle east and several weeks ago we held a debate at arizona state university. today we meet at the time when foreign policy is returned to the center of the conversation between the candidates. i am therefore very pleased to introdpiews the campaign representatives rich from obama campaign. richer have ma is currently a -- works on matters of national security law and international regulation. most recently served in the obama administration of the assistant secretary of state of legislative affairs. earlier in the career he serve -- majority leader harry reed and prior to that the house of representatives in the national

democratic substitute and office in the air force. previous -- during the bush administration, dov was under secretary of defense and chief financial officer or comptroller. he says several other pentagon during the career and author of other a disufns books. joining me in moderating the debate today are peter bergen of the new american foundation. and tom. at the event today is being live extremed on cnn.com and you can find materials related in the event to the event and to the election on the website of our three organization. including a national security guide to the presidential election on the cnn n website. they will offer a brief opening statement which will be followed

by questions from the moderator and open the floor to q & a from the audience. with that let me turn it over to rich. >> thank you very much. let me thank you for the invitation to be here and the work you do on national security. it's a triewbtd to the organization to get a big crowd. indian there's a baseball game going on at the same time. [laughter] folks must be here for the fancy lunch today they have on the table. but seriously, the briefings papers and the conferences you do contribute so much to the policy debate and critical times. let me four months late congratulate you on the ascend to the presidency. there is life beyond the senate. let me say it's an honor to be here with dov. someone with so many years of distinguished service to the country. i'm proud to be here on behalf

of the president's re-election campaign to talk about the record on national security and highlight some of the major differences between the president and governor romney. over the past four years, president has amassed a strong record on foreign policy and security. he dealt with foreign crisis, taken strong action against those who threaten u.s. interest and seize opportunity presented by democratic opens in the middle east and beyond. proven himself to be a tough and smart commander in chief, who has remained steady in the face of adversity under the president's leadership, al qaeda has been decimated. the iraq war has been ended with honor, u.s. forces in afghanistan have begun a critically important transition. iraq has never, more isolated, and the libyan people have a chance to reclaim their freedom following the removal of

mohammed from power. they shored up the nation's homeland -- stood up for human rights across the globe, supporting democratic reform efforts abroad and ending torture here at home. u.s. security systems is at the all-time to israel is all the time high. and in the face of a difficult fiscal situation, he put the military on a path to repaint best trained, best equipped and best in history. mitt romney's foreign policy -- and there are many, can be tough to follow if you don't keep close track. he likes to talk about the confidence, clarity, and resolve of his foreign policy when in fact it's been more confusion, dysfunction, and division. the reality that governor romney has been searching far foreign policy narrative and position

and world view since the campaign started. the position seems to bob and wave depending upon which advisers are speaking to him, or where the -- might be going. on libya, as near as i can tell, the governor had five different positions. monday's speech in dmi may count at the sixth. one the definitive step he can d take to hold a press conference hours after the death of the u.s. ambassador there before the facts were known, before the families were notified, the governor sensing a political opening took to the air waives to condemn u.s. embassy staff in cairo. he's been trying to play clean up ever since and monday's speech was no different. on afghanistan after complaints and outrage about the president's time line for transition, governor romney did the unthinkable, he set a timeline for transsuggestion which subsequently happened to

track with the president's. governor set on monday, quoted,ly purr pursue a real and successful success to afghan security forces by end of 2014. maybe it's the modifier real and successful make the position so different. on mideast peace when the governor in private remarks now infamous remarks bro wro off 48% of the public. quote it's going remain an unsolved policy. and quote, the palestinians were committed to the direction of israel. yet in monday's speech he claimed he would, quoted, recommitment america. to call that a flip or a flop would be charitable. so far outside oven the

republican mainstream since as when he posted the new star treaty a position that put him at odds with disgear, hadly, president george h. w. bush and the entire senior military leadership. let me make a few closing comments about the subjects that have been in the news including iran, the arab spring and defense spending. on iran we hear a lot of raddling. but when you look at the details of the position, it appears to be the same as the presidents'. crippling sanctions, all option on the table, increased asset in the gulf. the difference is that the president was able to get the allied corporation that is so essential to fully isolate and hit iran with the toughest possible sanctions. one senior romney adviser said on monday when asked what is different about the romney position on iran, he said,

quote, we disagree with the president's approach to working with allies. begin the trajection of international cooperation does anyone really believe a president romney could have gotten the e.u., the south korean for the japanese to implement a oil embargo from iran? on the arab spring, the governor likes to point a mid eastern turmoil with capital burns. he fails to note the progress of moderate forces in too knewsha, egypt, and yemen. we don't know the strategy for supporting the moderate forces, who we get are slogans. peace or strength. america must lead. america is exceptional. no true, no doubt. we hear whispers of returning to "the dictators" of the past. we get very little detail, very little vision of how he would cothings differently. we do no congressman ryan's budget was actually implemented. we would see a 30% reduction in the diplomatic and development

budget used z to support the people, the governor says he wants to stand with. and finally on defense cuts, perhaps the biggest the governor set up. he would like to rollback president obama's deep and arbitrary cuts for national defense that would devastate the military. let's remember these cuts to the pentagon's growth were part of the budget control act. and supported by congressman ryan. and republican leaders in congress. congressman ryan said this is finally the legislation that we have been waiting for. the proposal for defense spending could cost some $2 trillion over ten years. that's $2 trillion in additional spending. this is spending the pentd gone hasn't asked for and spending that isn't paid for. i know, big bird gotten a lot of attention lately, but the one offset possibly couldn't yield enough to pay for the collection

of new ships, and troops. even more troubling there's been no discussion about what the strategy is that the increased spending is designed to sport. the additional funds to support a two-front war to combat perhaps is number one geopolitical faux. we didn't know. and the governor's speeches haven't shed any light on key fundamental questions about security. and the america's role in the world and america's power and how we should stand up for the moderate forces fighting for freedom an aspirations. these aren't trick questions. these are fundamental questions about the world and questions that most americans expect a future commander in chief to have answered and resolved. i look forward to taking your questions. >> moderator: all right. thank you very much. dov? >> thanks very much. [inaudible]

