citizens vulnerable. .. so i have to ask how optimistic

are you the u.s. will conclude the free trade deal with the european union in the next few years and do you think it will pass congress and are you in favor of such a deal? >> gone trade agreements i don't have a position i have to look at the details of how much negotiated. body and large i believe we ought to have trade deals and trade agreements but they have to be fair and they have to be such to get my vote with a lift up the quality-of-life workers and the country's taking an agreement with west and our own house workers up and i was, you know, i was opposed to columbia free trade agreement to give an example because i don't think it addressed the issue of the worker rights in colombia and some of the human rights violations going on and some of the concerns that showed the workers here in the united states and the way trade agreements are supposed to work

in my view they are supposed to let everybody up, so in places like columbia where people earning a wage buy not even a minimal wage the of the opportunity so that they can actually by-product some columbia and in the united states. i represented areas in massachusetts during nafta where i saw entire industry is shut down overnight. palma river was in my district and all the textile companies left. so we had american workers that were left high and dry, and then you had a mexican workers that weren't really benefiting because they weren't getting paid what they should get paid. the european union is a different group altogether. i have to look at the details

before i could get an answer, but i just -- you know, my focus is on workers' rights and making sure that workers have an opportunity to be given during a living. >> of the members of the coalition to stop gun violence and we have an ad hoc committee to address this issue and we've all worked pretty hard over the last three months after new town. they expect as early on both in negotiated package and reported out of the judiciary committee. they are circulating its own version of the legislation today. obviously we are disheartened of three months have happened we're going to work our damnedest next week on going ahead with everything including the large capacity magazines and assault weapons etc..

and the members of the ad hoc committee i'm the chairman and other people wire the wasting our time where we get the percentage where does it matter because the house is going to do nothing. i don't really have the ammunition to counter that. maybe the work can help on this. >> while people do not want to see the sensible gun safety legislation or move through congress and pass if people feel the pressure things will happen to be big hurricane relief past as a result of hurricane sandy and the speaker of the house decided to go home and do nothing. the people on the east coast were homeless and displaced and dealing with the aftermath of hurricane sandy. it was such a no cry before we come back and passed through can

release. if the pressure is there, you know, congress will move. look, i think -- you know, this is a difficult debate for many members of congress because they are used to voting with the national rifle association. there are a lot of members, not mine but automatically what ever they want because you don't want them on your back but i would think even within the members i think there is a growing belief that there ought to be reasonable and rational -- rational limits anybody can go up and buy a military-style assault weapon with 60 or 70 rounds of ammunition, you know, that just kind of goes over the line. we don't have universal background checks? i mean the nra used to be for that. if we can get universal

background checks that is a step in the right direction. in some places in this country it's easier to buy a gun than it is to vote and that is a sad reality. we need to talk about this reasonably and rational. it's not about taking away everybody's guns but there has to be some common sense and my hope is that congress does this by an in the senate and in the house to not only to devotee but to do something and i felt the anguish and president obama's words yesterday ended the day before when he was talking about new town saying have you forgotten what just happened here? these little children they were riddled with so many bullets that you couldn't even identify them. that just happened. so shame on us if we do nothing. my hope is that the pressure

will continue to build and that we will be able to get votes in the senate and the house and hopefully be able to do something. >> i would like to follow up on that last question and be a little more specific. the problem is we have a congress with a giant wall down the middle and it happens to be the bad guys are on the other side of wall and the owner most of congress, so what can we do specifically to put pressure on those congressmen from their districts because we are here and they are only going to listen to their districts. they are not going to listen to us. how can we put pressure on them on the very points that you have made? >> i think that's a good question. the deal is you have relatives that little side of the district or colombia or other states or

maybe some of the states where we have members of congress who are kind of wavering on this issue, you know, reaching out to the face based groups to reaching out to, you know, other clubs that you may be affiliated with getting them to weigh in with their members. there is no question members of congress have their own constituency probably more so than they do from somebody outside. but, you know, i think an effort that goes out to those constituencies that may be sympathetic and getting them to pressure their members of congress i think would be helpful. there are various organizations that are trying to do that, trying to build in these districts where people, like minded people are encouraged to speak out. one of the problems is there are a lot of people in this country who believe just like we do but

they don't say anything. and they are afraid that if they call it won't make a difference or it's not their place to call or write a letter or send an e-mail. we need to help build constituencies across this country and put pressure on those members. again, i find it very difficult for example to see how congress would vote down something like universal background checks. that of itself because a big chunk of these, you know, these sales are being done with our background checks is easy for people to get access to these terrible guns. it may be we have to split some of these boats up, but shame on this country if in the aftermath of not just new town but i go to virginia tech, the gabbie

giffords shooting and shooting in the theater, this every day there are accidental shootings because people don't lock their guns up and the kids get a hold of guns. there are a number of people that die in this country from gun violence it's through the roof so i think this is the time. >> congressman, thank you very much for all of ury answers to the question. i am trying to get a picture of you in the house and i wonder if there are any names informally to talk to people that have such vastly different ideas than yours, and to bridge that will in the house on an informal basis. do you talk together tall to try to understand and move them on an informal basis.

i found as one that wants to end the war in afghanistan as soon as humanly possible, i found some of them agree with me on that. and we have members that have voted with me. i think that we have some common views in terms of the right to privacy. and i think we have some common ground in our reluctance to embrace the patriot act and there are many of us who are liberals like me who agreed with some of the more libertarian members on the need to make sure that, you know, we aren't put into surveillance of necessarily that there is a process in place including, you know, getting a warrant to be able to do that. so on some of these issues there is a common ground. but when it comes to, you know, having the government, you know, there is a rigid ideology that the likes of which i have never, ever seen. i mean, it makes me almost

nostalgic for new gingrich. as much as i disagree with him there is a role for government. but you get people who will say when the defense bill comes up for example they will preface the remarks by saying the only thing the constitution requires the congress to do is to basically is take care of our military. everything else is up to -- you are on your own and they believe that. and i think -- i don't understand, i'm assuming i can't believe all of their constituencies believe that. we needed a better job of defending the government. i am not for wasteful government. i'm not for the inefficient government i am for the government that works. but we remind people what the government is and i think people have forgotten. during the debate at the

university of massachusetts medical school i was early, so i stopped at mcdonald's to get my paul newman coffee before i went to the meeting and has about maybe 25 elderly men in the corner they want to know what is going on in the world or mcdonald's at 8:00 in the morning there is always a group of 25 or 30 elderly men solving all the world's problems. i walked in he says mcgovern? we were just talking about you. i said really? he said and it wasn't good. [laughter] great. he said come over here. look we don't want this health care bill. really? why? >> we don't want the government running our health care. do you know what the bill does? it removes the co-payment for preventative care. it's good for you. it's going to close the doughnut hole. >> yeah the other things.