my thanks to all tree of you. -- [inaudible] >> let me try again. can you hear me now? >> no. >> and republican -- [laughter] how about now? have i shaminged them in to turning on the mic? actually all i was doing was thanking these guys. [laughter] and i share with rich one thing. i think democrats and republicans both care very much about the country and our role in the world. we differ about how we get there. the difference is the -- i agree with rich on that as well. let me begin with diseches, something i know something about, i think. it and that is the sequester. now we know that mr. panetta, the secretary of defense said the sequester would be a

disaster, as it would be. and i refer you to him for chapter and verse about the size of the navy and the airport, -- affords and the army. where did it it origin originate. where did the idea come from it it turns out it came from the white house. it turns out mr. jack lou had a meeting with senator reid and congresswoman pelosi and suggested this. and initially apparently they weren't too keen on the idea until defense was thrown in. now how much does the defense really amount to percent age wide. if you talk about given budgeted tear spending every year, discretionary spend, defense is pretty high on 50%. if you talk about the real problem, which includes

entitlement, desks is 1%. if you look at the 55 out billion dollars coming out the sequester, that works out to 1.4% of the overall problem. better than 10% of the self-defense budget. are you going tell me that the solution to the national financial problem is cutting defense? and, by the way, do you honestly think that the -- north koreans, that the radical muslims including al qaeda which supposedly has been defeated now turns out to be part if not all of behind the attack on our ambassador, the murder of our ambassador in benghazi and three of the colleagues. do you honestly think they pay attention to the budget numbers other than they hope on they keep going down? what are we talking about sneer

we're talking about an administration that taunts a pivot to asia, and cutting budgets at the same time. of course the pentagon went along with it. when did the pentagon not go along with the commander in chief? that doesn't prove a thing. let's go around the world and have a look at how well we are really doing. we're doing very well in the arab spring. how much embassies were attacked. how many demonstrations have been held against us? of great friends in egypt, president morsy lays conditions down in the interview with the "new york times" as to when he'll have good relation with the united states. this by a man getting hundreds of millions of dollars of aid from the united states. and in england, they call it -- in french they call it

[inaudible conversations] [laughter] woe had the first em -- ambassador killed in the line of duty since the years of jim any carter. what does it tell you? we have a president of egypt who is basically thumbing his nose at us. and then there's the relationship with israel which is supposed to be so good that the president of the united states has to say to the president of france over an open mic what he thinks about the prime minister of israel. and then when the prime minister israel says, look, we need a credible red line with the iranians, the president dismisses that as noise.

now if you're a prime minister of israel you worry about the existence of the country and there are many ways to with that including having some kind of redline or at least arranging with the israelis privately what the red line would be. being credible with the iranians. how can you be credible about sanctions when you let twenty countries off the hook including china and india? those are really credible sanctions. and everybody knows that the congressional sanctions are the ones that are -- voiced upon the administration not the other way around. the president finally signed off the other day. it what do we mean when we say we're being tough on sanction. romney is not going to be tough. he has to close the loopholes that already exist to show he's tougher. how to co you pivot to asia when the forces go down. if you put to asia that way,

what will be left of the middle east. how credible will you be with the iranians in anything you do has to be both credible and enforceable. right now our position on iran is neither. and let's look at syria. which has started basically a low level war with turkey that could get worse. [inaudible] our administration sits on the hands. it says, well, we don't really know who the good guys are in the free syrian amy and the other rebels. we can't do much about it. this is the same intelligence community that is are -- how close iran is going to be a bomb. if we don't know in a more open society which is what syria is right now. who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? how are we going know when iran is on the verge of having a bomb which is exactly what scares prime minister netanyahu.

they are three weeks away, five weeks away, how are we going to know? it's open to the world. do you know how many trade agreemented we reached that was started by the administration? zero. what we want the nationals to do against their opponent today in the st. louis, pardon you cardinals fans. we have started none. we completed three, started by the bush administration south korea, panama, colombia, and a that took a lot of teeth pulling. do you know how many china has reached in the last four years? nine, five more being negotiated. what does it tell you about our position on trade? what really tells so you where the unions are on trade.

now the argument made mr. romney doesn't understand international relations because of what he said about russia. well, look at the administration's track record on russia. they have gone nowhere. the computer has shut down. mr. putin knows only one thing -- [inaudible] classic czar policy, if there's -- [inaudible] they deal with you. if there's weakness, they'll walk all over you. which is why russia continues to support assad no matter how many people he kills. russia wanted us to walk away from the ballistic missile defense program. we don't want to do that. that was the reason why so many people, myself included, opposed the latest [inaudible] because there is too much ambiguity about the missile

defense program. ambiguity doesn't work with russia. clarity does. in fact, am beau gigty doesn't work with anybody. only clarity does. unfortunately, this administration is wonderful with words, i'll be the last person to deny that president obama is terrific with words. at least when he's giving speeches. but when it comes to actions, we undermine ourselves, we have very little credibility, yes, it's true, most europeans would vote for mr. obama as president of the united states. but that's the equivalent of saying that most americans love the queen and therefore we should become a monarchy. it's irrelevant. what relevant is what the administration has done for our country relative to other countries relative to our friends, whom we tend dismiss,

and our enemies who unfortunately we have mislead in to believing they can walk all over us. that's why we need a change. we need it now. we need it in the interest of our country, we need it the interest of free world. thank you. [applause] >> all right. thank you, dov. now let's begin with some questions to both of the panelists and rich. why don't i start with you? to go back to the point about syria, the syrian conflict is killed more than 20,000 people and displaced hundreds ever thousand. --. >> i think it's important know what mitt romney said in the speech. it was a bit of a head fake. that we should arm the syrian rebels.

a clever word choice in the speech. they should be armed and took a step back as to who should do it or how it should be done. i would like to answer the question about what kinds of armed who they would go and the risk if they could fall in to extremist group or the risk they would threaten the ally israel. the united states has been incredibly engaged and active in syria with rebel forces under the president's leadership. it's a difficult situation. we have provided loggist call support, comiewp indication support. what could the allies work with tour chi provide as humanitarian aid as we can. but the anyone who speaks to the u.s. ambassador on the question still the calculation is that providing support from the united states in to the rebel hands at this time would have very uncertain outcome and we are working very hard with the

rebel forces and clearly as the president said, assad's days are over. they will eventually come to an end. we need to be ready to support those provide support to the moderate forces as we can in the interim. i do want to, if i can, just say one thing about dov's comments about iran. which is very related to the syria issue. , i mean, he does set up the straw man about the sanction on iran. and the twenty countries that have gotten off the hook. it's interesting to note that this is where facts donator. the iran sanction fact is the critical --

when the president came to office he moved -- he then worked with the congress almost immediately to sign a new comprehensive piece of legislation. of wch multiple companies across the world including chinese companies including russian companies have been sanctioned. the tbentd exemptions that dov likes to talk about were a wholly different piece of authority, which granted the north to exempt countries that made substantial reduction in their oil import from iran. south korea cut off their import. turkey, india reduces, in fact china reduced. it was targeting at the banking sector. the twenty countries off the hook. in fact we have made cripple sanction. when i hear the other side talk

about, you know, we're going do this on our own, we have had an embargo against iran for thirty years. the fact is for crippling sanction you need international cooperation and the favor -- and do it alone approach we have seen and seen will not be very effective in con train straining in iran that dov was concerned about. >> can i ask you to respond to the iran point and the syria point. what about the weapon falling in the wrong hands. >> i don't get it. maybe i'm dumb. if we are working with the folk on the communication and logistics, we're working with them everyday, we're engaged with them. why don't we know who the good guys are? , i mean, who are we communicating with the? the bad guys. are we providing lo jiggics to the bad guys? we are really nuts. we must be working with the good guys. why can't we provide them with

ours? or at least provide the money for them to buy ours? or at least work with other of our arab friends to get the arms to these people. i don't get it. it doesn't add up. either you're engaged, or you're not engaged. if you're engaged, you better know who you are engaged with it. if doesn't work out if you get engaged to somebody you don't know. [laughter] if you know who they are, why aren't you helping them out when they're crying out for it? oh, assad is going to fall. , you know, how long we've been saying? how many thousands it will it take before he falls. how many thousand of dead, injured, wounded, men, women, and children we're saying he's going to fall. in the long run, we're all dead. it doesn't prove a thing. it highlighteds the inconsistency of what the administration is saying. i couldn't have said it better

than the way it was just said. on iran, work with the congress, of course they work with the congress because they had to. congress forced the sanction on them. and yes, there's been a reduction in oil import. the whole idea is to zero out oil imports. it has not hooped. -- happened and the question is why not? mr. romney said i want to zero out the imports. now the other point, we're going to do it on our own. he never said that. on the contrary what romney said we're going to work with the allies in a way the administration is not. he doesn't plan to wake up the polish african-american in the -- prime minister in the middle of the night to tell them missile defense. he doesn't plan to whisk per bank blank he doesn't plan to turn around to the russians president and say just wait, one perhaps flexibility i can do all

kinds of things i can't do right now. he doesn't plan to stand aside when there's a major revolution in iran and the united states does nothing. we're supposedly trying to get them all to keel to what we're looking for and at the same time the very same know that when there was a real treat to them, we sat on our hands. what does that tell you about our credibility, what does that tell you about the consistency? you have written a book on afghanistan. you were the prime american on the account. mitt romney mentioned the 2014 jordan in the speech. he didn't talk about the strategic partnership agreement that the administration is negotiated with the afghan government. which will keep american soldiers in afghanistan until

2024. do you have a sense of what the minimum number the soldier should be going forward. >> there are more than a few former administration -- [inaudible] length of time i was involved, but i share the credit with many, many others who was probably have more influence than i did. the first point i would like to make about afghanistan and the big difference between them, is that mr. obama set a deadline. period. i was in kabul in december of 2009, when obama made that speech, and i was talking to people from the international force, the people who are out there getting shot at. from other countries not just our own. to a man and woman, there a lot of women there, they all almost took no notice of the statement.

what nay noticed was the deadline. a what the pakistan people notice is the deadline. everybody is playing to the deadline. including president karzai who has no other choice. what romney has said is yes, that works as long as the mill tire thinks it works. if you trust commanders on the ground and they say we can't leave just yet, then you're going to change your plan. and taliban is terrified of that. the last thing they need know is the united states may not leave as quickly as they expect. look what happened in iraq. we stopped our deadline and we didn't work all that hard to make sure there was a -- that is

a agreement with iraq. and look at iraq today. with a man drying to become a dictator and the civil war breaking out again. how well have we done. have we brought peace and democracy to iraq? are the iraqi people safe? the answer we know is no. mr. romney says i don't want to evade it, how many troops will depend on the situation on the ground. what you don't want to have is an announcement ahead of time we will have x number of troops for y number of years and let the taliban plan against that. because if we announce what we're going to do. it's like telegraphing in basketball, the best way to get the other team to steal the ball is if you telegraph your pass.

>> just to follow up. the fact that the administration's is negotiating an agreement for the 2024 presumably something you'r unhappy about. >> depends on the nature of the agreement. depends whether the next president of afghanistan uphold it. that was always the details. we thought we were going have an arrangement where we would have troops staying in iraq. that's because they wouldn't allow it. you continue know how things play out until they actually do. i don't know how the afghan parliament will behave. i don't know how a president in 2017 of afghanistan will behave until something is finallyized. it is just words. again, i come back to my fundamental point we had had four years of words, big words, little words, words on that, i

mean, we have had, you know, a lot of tough talk from the other campaign and it reminds us what we lived through for eight years and the tough talk with 200,000 troops in the middle east hunkered down unable to private to asia or anywhere elsewhere the iranian regime was getting stronger open spinning because we could do nothing else. it seems to me that is exactly the strategy that the governor has us headed toward again. more in syria and iran. unsold how many troops in afghanistan. what about that would actually make a safer and stronger in this new threat environment is very curious. i think it does have something to do with as i started with the vision that the governor has. it your vision of what's happening in the world is driven

by russia your geostrategic threat and you want to confront china on day want and you want to confront the states, and you want to be hunkered down in the middle east, while the transnational threats and sub state actors are hitting us hard. it's a different approach. if you want to be with the president has been which is aggressive against iraq. supporting the forces doing the transition in afghanistan and iraq to lighten our burden in the middle east so we can move and confront other threats in the world. it is a faster, it is a more agile, it is a smarter, tougher, and stronger approach. one only has to look at the previous administration if that's what people inspect the security posture going forward, they can have it again. it sounds exactly what is suggesting. to support briefly on that.