>> what other things? i had a guy and a business meeting the other day told me that i need to get the government off his back. i said be more specific. he said the whole thing. help me. i'm not a politician. i said but ibm and you are supposed to tell me. it's done a lot of good. it saves people's lives you can have water in the faucet and not die because we have regulations governing clean water. the stuff that you buy and a supermarket that is expected by the usda. i mean, you have medical devices and medications that are regulated in a way that they are tested before they get them to you. there are things we have a safety net for poor people.

people will be living in absolute poverty. succumb a look, part of what we all need to do is pushback. without its faults there are tweaks that need to be made. maybe we can eliminate the duplication. but let's have the most efficient and effective government in the world. you know, as i said in the beginning it lifts people up but doesn't tell us how bad we are. how much we are going to have to lower the standard of living but we should elect people to help move us forward and not backwards. >> [inaudible] not just in the united states but abroad, and i would like to ask you about sri lanka. i've been very concerned and i know you have, too to get the united states to work on that. and the government has called

the videos that were made in the killing fields however you have said these are authentic records of what happened and sri lanka. why does the department of state crimes office not checked whether the u.n. rapport torras who have ruled them authentic why hasn't the audio and reported the results stila congress? these things don't have to wait for an international investigation. >> we have the hearings on sri lanka and the videos you are talking about maybe the ones we've shown to the members of congress that kind of raise awareness and to investigate their authenticity and to be fair if the administration has also raised some of these issues and the government. terrible atrocities occurred.

they are offering accounting. we ought to know what happened, the people in sri lanka ought to know what happened, and i think the united states not only in sri lanka but overall we need to be more aggressive in our support for human rights. i think if we stand for anything, we stand out loud and four square for human-rights. it's really what people expect of us and it is to be our. but i am very sympathetic and concerned about what you're talking about and we are going to continue to push. i began telling you george mcgovern back in 1971 as a college intern for democratic action the sending of the role of government this was at the height of the proposition 13 and all of these anti-government boards going on. and i learned a couple of things

one was i don't know why he lost the rate to years later as a result of that was very courageous to get. but it was also reminding us that we have a role in determining the kind of government that we have and one of the clients he said the gravest threat today is not a foreign adversary but an enemy within. it's not a conspiracy or foot cullom it is inside ourselves and our leaders in a sense of futility and about conscience and it is a lost vision. so i guess what i would say to everybody is that we need to work together to sharpen our conscience and we knew our vision and think big. we have big problems here that we can solve and we should not shy away from them or ignore them. i think we need to insist that we can take on these problems

and solve them, so let's not be afraid to fight for justice or fairness or peace and let us strive to make this country the best that it can be. thank you for having me. [applause] thank you for coming. we would love for you to come back and visit. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

the very political marriage must like john and abigail, so she would lobby in the halls of congress. she was always very careful to say my husband believes this, and my husband advocates that. but, she herself was doing the pitch, and one of her husband's opponents said he hoped it james for every elected president she would take up speaking like a normal woman, and she said if james and i are every elected, i will neither keep house number make better.

citigroup chairman michael o'neill spoke at the annual export import bank conference early today about to the european economy and cybersecurity issues. here is a look at what he says keeps him that night. >> question i would like to ask, what keeps you up at night. >> well, that is a silly disposition. i sleep less well, i will tell you that. what keeps me that might? well, i worry about the sustainability of the economy, and europe continues to be a problem. i think it is being dealt with on balance in a good way but it is a long-term problem. i think the export oriented economy, given the problems in

our slow growth are slowing down and still continue to perform okay but certainly not as they have in the past. you know, we have our own unique problems at this point with the government increasingly dare i use the word dysfunctional don't quote me, please, but i'd sure i will be. you know, the issues that people are wrestling with and need to get resolved hopefully sooner rather than later. but coming to know, i'm no expert but i am not terribly confident that a big bank solution is going to be found here. so all of that keeps me up. we have exposure in the various countries, so we watch it very carefully. another issue that keeps me that is cybersecurity. the secretary and one at his last speech as described that as the single biggest threat to the

united states. you know, and the secretary defense says that i guess you have to listen. certainly we have been targeted. all the big banks have been targeted. cedras' security are not just about hackers. it's not just about people trying to get your credit card number. it's an instrument of the state. in the case of many economies, there's been lots of press about china, including iran, israel. it is a reality and these are very sophisticated people, so building fire walls against some of this activity is very, very difficult. i think we have a very strong team, but this is a threat and this is one that should keep us all of that night. it's a tough one. >> that was part of the comments from earlier today at the annual

export input bank conference here in washington. you can see his antiyour remarks tonight at 9:15 eastern on c-span2 be also speaking at the conference transportation secretary ray lahood on the obama administration's plans to expand service. this is 20 minutes. >> to be very brief this man needs no introduction. we are very fortunate we were seated next to each other in a program that did not start on time so we had a good 20 minutes to get to know each other and have been best friends since and have gotten to know the secretary very well. we give them a little travel together as well and he has been just a great fellow traveler in the obama administration and in the brief introduction i will just say that last year working together the secretary said we want to make sure the transportation is helping the export initiative.

we formed the agreement with the maritime administration at the department of transportation to have greater transparency and make it easier for the u.s. exporters to shift on u.s. ships to make sure we stay competitive and meet delivery deadlines so let's just give the secretary of round of applause. [applause] >> good morning. fred is palms partner at the best dinner party i hope some of you get invited some time. i doubt if he can invite all of you but if you ever get an invitation to his dinner parties, they are the best. [laughter] >> let me ask you this question since you are wrapping up your time as the secretary that that is a long rap up what has been the best part of the shop? >> carrying out the president's agenda. we can to this job for and a half years ago and the thing about president obama is he is a

big infrastructure president and has a big bold vision for infrastructure and we've launched for the president his high-speed rail initiative. people in america have traveled all over europe and asia and have ridden the train when they come back to america they say how come we don't have them? if president eisenhower had signed the high-speed passenger rail bill instead of the interstate bill we would probably have the kind of trains you'll have in europe and asia that we have the state of the art interstate system. what we've tried to do over the last four and a half years is employment division for high-speed passenger rail and safety in all modes of transportation, planes, trains, automobiles and safety is a very, very strong part of our agenda. but we also had the privilege for right in the beginning almost within 30 days of the president being sworn then he signed the economic stimulus bill, which our part it really

did work. i know you may have seen articles that it didn't work that that is nonsense. it did workweek of $48 billion in two years we took the 48 billion retreated 65,000 jobs and 15,000 projects, roads, bridges, light rail, st cards. the reason i say that is what we do create jobs. it creates economic opportunities. that's what we do, that's what the infrastructure does that there is modernizing an airport be as great airports in america. what is modernizing the roads in good repair or bridges, whether it's implementing the streetcar system or light rail system as we've done in atlanta and detroit, charlotte, all over america. so we create opportunities for economic development for jobs and we are really improving local and state economies.

so i've been to every state in the country looking at high speed rail. the goal and the vision for the president is to connect america over the last 25 years. 80% of the country will be connected with passenger rail and that is what we are going to lead to the next generation. the next transportation for america is passenger rail to do around america what we've done in the northeast corridor the good trains, comfortable trains the writer ship is at an all-time high in the northeast corridor. to fix up the infrastructure so that we can get a little faster train. in california they have a plan

where we have invested $3 billion they have over $10 billion invested to they are going to have a train from san francisco to san diego 200 miles per hour within the next ten years thanks to the leadership of governor brown and the assembly. so we are not going to have 200-mile an hour trains on the corridor we are going to have faster trains and on time trains >> how does this compare when you are a house member? >> i wouldn't go back to the house of representatives if you all the elected me. [applause] >> i wouldn't do it. it's a good job, being in the congress is a good job if you get anything done in congress and four and a half years we have done a lot of good in terms of putting people to work and building infrastructure creating economic development it's just because we can make decisions. you don't have to get 535 people

and these into under 18 in the house which is what it takes to pass the bill. i love my work in the house and i still have many colleagues, former colleagues and friendships, but this is a great job, and mainly because the president really believes in infrastructure and really believes it is a way to get america back to work moving again and creating economic opportunity. >> to back to the answer but six of my questions already. >> we will see what you'll want to say. >> i think there is a microphone going around. >> any questions? >> what do we need to do on the freight rail side? >> great question. we have committed a policy