you can look at the other administration official that the core of al qaeda has been decimated. the senior leadership ranks have been decimated. what we have go to scare guard against is the affiliate groups and the extremist groups. . .

running against george w. bush for ever but that isn't what governor romney's talking about. >> thank you for saying that. what has governor romney talked about in his defense budget? what does he want to increase? 15 shifts a year. three submarines a year. very, very different from going into iraq or going into iran we are convinced that the only way to stop them as not to go in and invade a country that large but to be credible about what you are going to do about your sanctions about your relationship with the israelis

when they see as quarreling they conclude we are not going to do anything when they see us getting people exemptions i don't care how you want to word it an exemption is an exemption is an exemption. if the clock strikes one, it looks like one. when they see those exemptions, they conclude weakness. they come quote lack of credibility. that's what we are talking about. we are not a bunch of war monitors. nobody goes and invades anybody quite the contrary it peace through strength as you know the governor repeats quite frequently was ronald reagan and ronald reagan didn't go to war with the soviets, she was the one that convinced the soviets whether it was pointless to go to war with us and try to hold build us. the issue here is how credible.

because i can't figure it out. >> to follow-up on that iran planned for just a moment and ask what should the ultimate objective of u.s. policy in iran be, should it be a non-nuclear iran, a regime change, can we live with the government in iran if it isn't pursuing a nuclear weapon. >> he said we would not accept it on for the agenda with iran support for international terrorism and that it seems to me was the issue we were most focus on it as a nuclear issue in preventing iran for having a nuclear weapon. including agreeing with the president and that was exactly the position that he should take

changing at and taking an evolving position on iran. i do want to come back to a couple things doug says about the defense spending. the sequester i don't think that you were in the room for that as far as i can tell and a was an interesting story to tell and as someone could go back and just do a google's search for the number of republican leaders that stood up for the sequestered. no one thinks it should come into effect. it was never supposed to come into effect and quite frankly the vice presidential candidate congressman ryan supported this and the budget control and the cuts are so devastating that he would also agree the fiscal strength is probably important

abroad as well and economic strength, and i don't know how an additional $2 trillion in spending on defense that is on paid for with of the additional assets that you are talking about that no one in the pentagon has asked for except for perhaps the four advisers that do not serve on the campaign. the amazing things to take a number and then build it, a builder can pan around it instead of designing a strategy of which you build the defense philosophy around that. >> first on iran, mr. romney actually believes that the priority stopping iran from having a nuclear weapon says that ultimately both president obama and mr. romney recognize the threat that iran poses the issue is where do you go from there. finance your priority. how do you deal with it? it's no good to say what president george w. bush may or

may not have done for eight years ago, seven years ago, six years ago that is not a prescription for the future. you keep looking back you will get. the real issue is how do you get to the iranians to stop in richmond. if you wait until they are on the way or six weeks away and then say i'm going to rely on our intelligence doesn't allow us to take out who are the good guys and the bad guys and syria. our intelligence doesn't tell us what will but we ignore the intelligence. so even if we get the intelligence that doesn't mean we are not going to pay attention to it. how far do you want to risk that? mr. romney is saying i don't want to take that kind of risk.

i share with the president the concern about iran getting a nuclear weapon, but i'm going to go back to preventing that in a very different way. now since you want to talk about the alleged, i am perfectly happy to do that. he is quoted and bob woodward's book. last time i checked nobody has challenged that. probably because people i talked about what word -- woodward. but the president has that on his hands when it's come to resolving the fiscal crisis he keeps taking it over to the congress. whether you agree with simpson-bowles or you don't agree with simpson-bowles, this is a group of people that came up with a bipartisan solution. where is the president, where

has the president then on all of this other than saying i am going to veto any attempt of being included in the sequestered. in other words, holding the defense hostage to the ideology that we cannot touch entitlements. the sequester goes after, let me put it this way to% of the sequester addresses entitlements. 2% rate that works out very nicely if you buy into that ideology. it doesn't work out very nicely if you're concerned about defense. and by the way the $2 trillion spent we are just trying to get to the baseline budget. and the last time i checked, bob gates wasn't just a republican appointee. >> to dig deep to explore the defense issues on the budget and the military reforms and

military changes associated with the pacific but it does seem disingenuous to say that these were dollars and programs the pentagon hadn't asked for one as recently as 2011 in the obama budget that they asked for programs during the obama administration they had been cut and taken away since the president took power. the part of that question is in the sequester is the commander in chief play a fundamentally different role than any of the other actors in the melodrama? a different constitutional set of responsibilities than the others, and finally, if you have alluded to the fact that in

dollar terms the defense increases are modest in comparison to the overall spending reforms the necessary to reach the governors target of 20% of federal spending overall for all programs. but that probably means pretty substantial cuts in entitlement spending. so if one is dependent how does the governor in tend to live? this based on a single administration changing the government spending. >> i think this is a place where the facts do matter and to remind people the base budget for this year is about $525 billion which is up 34% since 2001. in the nation that somehow even

compare the base budget to 2007 under george h. w. bush under his budget has gone up considerably and defense will continue to go up under this administration and its projected to go out into fy 20. the question is controlling the rate of growth and that's where the congressman and the speaker bipartisan group decided there should be cuts. it just again some of the facts. our navy is bigger than the next 13 combined. by fy fathi we will have 300 ships. that is the projection. again there plan is in search of a strategy. 60% will be deployed to the pacific by 20 slash fax 20. they will have the same amount of plants by 2017 that significantly more platforms and

more capabilities. this notion of counting ships that we had in 1916 versus the ships we had in 2011 or 2020 is slightly ridiculous given the incredible capabilities there are in the forces and the weapons systems now have a and the wolf alagiah in which they operate. so it's one thing to say we should listen to the military when it comes to afghanistan, but we shouldn't listen to the military when it comes to the budget and we shouldn't listen to the military when it comes to a new start. general dempsey said this is not a budget that would support our military means testified today proudly on behalf of this budget. so, picking and choosing when you decide to look at the military from the interesting fact. >> i will try to answer your question.