committee within the department and the edify is we committee the policy committee set the policy for the freight and its three inclusive, all forms of transportation so we can coordinate. we have a great system i think it is the best in the world with our class one freight rail and what they do on the jobs that they provide and they deliver goods all over america e and goods that come from the outside into our country we just need to make sure there's a lot of coordination between the trucking and the maritime industry and our freight rail industry so the freight rail policy group within the department will rely on this advisory committee which we've just solicited and we have lots of interest over this advisory committee to help us put together a very strong a coordinated policy that includes

all modes of transportation. >> do we have a question here? there's one. >> hello, mr. secretary. flem bloomberg. >> he's from the media. we need to let these people pay to get in here to ask a question. >> let the record show by eight deferred. >> did you pay to get in here? go ahead. >> you get a free question. we don't want to stand and wait a first amendment. go ahead. he is a great reporter and is also thorough. we've never had a complete and that is why he gets a free question. >> i won't go into the

complaint. my question is on the 787 in your role in putting it back. do you have any sense on the timetable that one has completed on the test? >> they are doing the test now and we have agreed with the test they are doing and when we complete the test the will give us the information and we will make a decision. >> i know you wanted something more definitive. [laughter] we want to get it right and make sure everything is correct and share with the public that these planes are safe. we think the plan to put together was a good plan and they are carrying it out and we will see what the results are. >> why we are waiting, safety is a big issue. one of the most critical issues.

>> here is what we say about safety. thousands of people boarded planes, trains, got in their automobile today and what they didn't think about was safety. that's what we think about. think of all the people aboard the plane today or got in their car or boarded a train. people don't think about safety, but we do. we want to make sure when somebody boards a plane the pilot is well trained and has the experience that the plane is mechanically okay. that's what we do when it comes to transit systems will oversee transit systems and that's what we do when it comes to automobiles. we make sure automobiles are safe and if they are not, we'll hold the automobile companies feet to the five-year although they want safe cars, too. but we take our safety agenda as one of our top priorities because we know that people just don't think about it.

they take it for granted. and so, it is a very important part of the work we do. we have people they get up every day and come to the dot and the thing they think about more than anything else is safety. >> in your travel and other countries is their safety we can emulate here? >> we have lots of countries coming to the united states working with our safety people particularly when it comes to cars. we have just taken a group of companies off the road because they are fly by night companies. we take them off the road and slap another name on the bus and they are back again. we have taken that as one of our top priorities to make sure we get these companies so that the buses are safe but also that the drivers are properly licensed. we do the same with trucking companies and they do take safety as their number one priority. but we have some fly by night

bus companies that we've taken off the road. we have a lot of folks that come to us because we are the experts on safety. >> a question there and in the front. >> i have a question about the high-speed rail. i'm from the east coast but i live in california now. 200-mile an hour trains, the east coast is a very dense area, california and the western states are not a dense area. i think what's happening just because i live in california it's kind of losing steam that the high-speed rail what happened but probably not as fast as the administration would like it too. how are we going to make it cost-effective for someone to get from say los angeles to san francisco when there is really nothing in between to get on the

east coast you have four or five cities, major cities in between. it's time in transit. between the cities where there may not necessarily be a stop although there would be for bakersfield so that the transit systems can connect. that's what they really do in other countries, certainly in asia and china and japan and the connectivity so that people have a way to get to the trains that are running on the corridor is a part of california is really planning and it's an important component of it so that you just don't have a straight line, but there are ways for people to have access to the trains from

cities where the train had not stopped. in illinois, for example, which is my home state, we have invested over $3 billion in the infrastructure there to get the trains to a faster speed from 79 miles an hour to 210 miles an hour. and, there aren't going to be stops, for the simple, my home community of peoria is not going to have a train stop there. but we aren't going to provide some connectivity from peoria to bloomington normal so that people can get back-and-forth and that just has to be a part of the plan. i don't -- i don't agree to a i know that there was a recent poll in california, and i don't know the questions were to i didn't forget the details today i can tell you there was a strong sentiment from the people. the people ahead of the politicians. people want politicians to read any of you that have driven in california know what a mess it is on the highways, and people would love to have an opportunity to be able to get on the train and be efficient with

some speed for an on-time arrival and that is really what the plans are in california and i think it's going to happen. >> right behind you. >> we have one right here. >> i want to take a quick second. we have a number of the advisory communities here. can i take one seconds to ask the adviser to stand because the dewey great job by inviting us and i haven't had a chance to announce it yet. [applause] there's about five of them standing and another ten or 12 beyond them. >> mr. secretary, how much can we truly expect the impact of the sequester to have on the domestic air travel? >> visa cluster is going to have a huge impact. i know there was a recent article that said the haven't had any impact. it hadn't started until april

april 1st, and for example we have to find a billion dollars. we don't have the luxury of moving money around. the sequestered does not allow us to do that. so, we have had to find $600 million at the faa and that is a lot of money and makes it very difficult and that is why we are looking at closing towers and furloughing some of our employees which is a very tough thing to do. and it's not any way to run an aviation system i can tell you that. >> we have a question in the corner. >> i had the pleasure of meeting the secretary. i graduated from the united states academy command to have done wonderful things for the maritime ministry you might want to relate that to the rest of the gentlemen and ladies here. >> well, let's get -- and going to keep on moving this question.

>> i don't want to be blowing my horn. >> go right ahead. >> i will, but go ahead. here we go. >> i am from business times. mr. secretary, the most important thing for the world economics every country expect america to finance their projects but as we know all of the activities delivered on the highways impact the city where the roads are pewee refinancing. why not get the countries to come to america and have the project because america has done so much for the world i think that a lot has to come back to america to do something good. >> there are some investors from japan and china looking at

investing in high-speed rail from japan looking at the northeast corridor and in china they are looking at investing in def trail out -- rail out west. that is something that we have really encouraged because we know that there is not enough money here in washington to be able to fund the high speed rail. we know of people here in america. let me say a word about maritime because we have put a lot of emphasis on our maritime and we have worked very closely with a credit export-import bank on this to make sure that the maritime industry, which creates a lot of jobs really, and one of the things that we have done as we have tried to upgrade the marine academy where we have over a thousand students who are training to be working in the maritime industry which is a great reservoir and supply of young people who eventually will be in the industry.

we've put out the three and highway program, a plan to use the waterways along the parts and we've also emphasized the ports. we funded 19 different ports in the country and we believe they are economic engines in the communities and we also believe that with the expansion in the panel can now some of the ports in america are just going to expand dramatically. so these investments are very, very critical. >> we have time for one last question. >> mr. secretary, related to the sea are 17 and maritime just want to complicate the department. it is a pleasure working with them. it's also good to see the revival of some of the u.s. fleet we have also some carriers youth with from this new investment. i did a study and see the of

lions and sea lanes. my question to you is how do you see this bring back some of the innovation that the u.s. brought to shipping? >> we have to continue to invest in the ports and take advantage in the expansion of the panel can now. we have to implement the marine highway plan. we have to continue to do what we did with the export import bank and really meeting with fred and putting together a good agreement on the use of american ships and american companies to transport our goods around america and around the world and it's a priority. making it a priority and making sure that the maritime industry has all of the tools it needs to be successful that's what we've tried to do for the last four and a half years and we appreciate the support of the industry. >> i've got 13 seconds. let's give the secretary a round

of applause. [applause] >> all of us here in the colorado river basin or watershed we are talking about somewhere between 35 to 40 million people now in the united states and mexico as well. they all depend -- we all depend on the colorado river as a basic water source.

we need it for everything from municipal used to drink. we need it for the houses and the industry, we need it for mining and most importantly the biggest water user is still agriculture. we can to grow anything without it. it is considered to be the most litigated river and the world and that is probably very accurate. more lawsuits are created to regulate what is collectively known as well all of the river. there's probably 13, 15 major laws that have spent the whole 20th century really up until the present time that talks about who gets how much of the slaughter and who can take it and how much every year, how to share it and our relationship with mexico and the water as well.

now more from the annual export import bank conference here in washington with the vice president joe biden. he outlined the obama administration efforts to expand export opportunities for american companies. this is 35 minutes. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen please welcome the vice president of the united states, joe biden. ♪

♪ [applause] >> good afternoon, chairman, members of the board of directors, and ladies and gentlemen. my name is jeneane. i am the founder and the co-owner of miss jenny's pickles to read our headquarters are located in corners all north carolina. i am so honored and so grateful to be introducing vice president joe biden, our keynote speaker. but before i do i would like to share our story. miss jenny's pickles was born after our business partner and i were laid off during the recession. we took a family recipe, and we start our own company. in the beginning we grew our own cucumbers and we jarred every jar. our partnership was formed with

a local ymca to use their kitchen. we knocked on doors for the stores to carry our pickles and we were in 50 stores by 2010. by the end of 2011, we were carried into hundred stores, and by the end of 2012, we are now in over 900 stores. [applause] pfft. knowing that not only 95% of the world's population lives outside of the united states. [laughter] >> i was just telling them to sit down. >> yes, please sit down. i forgot to tell them. i forgot to tell them. i'm so sorry. [laughter] >> pilat 95% of the population was outside of the united

states. we know exporting was crucial to our success, we have now been exporting for two years. people in china, in fact they just left yesterday, which is our second shipment. mongolia, the u.k., and very soon canada. in three short years from exporting to allow us to grow our staff to 12 in four years. that is 250% increase in employment. and by the end of 2013, we are going to do a million dollars in sales and i hope 20% of that is an exporting. [applause]

>> please join me in welcoming the united states president vice president joe biden.

[applause] >> jenny said to me good luck. >> i was telling jennie backstage a lot of you know my home state of delaware for the chemical and the banking industry but i remember the single biggest industry back in delaware is agriculture and pickles are a part of that and his employees a whole lot of people and generates a lot of balance and served -- surplus. i kid with people who don't know much about farm economy and i would challenge you this. you can go to any -- this is obviously an ad live here, but if you go to any of the major cities in america, walked into a

fancy restaurant and talk about foreign policy with the folks in that restaurant, i will take you to the diner in southern delaware out in the middle and you sit down with a bunch of farmers and they can talk foreign policy literally. they know more about what is going on because they know the folks that want to settle over there and that is what you all are about. i especially want to start by thanking fred. he has done incredibly important work and we owe him a great deal. fred, we owe you a great deal of help for what you have done to boost american exports. but every single job that you have ever taken, you have done extremely well. and i want you to know and i mean this seriously and personally and on behalf of the president we appreciate your dedication more than you know. and so it is an honor also to be with the rest of you this afternoon to have a chance to

speak with so many people on the front lines of our economic renewal. i a understand probably better than almost anyone can you understand almost better than anyone the sheer potential that this global economy of words to the united states of america can you are well aware of the challenges as well to get this is a familiar story. in the post war, post world war era we faced a different set of challenges in the global economy reemerged in the structures of the war and we knew the institutions were needed to navigate through this new world order. and because our parents and grandparents were why is and because they were committed, we did what we've always done best. we exercised our global leadership. we were driving behind the creation of the world bank, the international monetary fund of allows the world trade organization, the architecture

for the global economic system. our companies and financial institutions from that period through the mid 80's and 90's were instrumental in establishing the standards for the corporate responsibility and transparency in governance. defining the norms that shape the good business practices in an increasingly global economy. and thanks to all of you participating in that global economy, you will know better than most that this is self evident, and while many americans, too many americans to those institutions in the norm seem to be abstract but not to all of you, they have helped to grow the most successful middle class in the world to lead the expansion and share prosperity in the united states and throughout the world. we didn't just stumble upon our economic destiny. we shake it.

we shake our economic destiny. and now we have to reshape it. it's a different fault. my colleagues are always kidding me and fred heard me say this quoting the average poets' all the time i think i do it because i'm irish. i don't, i do it because they are the best poets. [laughter] and there is a poem yates wrote after the first rising, that is the irish catholic called the last time we tried to get rid of the bridges. but they decided to write a poem called easter sunday, 1916 and he has a line in there that i think a better describes the world today than it described his ireland and easter sunday 1960. he said all has changed to read a terrible beauty has been born. all has changed. in the last decade all has

changed in terms of the global economy and in terms of the rules of the road and the lack of the roles in the road. they tried to figure out where we sit with them and so on, and so these institutions that the affirmative task we have now is to actually create a new world order because the global order is changing again. and the institution is of role that works so well in the post-world war two era for decades that the need to be strengthened. and some have to be changed. so, we have to do what we do best. we have to lead to the we have to leave. we have to update the global rules of the road and we have to do it in a way that maximizes benefits for everyone because obviously it is overwhelmingly in our interest. this isn't a zero sum game it is overwhelming our interests that china prosper, that mongolia

prosper, that the nation's big and large, east and west, in latin america and in africa prosper because that old expression they ask why rob of bank and he said that's where the money is. [laughter] we want everybody to have a little money. to make sure they can buy american products. so, the paradox -- [applause] the president and i, we don't view economic growth as a zero sum game as somehow we grow and it's in the interest of other major powers to grow as well. that is the paradox of the new global order. so much of our success depends upon the success of those with whom we compete. that is a challenge the president and i and the entire administration take very seriously it's been in the center of our economic philosophy from the day we took

office. from our perspective there are two things we must do abroad to ensure our strength at home. first we have to reorient our focus not just words the greatest threats but the greatest opportunities that exist for us. second, we have to level the playing field that the old phrase is almost over used over the last 20 years but it's true. we have to level the playing field so the american companies and workers can compete in the world that the competition is fair and it's healthy. to the first point, we came into office facing the worst financial recession since the great depression. we had to unfreeze the credit markets before the financial system and inject demand back into the economy and while the agenda is far from complete we've made significant progress with all of your help. ..