obviously there will have to the entitlements to the retirement spending. there is no question about that. remember he also believes he is going to be able to stimulate the economy so the economy will grow which means they will grow up. he's also said he is going to deal with tax loopholes. i'm not a tax expert. but it seems to me that there's an awful lot of those loopholes and that will help. and again, we are only talking about is essentially a 1.4% of the entire problem which seems to fix it and you can fix it in four years for sure. i believe i'm trying to answer your question. i can't just sit back and listen to some of the stuff to be told in effect facts matter but you just don't know any facts. first of all, one little fact, i really wonder whether mr. leon

panetta who talks of a shift since 1915 said that in a letter to the former boss. wasn't a republican who made that case. as mr. panetta number one. number two the navy will be bigger because i founded the ships that were being built. it takes a few years to get them out to sea. look at the pattern of the naval spending and the number of ships over the next few years the made the air force to talk about platforms not aircraft. why? because he's talking about drones, not just planes. you want to watch this very, very carefully. i'm not saying it wasn't giving you facts. i saying it's a reflection of this administration but when it

comes to work is an awful lot of fancy footwork. the defense is going up it isn't going up in real terms, it's going up in the nominal terms. i come back to the point why has this administration given its secretary of defense return, and remember the pentagon follows the commander in chief orders. i'm not surprised general dempsey said what he said. nevertheless, the secretary of defense is so agitated that he could not in a press conference, not in an open mike statement to somebody but in an open letter his concerns about the sequester, and this administration is prepared to hold the defense hostage to

fulfill its ideological goals. >> every administration official has spoken out against the sequestered so that is consistent. >> and you have proved my point. >> no one supports the sequestered. that is a point that you might have lost. >> i'm not saying that mr. obama supports it but he is sitting on his hands and sometimes no action is action. you are aware the senate republican leader said his number one goal was to stop the president and keep him from being reelected, therefore the notion that we are getting the kind of cooperation to stop the kind of sequester that you are concerned about i think is a bit of a fictional account. >> on the contrary, how many -- i don't care what senator mcconnell may or may not have said. if the president wants to stop the sequester, he needs to be

calling people into the white house every day. that should be his number one concern. instead what you are getting is the labor department issuing confusing the guidelines about the act, the administration saying they are going to cover contractors if they get sued by their employees and senator mccain says it is against the law. that is what we are getting as fancy footwork. not the all-out pressure to get a deal only the president of the united states can impose. >> the budget committee could be a heartbeat away from the presidency also could have the sequester but in fact he spoke out in support >> we have other issues to get to as well. >> jim lehrer? [laughter] >> i'm not going to comment on that. we have other issues to get to and i know that other people want to ask about issues like

asia, trade, so let's go to the audience now. we have microphones around the room. please, raise your hand if you'd like to be recognized, name and affiliation and make sure you are asking a question rather than a long statement, please. right here. astana queues at the beginning of your statement that al qaeda has been decimated and i forget your best words the people of libya are facing a much more freedom optimistic situation than they did before. the invasion into libya, and i want to raise a specter of something the was already raised earlier of our ambassador in benghazi. general haydon wrote an article for the security situation which led to the assassination of the president's invasion of libya which by the we didn't get

congressional approval. number two, on capitol hill today the lieutenant colonel is testifying on the security team who said that he recommended increasing security because of the deterioration situation. that didn't happen. he and his team were pulled out and the investor expressed his fear and worry that he was being targeted. i could go on and on and on. the point is the administration was forewarned and would be completely incompetent to say they had no clue that something like this was about to happen. yet when this did occur, susan rice and other spokesmen came out and said this was spontaneous. we had no idea. we've got to look into it. so my question is why should the american people -- why would be a better idea for the american people to vote for president in another four years rather than demanding a criminal investigation into the assassination in what is now being called benghazi?

>> you might have a point of view. [laughter] you are trying to express in the form of a question. there's so much to talk about chris stevens is an american hero and anyone that knew him and knew what he was trying to do would agree. he went to benghazi for a reason because benghazi is really where these kind of battles take place. they are the battles between forces of extremism and forces of moderation. news flash, benghazi is a very dangerous place. he knew that and the state department knew that. and that's why the secretary is appointed the accountability review board and there during the investigations to see if they are right. decisions were taken but let me tell you what happened after the ambassador was killed. tens of thousands of people marched in the streets of

benghazi and they said chris stevens is our friend. they overran the militia. the president of libya ordered all to be shut down. this is a country going through an incredibly different time. from the premise of your question it sounds like he would rather have supported gadhafi being there. without american leadership, gadhafi would still be there and the principal part of leading that effort our principal part of insuring and supporting the moderate forces in libya. with regards to the investigation, you know, we can take the threat we want to take and make it into a political matter as the governor tried to do. hours after a tragedy. after they had already bungled the press release the night before he decided to go out the next morning. there is something about the

judgment in temperament of the future commander in chief they might have an upper strength to say no it's not the right time we don't know of fact and it turns out they actually know one of the deceased mentioned on the campaign trail yesterday baby wouldn't have rushed out to the party. that is the position has been everywhere. i'm not sure what it is people would have done differently. we support people like that. the diplomats every day live in dangerous parts of the world, and frankly the house republican budget committee and state department funding for emphasizes that as well. but the judgment calls made by diplomats and made by patriots about the security situation when the military is not in

there with them and these are very difficult situations. i do not prejudge the fact since the full investigation was done and frankly everything that has been said. it is a very, very difficult situation to get back from a place like benghazi on the night of the three tragic attack. i have no doubt the facts would continue to evolve and that as we get more clarity there would be more definitive statements. but it sounds like the governor and other people would rather make a political case. the first statements were not made by the governor. the first statement was made by an administration official blamed on a video. and the american embassy in egypt which is what the governor was criticizing and had the essentially said look, this is

terrible but we have to be respectful of all religions. although quite frankly i have not heard the administration come out and say that those that abuse the british temples abuse and should also be held equally accountable. i have not heard that. this is a teachable moment by the way. he could have set look with this video is about is wrong. but guess what they are being done and islamic speakers don't speak out. they don't speak out not widely enough, not enough of them. certainly not enough of them. but this wasn't about the video at all. that's the whole point prieta was about al qaeda.