>> on sustainable economic growth, but there's so much more we have to do. in the second term, the president and i believe we have to take up the task of updating the international economic ark architecture that must serve as foundation for long term american economic growth. that's one of the reasons we dedicated so much attention to asia. we're proud of the role we played for decades ensuring stability and security in the asia pacific region. i had a number of the long meetings over a period of ten days and five in china, five

here with the president because president wu and president obama want one of us to establish a relationship. it was -- it was fascinating. they asked about how we viewed ourselves. we are a pacific power. we are a pacific power. we will remain a pa civic power. he and others acknowledged that the reason our presence, our influence in the region since world war ii is one of the reasons why china has been able to -- been able to expand in economic growth in terms of conditions and stability. the world's economic engine shifted eastward, and we know it's in asia where the opportunity of the 21st century are found. asia accounts for one-quarter of the global gdp. over five years, asia pacific may account for as much as 60%

of global growth, and that's why through the efforts like the transpacific partnership, our work in apec, our strategic and economic dialogues of the chinese, indians issue and other, and our enhanced engagement in southeast asia, we're continuing to assert ourselves as a resident economic power in the region. think about the opportunity that the transpacific partnership alone remits, 11 members comprising 168 million with combined economic output of 65 trillion dollars a year. we've worked to forge an agreement that brings together economies from across the pacific, development and developing -- developed and developing alike. the transpacific partnership is perhaps the most ambitious trade negotiation underway in the world. it will break new ground on important issues from the challenges of state owned

enterprises to ensuring the free flow of da to across borders, enhancing supply chains, ensuring transparency and cutting red tape and work to strengthen protections for labor and the environment. the transpacific partnership is open to countries willing to meet our ambitions. since we started negotiations, vietnam, malaysia, mexico, canada, all joined. we continue to welcome other countries, the interest of other countriesing inning japan. that was a -- countries including japan. that was a conversation when the president was here. our goal is for high standards for the transpacific partnership to enter the bloodstream of the global system and improve rules and norms and affects conduct in those countries as well. as the president and others, the transpacific partnership leaders

stated we intend to conclude negotiations this year. our economic engagement with europe, by the way, is no less ambitious. we build a specially deep and robust security institutions that span the atlantic, and now it's time for the cooperation to catch up and sink deeper roots because the truth is the united states and the european union are each other's most important trading partners and will remain so. the u.s. commercial relationship today exceeds $5 trillion, far aaway the world's largest, but we know, we know, you know, we can do more. that's why we have been on negotiations on the trade vinestment partnership. this is a big opportunity. a new partnership to build on what's already the leading export market supporting more than an estimated 2.4 million way paying american jobs, but this is not purely about basic

economic gain. it's about the possibility to drive progress together on shared priorities. that's why we have an ambitious agenda to tackle costly, colted behind the border barriers to the flow of goods and services, improve transparency, and develop rules and prince. s to improve global competitiveness. again, i'll say it, when i was in china speaking to the great hall of the people and talked about our economy, i made it clear when i was recently in germany with the chancellor, in paris with the president, in england with the prime minister. we, americans, we welcome competition. it's stained into our dna. it is not a problem. it is not a problem. period. that is the point with regard to

both these -- both of the trade agreements. we're talking -- what we're talking about is shaping a new standard that can become the met trick by which all are measured. that's the first part of the question. the second is something i know this audience understands well. i don't have to tell you -- i stated it about competition. you're out there fighting every single day. you know. you know that competition pushes our companies and our people to perform better, genuine competition. america welcomes it. i said it's stitched into the fabric of our society, our economic system, and the benefits of healthy competition require, though, a level playing field or at least close similarities to a playing field. we even win when the field is not quite level, but literally, i mean, this sincerely, this is

not hyperbole. when the field is level, american workers, the american capitalist system, the american market system, the american ingenuity can and does compete with anyone in the world on any level. [applause] i have overwhelming confidence on the competitive capacity of the american worker. they are the most productive workers in the world today. we will not fully realize our potential if the game is rigged and this -- and there's a lot of rigging going on right now. that's why we're troubled by state owned so-called national champion competitors that enjoy sub sigh subsidized financing, cheap inputs artificially

inflating by con stricting foreign investments or trade designed to indeuce american companies to transfer their technology, their manufacturing as a condition of market access, by procurement rules that infairly keep american companies from the chance to compete, and by government that steal our intellectual property to benefit favored companies increasingly. increasingly. we're seeing wholesale theft of confidential business information and propriortary technology through cyber intrusion. that has to stop. it has to stop. as i point out when i travel in other country, and i've traveled about 700,000 miles worth of other countries in the last four and a half years, i really mean this that when i talk to leaders of other countries about the theft of intellectual property and talk to them about the issues, i point out that they

are denying their own people the promise of being able to become more competitive because indigenous capacity to grow creatively is stifled when they engage in the theft of intellectual property. these are serious challenges. in many way, they are growing challenges. we're taking them on each in turn, enforcing trade rules on the books, bringing in a record number of cases to the wto, new rules and standards for global trade, and working to strengthen global growth and global financial systems figging for american companies. i make no apology when i travel abroad to make the case for american companies, no policy, part of our obligation is, in a

sense, to be an extended chamber of commerce to ensure american companies get an even shot, that part of our responsibility in our view. we're fighting for american companies doing the hard gripping daily work of economic diplomacy. these efforts, large and small, are outside the public eye, but they pay off. just in the last few days, the usda opened taiwan $8 million tresh potato market to the colorado farmers. the commerce department increases trade with mongolia with u.s. exports growing more than 150% in four years. the dialogue where the united arab emirates builds on our $20 billion exports last year. we've celebrated xm's record breaking deal this year of $5

billion loan to support more than 1 -- excuse me, more than 18,000 american jobs. these efforts involve everyone from the president on down. last year, i sat hammering out deals to open china ease auto insurance market and the quota that unfairly limits chinese imports of american movies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. you ask them to play on the world stage, you have to play by the rules. you know, as i said, i traveled the world for the president over four years, and everywhere i go, i, along with everyone else fight for america's economic interests. in a way, china and russia made the case as mentioned before that a playing field is in their

interest to develop their economies and their countries. an open, free, transparent, and fair as well. when countries stick to the rules of the road, globally, they tend to build better institutions at home requiring the reforms that can secure any countries' long term security and prosperity. that's how a global playing field and global economy supports values we want everywhere, free exchange of ideas, free enterprise, transparency, anticorruption, the rule of law. we take these res very -- these issues very seriously. we take seriously the need to attract global investments in the united states. in the past, that's been an easy sales pitch. america has long had, still has the most productive workers in the world, the best research universities in the world, rule of law, honor contracts, legal

obligations, protect intellectual property, but it's about the culture of innovation. i don't know of any other country in the world, including our european partners, that would encourage its people to challenge orthodoxy. we have trouble with our education that we try to improve, but the one thing our system that stands out, no matter what the school, children are encouraged to challenge orthodoxy, not accept it, and, in fact, we just don't encourage it, we teach it. steve jobs in the famous exchange with the student in stanford, what do i have to do to be more like you, paraphrasing, he said, think different. you can't think different in a country where you can't speak freely. you can't think different in the country where you are not allowed to challenge the orthodoxy. you can't think different in the country that limits what you can

be engaged in. that's why i'm optimistic about our future, i believe in the 21st century, the true wealth of the nation found in the creative mind of the people and ability to innovate, develop new products and industries. the united states of america is hard wired for innovation. it has enabled generation after generation of americans to give life to world changing ideas from the cot tin gin, airplane, microchip, and the internet. the list goes on and on and on, the accomplishments made possible by the capacity of the american people and the immigrants who constantly enrich and revitalize our national fabric, and that, more than anything, is why i truly believe we're better positioned than any country in the world to be the leading economy in the 21st century, but at the same time, we know that things are

changing. we have to make sure we maintain our edge. we need to make sure we're fully equipped for the coming competition. that takes me to the last point. that's why we're investing so much in education. that's why we think it's critical and making early education, stem education, such a high priority, make investments, research and developments critical, and the economic agenda, committed to the cutting edge technology to help ensure that the new, new thing, which is now an old, old phrase is not just imagined here, but it is manufactured here, and that's why we encyst on updating our infrastructure so that we can accommodate the rapidly changing world, not only will we encourage businesses to stay in america and invest in america, but it will create jobs on a scale we require right now. it's essential to reform the immigration system.

every year, we, in a sense, export. every year, our university system generates roughly 40,000 people with ph.d., master degrees in areas of science and technology that we need, and we make sure that they are promptly escorted back to their country. at the same time, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on stem education. it makes no sense, in my humble opinion. sending them back to the country denies them of a visa even when they have a job waiting. rather than sending them home, stamp their card as they walk across the stage -- [laughter] literally, i mean this literally [applause] if they have a job here, stay here. we should want them here. ladies and gentlemen, i'm opposed to additional h1b visas

so american employers can hire best and brightest no matter where they come from. you know, in very real terms, our future national competitiveness is tied to getting a comprehensive education reform bill on the president's desk. those are the things we are doing right now, infrastructure, investment, innovative technologies, education, immigration. these are the things, like, for example, the president announced the hundred million, had our way, we'd be a billion dollar project to map the human brain. that's not an idle exercise as i watch some of the talk show guys thinking, well, you know, i mean, we should scan their brains. [laughter] but i'm serious. it's amazing. sense when did we become the

nation that instead of embracing science and believing that we can solve any problem and extending ourselves, since when is that anticompetitive or antibusiness or liberal? ladies and gentlemen, these are the things we're doing right now and continue to make america a place where foreign companies want to put down roots. we have one of the most open economies in the world, so we know there are great opportunities for investment in the united states of america. we are determined to make sure foreign investors know of them as well. for the first time ever; we have an initiative to help foreign companies that want to invest in america. to figure out how to do so, very much in the interest for that to happen. each of these actions will have

another effect which is maybe the most important of all, the most important to do, and i think this audience probably understands it. that is, i think we have to help grow the base of american exports in the supporting companies, include the products and services that the u.s. trend, but are not exported at the rate they could be, and also includes encouraging more first rate exporters in the united states. as all of you know, reaching a 95% of the consumers who live beyond our borders is not merely an opportunity for american companies, but more and more it's a necessity for american companies. we've made progress in that front. last year, u.s. exports had a record of 2.2 trillion. without question, this export growth is contributed to americas creating more than 6 million jobs in the past 30 #

month, and i believe if we get it right, we can achieve even greater results. i absolutely, firmly believe we can do this. i've referred to as the white house optimist. now, i read that all the time. well, it's like i'm the new guy, i just fell off the turnip truck yesterday. [laughter] in case, you have not noticed, i've been there longer than any of them. [laughter] i hope y'all haven't notice that, but i'm afraid it's self-evident. [laughter] i'm optimistic, not out of naivety, but i know the history of the jury of the country. history of the journey of the country is every single challenge we've unleashed the american people and all of you have never failed to be met given the american people have the chance. we have big challenges, challenges we have to attend to,

but we attend to them as long as we're in the white house, we continue to tend to them, and i expect a democratic republican who follows them has no choice but to attend to them. the truth is the reason america's been a global leader for so long is not luck. it's not a matter of chance. it's a matter of effort. it's a matter of thinking about the next step. it's a matter of understanding how much it matters. we've always rise p in the challenge. that's who we have always been. as i made in the outoutset, stamped into our dna and why so many people still, as corny as it sounds, why so many people still want to come to the united states. we'll rise to the challenge, and, hopefully, we'll be led by all of you in the room. as i told many foreign leaders,

it's never, never been a good bet to bet against america. i mean that sincerely. [applause] never, never, never give us a benefit of the doubt. [applause] the reason is not as if all of you in the room, fred, you're doing a great job, all of you are in this for yourselves and for your country and i just think the next 20 years we have a chance to leave our kids and our grand kids in a position where they are -- they are clearly, une qifly better positioned and remain better positioned than any country in the world to be the leading economy in the worldment thank you, all, very much for listening, and i appreciate being here. [applause] thank you. [applause]

>> where's the predictability? what are the assurances that this committee in the senate has as to where you'll be given the background and the history? >> the fact that as a teenager and into my early 20s i was a socialist hardly seems to me to indicate fundmental instability

because as winston church hill, i think it was, said any man who's not a socialist before he's 40 has no heart, and any man a socialist after he's 40 has no head. [laughter] i think that kind of evolution is very common in people. >> on those two characters that you saw, one, the einstein of the law, and the other was the einstein of the senate. you had two trains passing in the night. spector was one of the toughest, hardest senators to like on anything, let alone supreme court nominees. he did his home work. he studied. on the other hand, a brilliant -- he was smarter in a lot of way, a brilliant judge and brilliant -- he taught antitrust law. he wrote the book up at yale. here these two guys meet and passed like two trains, never did they ever come together on anything. >> more with former deputy assistant to president nixon on

ford sunday night at eight on c span's "q&a." members discuss the war in afghanistan and how it's been handled the last ten years. hosted by the cato institute, this is an hour and a half. >> my pleasure to welcome you to the event, "the war in afghanistan: what went wrong?" republican and democratic lawmakers passed the afghanistan freedom support agent in 2002 which pledged no less than four times to advance the creation of a, quote, broad based multiethnic gender sensitive and fully representative government in afghanistan, unquote. those goals were in keeps with the 2001 bond agreement in which the united states and the international community pledged to help, quote, end the conflict in afghanistan and promote reconciliation, lasting peace, stability, and republic for human rights in the country,

unquote. nearly 11 years later, a daily parade of reports detailing human rights abuses, bloody insurgent attacks, chronic political instate, and rampant petty and large scale corruption, afghanistan continues to face serious obstacles. what went wrong? typically, here's one of two responses. the first is that president george w. bush squandered america's quick and easy victory committing troops in the beginning and redistricting america's energies to iraq. his policies created a vacuum that enabled the taliban to resurface. the second explay mages for what went wrong is barack obama shifted america's focus back to america, but failed to fully resource the mission and wrong by -- wrongly fix the date for ending conflict involve. the answers have a great deal of merit. the project to create a viable, centralized, afghan government may have been doomed to fail from the very beginning.

the base about the war in afghanistan was the war in iraq, wrapped up in procedural questions in planning and execution and appeal to counterfactuals if only we did this differently or that differently, but we rarely challenges underlying assumption we could have ever promoted national reconciliation, lasting peace, or built a capable and popular government. in addition to what seems to be an unquestioned faith about abilities in afghanistan, both the bush and obama administrations promoted beliefs that establishing rule of law, building infrastructure, growing an economy, eliminating corruption, and resolves disputes would somehow prevent another terrorist attack on american soil. the prevailing assumption that rebilling afghanistan and other failed states is necessary to cure terrorism is fallacious, costly, and ultimately, dangerous. they pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into one of the world's poorest economy. that infusion of aid exacerbated

the conflict, created winners and losers, and among a host of other consequences, funded insurgents with militants profiting fromming construction projects and the notion of enhancing reform in afghanistan increases u.s. security, fails to address the simpler question. even if the taliban reconquered afghanistan and invited al-qaeda back, how much of a threat would that pose to the united states? can the threat be addressed without a costly, multidecade troop heavy campaign? to help us answer the questions and the ultimate question of what went wrong, i'm pleased to have on the stage with me a distinguished panel of experts providing a broad cross section of opinion. first, we have the senior correspondent african-american associate editor the washington post, author of "little america," and from 2009 to 2011, traveled extensively through the southern prop vibeses of helmand

and kandahar to see the decision of obama's to increase troop levels. he's a best selling, award winning firsthand account of the green zone and troubled american effort to reconstruct iraq. he's proved as the washington post south asia correspondent, bureau chief, national editor, and assistant editor. the next, the director of the rand international security and defense policy center. after the atrocities of 9/11, he was named by the bush administration representative to the afghan opposition and after the 9/11 tax was taxed with putting together and installing the sees success sores to the regime and remitted the united states in the bond conference to establish the new afghan government, and on december 16th, 2001, raise the the flag over the newly reopened u.s. embassy. his assignments include withdrawal of american forces from somalia, the american-led

malt lateral intervention in haiti, reconstruction of bosnia, and naval intervention in kosovo. the final speaker is an award winning historian, associate professor of history, directer of the program at west point and 2008 article, "misreading the surge accounts appeared in the world politics review exposed the risk of intellectuals in the applications of the u.s. army's capabilities. he was among a small group of officers and defense analysts who questioned the necessity and et cay sigh of using counterinsurgency in afghanistan to droi al chis, his book "wrong turn" draws on his experiences of the combat battalion commander in iraq and research of counterinsurgency in historical context. with that, i turn the podium over.