that is coming out of the testimony this morning already but the administration didn't want to admit it like al qaeda because that would mean we haven't destroyed al qaeda. i don't care if it's not outside the central or french that's like saying mcdonald's isn't really selling hamburgers acceptance and diego. what difference does it make if its al qaeda central rate terrorist group by some other name dancing around the issues is just so frustrating not for me and governor romney but for the world, for our friends, for those who depend on us. other questions, yes, sir. right here.

>> i've retired recently. my question goes to this issue of the navy and it does appear to most that in the information age in our groups are far more capable than they were in the industrial age. but in a different level the numbers matter. and it seems to me that if you have ten or e 11 battle groups three or four at any given time. i'm not quite sure what the argument is when you need to increase the size and the upper side says we've got adequate forces. it doesn't seem to july 51 to carry all of the pacific as your knute hid it strategy you are only going to have two or three carriers supporting. could somebody comment on this?

>> as you know very well if you want to have a carrier in the middle east of screen to take five or six to support it so just run up the numbers. you want to have carriers in the pacific, one is stationed in japan in the calculations by 1.1 carriers to support it. in either carrier will take four to five. how are you going to have two carriers in the western pacific and two more in the indian ocean what about the eastern mediterranean? it doesn't add up. it just doesn't add up and that's the carriers. what about escorts and submarines. the carriers and the ships generally don't fly. and if you want to have a naval presence which is what the state department historically has always called upon whenever

there's been a crisis the ones who say send the carriers are always our diplomats because the notes of diplomatic value of the naval forces. if that's where you want, if that's all you need the administration isn't going to hack it. some quit me repeat something i said earlier which is the navy is suing to grow under this administration. our navy is already bigger than the next 13 navies' combined and half 300 shipped by fy 20. you have to balance that in terms of what the threats are and we are trying to the fer and the feet. we have to have a balanced approach to your defense posture where you've listed the areas of which were going to be priorities, counterterrorism and warfare, cybersecurity, just

keeping both encountering the wmd and there are a lot of threats and we are trying to balance that in the fiscal reality and that is the capabilities and the technologies on the ship are better than ever before and the best in the world and they remain that way. >> yes, sir. right here. >> ayman iraq veteran. i watch with interest the transition and at the edge of that period most recently i've watched. forgive me and the veteran of a battalion of the commander makes them green and what i see in the

recent reports is everything the army has said about the quote on quote progress of the surge in afghanistan all of the boxes are red. my question is if you are looking back to the iraq conflict if that had gone as badly as it now appears the surge has gone in afghanistan. the media in afghanistan apparently the surge it's all been for naught. and i'm wondering in the political context what that means for accountability and the white house and also what governor romney hopes to do about. >> i would agree there is not as much discussion about these issues. there wasn't enough discussion about what was happening in iraq

as well. it's a very difficult situation in afghanistan and it has been before we got there and it will continue to be a difficult situation. the fact is what the strategy to try to get the afghan government in a place and the afghan military where it can defend itself and weaken the taliban. that is what the strategy is built around which is trying to use the combination of force and institutions in afghanistan and trying to support civil society and other elements to try to give it the chance. the afghans are very anxious to try to take the lead from the united states which is why the transition plans are so important which is why there is little difference and why the strategic partnership agreement that the president entered into is critical. we have an enduring interest in having the presence in afghanistan the president has made that very clear.

and i don't think that anyone -- you know better than anyone how difficult this is going to become how difficult it's been. the question is do we have the right strategy have tried to mix political and military tools that are required to see this thing through with our partners. we are going to be at this before the transition point by the end of 2014 for different functions supporting the afghan military security forces the best we can. >> first of all i agree. thank you for your service. i know too many people have come back not in juan peace and some have come back in body bags. thank you. as those of us to support the governor himself has made clear by coming up with the fixed

deadline, we've sent the wrong signals to our adversaries. we are constantly being told president bush said we pulled out of iraq as well but there was read the status of forces agreement and then the white house didn't push very hard. again, if that was really important the president should have been on the front every single day. he wasn't. and so you've got to the situation where we were out. yes, we have a civilian presence on the ground. but it's not doing the job. i don't envy jon allen one bit. he has a very tough job as the commander and he's a brilliant guy and he will do it as well as anybody that i know. but, again, how do you deal with the fact of pulling troops out

because of this deadline? how do you deal with the taliban behavior because of this deadline? there is a difference i would reiterate between mr. obama and mr. romney which opens the door to the possibility that we are not going to pull out of 2014 if the situation doesn't warrant it. why should we stay one extra day and risk our kids' lives one more minute if we can get out? but if our commanders and general allen of the world turn around and say not yet, governor romney isn't locked into pulling out. that is a huge difference and if they continue to be bright as you say.

>> this lady right here. >> i'm a political researcher. my question is for both speakers u-boats agree on the objective but the difference is how we are going to go about. that really describes the situation very well going back to thinking about the last administration the real agreement from both sides republican and democrat on their policy continued cutting the budget despite the fact the majority of american citizens are living under. also the war policy you are

debating here for different reasons, different ways the war has continued under both democratic and republican presidencies. and also, the cover-up of 9/11 but george bush presidency covered up the document specifically -- >> can you ask your question, please? >> yeah, and covered the new 9/11. so, my question is okay, since to me that both parties have agreed upon the objective but my question is what is really the objective? i don't think it is to bring down the nation. and i really think that if you agree to bring the nation back, there are some policies that are no -- no-brainers. glass-stegall i won the speakers to address that.

>> during the 08 campaign how the president said the candidate obama said we need to end of the war and iraq so we can win the war and afghanistan. that's the one we have to win but as soon as he came into office he went from the narrative wanting the war in afghanistan to indignant a war in afghanistan. can you tell me where the policy shift went from winning to ending? because when you start talking about your objective ending the war rutka than winning the war, it appears to me that it's sending a message not only to our adversaries but our friends that we are not serious of the mission. so if you could address that it would be very helpful. >> sure. thank you for your many years of service as well. look, the afghan campaign has gone on for 11, 12 years and it was important in the president's

mind for the transition point to focus the afghans on taking responsibility or else it would be a perpetual state of affairs where we could have 100,000 troops and provide security indefinitely. that is not what the american people want or expect and frankly it's not in the long-term national security interest to have that number of troops when we can train and often forced to do the job that they need to do the job. i think it's very important and i'm sure you know this. the strategic partnership agreement is not to suggest an absence of the united states. in fact it suggests the opposite. it suggests an enduring part - of their relationship with security responsibility. we clearly have interest in the region in keeping the afghans from becoming a safe haven for terror again so that is the

policy is about. and, you know, i really focus on the president's word when he talks about the transition at the end of 2014 to focus the afghan leadership at which they are very anxious to take over security responsibilities and we can make sure that they are ready. >> i would say the president's speech in december fell nine said we want to train the forces. we want to have a strategic partnership agreement and left it at that. we would be in a totally different situation. bye saying as well we are getting out he created the mess we are in in my view. now i want to deal with this lady's question. you're absolutely right. we agree on the national security object of some the country. we have different ways of going about it. we both agree we've got to fight terrorism. we both agree that we have interests and allies abroad.

we both the forces should be deployed and we agree we need to provide the best for our troops. and by the way, we both agree there was no 9/11 conspiracy. i don't know how you came up with that paper. but let me tell you send it to "the new york times" and i sure they will printed out and then see what people say about it read the biggest problem we have for those folks like you who bought this nonsense. it's not him, it's not me, it's not my president, it's not my governor. a responsible person was involved in any 9/11 conspiracy. and it is an insult to the leaders of the country to say that and i am sorry to bang on you but i have to tell you it is an insult to the dead as well. [applause] >> this lady right here the but

then the director of the foundation nonprofit dedicated i'm also an army wife. my question is for anybody on the panel. we as a country had basically outsourced to wars to less than 1% of the population and i don't think that this is a myopic question although we have done a really good job at doing what you have asked us to do whatever party has asked us to do it. my question is in regards to national service in general. is this not something any candidate will ever take on? you don't have to wear a uniform to serve but i will tell you we are pretty tired after doing this for ten years and we are talking about the different budget, going up and going down. but in the end it seems like

it's more america had a skin in the game. i just really wish that both the candidates would address this issue of national service so that we can all feel like we've been at war because it doesn't feel like that to us. >> i will take it first. i can't speak for the governor on this. i will speak personally i've served my country for about 15 years, it never came out ahead financially when i was doing it. i have a son that serves my country right now, not in uniform, but on the hill. he could make at least five times as much. i have another son who served his town, and it was hard trying to keep our family together while serving on the city council. i agree with you that we need to play a part in serving our

country. it starts - cliff people like yourself speaking out more. i think we need to -- again i am speaking perfectly we need to be more conscious of the fact that, you know, he was right ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country. sometimes democrats are right. [laughter] >> we should ended their. >> i said sometimes. >> so, i would say that you're point is an important one and i would hope that anybody that is watching this his attention to the concerns because being a military life is no less easy than serving in the military. i've been working with the military for more than 35 years.

and had to bring it kids on their own. i have other friends that spend months on end paying of the bills come in dealing with the kids, doing the car pool, taking care of the house, working the job, 24/7, there is no end, and god forbid if someone comes out without an arm or leg or stomach or whatever. so there's 100% support. >> let me also just thank you again for your family service and i echo everything that is said. the president has taken every opportunity that he can to support another three to meet with military veterans that return those that are there. i do think it raises a larger question, however, and it is

about what we ask our military to do. and i don't want to put words in your mouth but i think those kind of at the heart of your question which is you've done a lot over the last decade and people are now asking you to do more. don't they know what it's like to pick up and leave kids for a year and espouses for multiple rotations? and i think that is the difference between the two approaches for foreign policy and defense? let me try to explain it this way the president's approach is about using all elements of our society, diplomatic power, using the development tool, using the military and intelligence aspects, using homeland defense, technologies so that we don't think that every solution come every problem has a military solution attached to it.

it's difference in the budget priorities and the rhetoric that you can't always talk about and it's a difference frankly in the budget the congressman ryan has put together. budgets take months to put together. they take a low of deliberation and thought and deliberation that went into his national security blueprint for america the military is going to solve the national security problems. and that was the approach in the previous administration. i am not looking back. but i am doing is seizing upon the ideas that have been brought forward by your team and i feel there is a difference and i think that is exactly what happened in the prior eight years we put the burden on the country's security on the backs of men and women without looking at other tools of american power and the budget is more balanced.