>> thanks for that kind introduction. apologies to those who expected a pointed debate between the cato analyst and washington post editor. there are actually many, many points of agreement of what she said and what i'll talk about briefly here in opening. what went wrong? where to start with afghanistan. couple things. looking at the 2001-2009 time frame, the common criticism is that the u.s. took the eye off the ball in afghanistan to focus on iraq. that's true. i'm not going to support the iraq war by what i'm about to say, but there were two more critical mistakes made by washington and allies in my view that were only a little related to the invasion of iraq. the first is the afghan constitution. in the name of fighting corruption and promoting modernization, it centralized power in kabul to an absurd degree. karzai had the ability to hire and fire district governors and police chiefs. on paper, the constitution

aggregated power in the capitol to a degree unseen in any other country on the planet, perhaps other than north korea. the united states should have used its ample influence in the early years of the war, and this is not, by stretch of the imagination, the work of the transition their period, and it's really a set of issues that occurred after his tenure, but we should have used our influence in the early years of the war to push the afghans to change their constitution, to draft it in a way that was more if keeping with the decentralization. our failure to do that, when we have the leverage to do so, provided frame work for karzai and other political elites, call them what they are, war lords and power brokers, provided the frame work for them to establish the hypocrisy, the largest threat to the state of afghanistan. the second is our failure to help karzai in the early days of the war. back in 2002, president karzai tried to do the right thing,

wanting to take on the war lords establishing a tech any karattic government, but when he asked washington for -- to authorize deployment of ntato forces beyond kabul to other major afghan cities, he was told no. they didn't want to commit additional u.s. soldiers to the country. when karzai asked the u.s. military later in 2002 for help to remove a war lord turned governor in western afghanistan enriching himself through smuggling, and karzai argued to washington in doing so was essential to establishing the authority in the government, it was rejected on the grounds that u.s. troops could not engage on green on green activity even on which our nation was depending. we were not going to provide the muscle, karzai engaged in a rational act of self-preservation, cozying up to them. when we and our partners got wise about the damage the war lords reeked, karzai moved into their camp. let's fast forward quickly to

2009. you know the stakes. obama campaigned op afghanistan being the good war, endorsed the strategy for afghanistan in the early weeks of the first term without a discussion. general stan mcchrystal said if the didn't commit, defeating the taliban is not possible. 30 thousands troops with a deadline, and fairs troops come home within two years, a date they took from planning documents that promised areas could be cleared and turned over to the afghan security forces within 18-24 months. what went wrong? break it spue two levels. first, the second is operational, and once the president signed off, how well did the department and obama's white house, how well did they implement the policy? start with a strategy if we could, and up front, if the

conditions are right and the cost is merited, but to prevail in afghanistan, several thing had to occur, the afghan government, had to crack down on sanctuaries, the u.s. government had to be willing to commit troops and money for several years, and the american people had to be patient enough for security to improve gradually. first, talk about the afghan government. he's having a supportive credible host nation of prerequisites, and most afghans have no great love for the taliban. the afghan people know well what it was like to live under the taliban, but it turns out they have no love for the government either because the government in many places is filled p corruption, many of whom don't provide services to the population. of course, the answer in washington has been coined if only the thinking goes we can build institutions of sub national governance and connect

institutions on to the provenn issue capitol and national capitol, we can fix the mess. we're such an appealing idea, but it was fundamentally flawed because karzai has no interest in letting us succeed because if we did, it disrupts the patronage network and deals cut with regional power brockers so he undercut reformers and slow rolled efforts to build up institutions of local governance. we americans, the failure to get it down to the districts was because of a lack of human capacity. sure, that was a problem, but the bigger problem was that karzai didn't believe in the venture, and he had his ministers interfere with the process even when the united states foot the bill. pakistani government, quickly, after the leadership relocated to pakistan after the commencement of military action in afghanistan in 2001, they

were gimp a degree of safe harbor, pakistan's intelligence service, the isi, but back then in the army years of the conflict, the pakistanis refrained from giving it over. they met, reorganized, raised their money and whatnot, but they were not getting a lot of direct help. when we surged troops, all of that changed. by late 2009, they got substantial amounts of both money, intelligence, and other material by intermediaries by the pakistani military. by spring of 2011, half of them worked closely with isi operatives. the domestic front, the price tag, was it worth it? cost on average $1 million to keep one service member in afghanistan for a year. that means at the annual tab for the war in 2010 and 2011 was about $1 # 00 billion. achieving a marginally less bad outcome worth that expense?

the afghan army? rather than compelling them into action, the surge, in many cases, sent the other message. the afghans decided to hang back and let u.s. troops do the fighting. what was supposed to be a kick in the pants on golden opportunity to work in tan -- dem with the americans was a crunch. despite the assumptions that were false, the troops made progress over three years. parts of southern afghanistan that had insurgents are now largely peaceful, schools reopened, bizarres issue and people lead a normal life as possible in the southern part of the country, but are those changes really because of the troop surge or the result of -- of the military's use of counterterrorism tactics advocated by vice president biden in the white house surge debate. in late 2010, there was a huge increase in night raids to target leaders, use of air strikes and artillery

multiplied, and they got a gleef off ration. afghanistan as we know is not fully secure. eastern parts of the country are in the grip of a taliban faction backed by the isi, and in the south, the question lingers, afghans, government, their army, police force have the willingness and ability to take the baton from p troops as we come home. will the afghans sustain the gapes? all the blood and treasure spent have been worth it or slip back to chaos? i don't think they will roll into kabul as they did in the 1990s. i don't think the kabul government falls like saigons did. the afghan army will be strong enough to hold on to major population centers and key lines of communication, but the insurgents will expand in rural districts and central lees, retaping the ability to have frequent, but attacks on governments like we saw this week. the foreseeable future is

necessariy and chaotic, but americans see it as good enough. the al-qaeda leadership on the ropes, taliban takes a beating, but could that have occurred without a surge and achieve a similar necessariy, but good enough outcome without hundreds more americans dead and wounded? before i sit down, i want to turn quickly to the question how the surge was excuted. i talked briefly about the strategic disconnect, and now i want to address the operational file euro. agree or disagree, the surge was the president's strategy and the government beneath him had to make best efforts to implement it. they made critical errors. a couple drks -- the pentagon. in the summer of 2009, the most at-risk part of the country was the southern city of kandahar, a strategic price for the taliban. if they seized it, there's a crucial foothold to take over the rest of the country as they did in the 1990s. they were massive in the areas around kandahar at that time.