>> if you follow the president's approach and cut defense you will wind up the leg to war more often. you don't go to war when people think you are strong. you go to war when people think that you are weak to read if you look at president's buildup and president clinton we were involved in what we might call skirmishes that we were not involved in long-term wars. i would argue not that mr. romney is against using every tool of our power. on the contrary, he is. that's why we are concerned about the loopholes for example precisely because he said let's use the tools we've got and avoid having to use the military more than we need to have frankly avoid having to use them at all if we can get away with it. but you are not going to convince your enemy if you are weak and why did the attack south korea in 1950? because we announced that south

korea and the security perimeter and by the way we cut the forces by tremendous percentage and the north koreans concluded that we were not interested. why did the argentines invade the fall klan the 1980's? because they cut back on their forces. cutting back on the strength invites the same thing you want to avoid. >> yes, right back here. >> i was wondering if each of you could comment on the threats that you've seen from bioterrorism and if there's anything should be doing to counter that threat. >> i will talk from personal experience. i was on the weapons of mass destruction commission to prevent terrorism and the commission and the shocking conclusion that the commission

found is that threat from bioterrorism was actually greater in terms of the short-term threat them even nuclear and chemical weapons so the recommendations that came out that the president adopted many of them about securing the facilities are of the world and working with scientists from different countries that produce the volume toxins there is a very comprehensive effort on securing the biological weapons and precursors that is a big issue and i think the administration has taken a seriously but make no mistake is a very serious issue. >> i would simply say that one of the conclusions that we haven't done enough and i don't think the program reflects that we've done enough. there's no question about it there is a consensus on that. we have time for one last question to this gentleman right here in the front.

thank you for inviting this forum, it is agreed, but people we put together. my name is scott i'm a former linguist and also u.s. air force linguist who serve my country for quite a long time and the country needs a big reality check and is a very disingenuous to say that ronald reagan was a peaceful president. she fought the tuesday 99 suffered closely with iran and other i covered closely against the best way to fight your enemy is to use your enemy and that is what we did with the guys like the folks in afghanistan and pakistan against the russians for ten years as well so that is very disingenuous and with that my question is how can we continue to survive in this country and in 50-years-old we've murdered over 25 million

people in this world and lost less than 100,000 in battle. they were in vietnam. the fact is we are far more than any other nation on the history of the planet. we've killed more people and have done terrible things. i feel it is disingenuous to sit in front of a crowd and mislead them about the kind of nation that we have become. we have got more weapons of mass destruction and provided a gas in the 80's to saddam hussein. the reason we didn't find weapons of mass destruction is because they had stamped made in the usa on that and that is a fact. >> you might want to wrap up any of the comments as a wrap up as we will go to each of you and we can start to go in the reverse order that we started with. >> everybody is entitled to their opinion. you may have been in the middle of the shipping that is in the

country that we know and it's not the country that i've served. i would say this it's true we supplied the rebels. no doubt about. if we help against the iranians, he was doing the fighting. so i stand by what we said. we sent troops into grenada. it wasn't exactly a 10-year-old battle. we actually pull ourselves out of lebanon so i stand on what i set about mr. ronald reagan. i don't believe that we are the evil empire. maybe you do. and i really do believe that our country whoever is president hasn't taught in the right place and i will give you the proof of the pudding whether mr. alana is president, whoever is president

i don't see people migrating out of this country. if we were so terrible they would be going to russia and china and god knows where else. but since the 18th century your ancestors, my ancestors, everybody here have all been coming here. we are a good country, not a bad one. [applause] >> let me thank you again for giving us the opportunity. i just think look, i'm very proud to be here on behalf of the president because i think the record over the last four years on foreign policy and security is a good one and there are real differences i think you heard many of them today and the question is what kind of vision and do we want for the future and what kind of -- who is best suited to keep america secure? that is the number one

responsibility to keep the american public safe and secure. i think the more comprehensive approach the president has laid forward using all of the tools and american power working with our allies, rebuilding international institutions and alliances and ultimately acting when it is in the u.s. interest to act and protecting the country the president has a strong record on that front how you know, not going to rehash what we just covered over the last 90 minutes but i do think that there are differences and i think that the president has a very strong record and unfortunately i think the governor would take us back to a place where we have left from. >> thank you rich. representing your candidates here. thank you all of you for coming and tom and peter and please join me in thanking the representatives for being here. [applause]

>> as a retired navy chief by thoughts often are those to that serve the country. i know both candidates both of you expressed support for

israel. despite your best diplomatic efforts, iran attacks israel would you be willing to commit troops to support in defense of israel or with kuwait on approval from the u.n. security council? >> thank you for your service to the country. i want to say everything i ever learned about leadership i learned from an officer and by thank you. thanks for serving. let me say that we obviously would not wait for the united nations security council. i think the realities are that both russian and china would probably posed significant obstacles and our challenge right now is the iranians continue on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons and it's a great threat. it's not just a threat to the state of israel it's to the stability of the entire middle east.

if they acquire nuclear weapons of the other countries will acquire them, too. what would you do if you were the israelis and the president of the country says that they are determined to white you off the mat and cause your country a corpse senator obama without precondition wants to sit down and negotiate without preconditions that is what he stated again, a matter of record. i want to make sure that iranians put enough pressure by joining with our allies imposing significant tough sanctions to modify their behavior and i think we can do that. i think joining with our allies and friends in the league of democracies if we can effectively bridge their behavior and hopefully they would abandon the quest that they are on for nuclear weapons but at the end of the day my friend, i have to tell you again, and you know what it is

like to serve and you know what it is like to sacrifice, but we can never allow the second holocaust to take place. >> we cannot allow iran to get a nuclear weapon. it would be a game changer in the region. not only would it threatened israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world, but it would also create a possibility of nuclear weapons falling in the hands of terrorists, so it is unacceptable and i will do everything required to protect and we will never take military options off the table. and it is important that we don't provide the toe power to the united nations or anyone else acting in our interest the it is important though for us to use all the tools at our

disposal to prevent the scenario where we've got to make those kinds of trees is. and that's why i have consistently said that if we can work more effectively to other countries, diplomatically to tighten the sanctions on iran, if we can reduce our energy consumption through alternative energy so that iran has less money if we can impose the kind of sanctions that say for example iran imports gasoline even though it is an oil producer because the infrastructure has broken down if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline they need that starts changing the cost-benefit analysis. that starts putting the squeeze on them. it is true i believe that we should have direct talks not just with our friends but also our enemy is to deliver a tough and a direct message to iran that if you don't change your behavior then there would be dire consequences.

if you do change your behavior, then it is possible for you to join the community of nations. it may not work. but one of the things we have learned is that when we take that approach, whether it is in north korea or in iran we have a better chance at a better outcomes. when president bush decided we are not great talk to iran or north korea you know what happened? they went from zero centrifuges to 4,000. north korea quadrupled its nuclear capability. we've got to try to have talks understanding that we are not taking military actions. ..