we would have devoted the new troops to the areas around kandahar to protect it. no, we sent the troops, a large u.s. marine brigade off to the desert of helmand province, home to fewer than 1% of afghan's population. why? tribal rivalries, not in afghanistan, but in the pentagon, that brigade was composed of u.s. marines, wanted to fight with the aviation assets, intelligence assets, logistic assets issue and so they literally needed a patch of the sand box, and instead of working to integrate them with u.s. and canadian army units operating in the units in kandahar, top commanders in kabul and top officials in the pentagon chose the path of least resistance to give them a home with bad guys to kill. we should have been near a key population center. the civilian surge was supposed to occur together with the

search to replace diplomats and reconstruction workers down there in the field with combat battalions to provide governance, services to help engage in basic reconstruction, put aside whether the notion of national governance was good or not, it was the strategy, and 10 the civilian organs the government were to send individuals down to work with the commanders. the serge unfolded a year too late. the bulk of the people didn't flow in until well after the first waves of military forces arrived, and then the bulk of them wound up staying in the rather coverletten embassy compound in kabul with the swimming pool and bar a posed to getting out in the dusty operating bases where they were most desperately needed. some of this was just a failure of imagination on the part of those doing the hiring rather than scouring the country for the right people to fill the jobs, they, instead, just waited

for resumés to come over, often from contractors who worked on wasteful projects in iraq coming for yet more lucrative employment in afghanistan. yes, afghanistan has very dire needs. rates of malnutrition, infant mortality, illiteracy, off the charts. they are the poorest. the country was starved in the initial years of the war, but there is such a thing of doing too much of ad dpoo thing. you know, the best animal -- analogy is a parched man on a hot day. a cold glass of water, but to get afghanistan right, the obama administration back in 2009, 2010, and 2011 turned a fire hose on afghanistan to spend $4 billion in 2010 on reconstruction projects in that country. it far exceeded the capacity of the country. you know, in districts in southern afghanistan, equated to more money per capita or more

money than per capita income for every man, woman, and child in those places. not surprisingly, fueled the very corruption we were trying to stem in kabul. lastly, the war within the war, in travels back and fort from afghanistan, i discovered it was not just the fighting there, but also a huge degree of bureaucratic fighting in washington in the post pitched battle that i came upon was that between the state department and the white house over the subject of reconciliation with the taliban. there was no policy disagreement. state and white house both favored trying to lay a frame work to get to negotiations with the taliban reasoning that the only way the conflict was going to end in any reasonable way was across negotiating table that you could kill every single taliban, but states, richard

holbrook, the guy with qualifications, helped broker the dayton peace accords, served on the u.s. delegation to the paris peace talks, aimed to end the vietnam war, sharp elbows, big ego, a dramatic personality that didn't go down well in a white house with a president nicknamed "no drama obama," and so officials dlitly scheduled key meetings when he was out of town, denying him use of aircraft, and the bottom line was we squandered the first year of the surge, the year that we had the most leverage because we were putting in troops, squandered the best opportunity we had to try to chart a path to work possible talks with taliban because senior officials in washington fought one another than rolling to the with trying to get to the right objective. just in closing, what should the president have done back in 2009? i'm not one of those who think we packed up and left. had we done that or even if we

do that today, that condemns the afghans to the hell of prolonged insurgency or another war. we have a moral obligation to the afghan people. we lost the war in 2001, made a promise to them that if they stood with us against the taliban, we give them a shot at a better, freer life, but that didn't require a coin strategy and surge that tired us out. one of the main characters in the afghanistan book, a brave state department officer, spent seven years in iraq and afghanistan, more than any other american diplomat. argued that instead of going big with the surge or packing up and going home, we, american, should have gone long. the president had to determine how many troops he was going to be willing to commit to afghanistan, perhaps for 10 years, and that he needed to pledge that level of support for the afghan people. that would have meant no surge and troop reductions in 2009, but he was convinced that a smaller, enduring force is smarter on all fronts to appeal to the afghans, shaped the

presidents on foreign soil, compelled the afghan army to quickly assume responsibility to fight the taliban, and force the americans to focus only on the most essential mission rather than nation building projects. afghanistan, he said, is a marathon, not a sprint. the surge was a sprint. we got winded too quickly. surging was the easy thing to do, he said. it's much harder to say no. thank you. [applause] >> so, again, thanks for inviting me to this. i think there's a good deal of agreement between myself and the previous speakers, but i think the -- i have a somewhat different emphasis, and to come look at most glasses as half full rather than half empty. i do want to get to what we've

done wrong and what went wrong in afghanistan. i think it's useful to start off with what's gone right. since 2001, afghanistan's gdp has gone up by -- has gone up five times, five times, and there were 700,000 kids in school, now there's 8 million, a third girls, and 77,000 university students in afghanistan. as a result of that, literacy, which i think was around 15% in 2001 is already up to 35%. ten years from now, more than half of afghans will be able to read and write, 55% in ten years, and 80% in 20 years. about 60% of afghans currently have access to very basic health care. the result is that longevity has gone up from 44 years, life expectancy in 2001 to 60 years

life expectancy today. maternal mortality, women dying in childbirth, reduced by 80%. child mortality is down by 44%. afghans have access to a vibrant and numerous media with hundreds of radio stations, dozens of privately owned tv stations, about 60% of afghans today have access in some ways to television, 95% of them listen to the radio, and rather remarkably, given no afghans had a tfn in 2001, two-thirds of afghan households currently have telephones. the result is an afghan public that's a lot more optimistic about their future than we tend to be about their future. in fact, they are a lot more optimistic about their future than we are about our future. [laughter] in the recent opinion poll, 52% of afghans thought that the

future would be better than the past an better than their current situation. they were optimistic, up from 46% the year earlier. if you ask the afghans the classic ronald reagan question, are you better off today than you were four years ago? 53% said yes. in the united states, it's around 15%. afghans rather surprisingly have high degrees of confidence in their army, 9 # -- 93%, police force, 882%, government, 75%. now, a lot of people say, well, that's just giving ans to the questions that think they you want to hear or the government want to hear, but it shows high degrees of concern about corruption and clear criticisms of the government against general backgrounds. we started off by listing our aspirations for afghanistan in very broad terms r and i --

term, and i think if you always measured achievement by aspiration, you'd almost always come up short. ten years after the american resolution, you declare failure because we had not declared a society with the declaration of independence, all men createdded equal, took a hundred years to rid slavery and 150 years to get women to vote, and we're still fighting over issues of equality today, so, no, we have not met many of the aspirations. we did -- just finished up a study at the rand corporation taking 20 societies in which there have been military interventions of a peace keeping or peace enforcement sort since the end of the cold war, incoming all the big american ones, somalia, afghanistan, coz vow, iraq, and also smaller u.n. peace keeping operations and measured progress in all of these over a temperature---

ten-year period using internationally recognized embassies using freedom house measurements to determine how much freedom there is. it rating every year with a knew -- knew mother kl rating. there's ratings for human development, a rating based on the degree of education and health and standards of living in the country. we used the world bank ratings for government effectiveness, how effective was the government? we used, and we used imf figures for economic growth. across these 20 societies where there's been military interventions and in the context of post, ideally, post conflict environments. of the 20, afghanistan on democracy was in the middle, a 15% improvement in democracyization over that temperature year period. 234 terms of economic growth, second from the top. in terms of government

effectiveness, second from the top. they are rates of improvement, not absolute achievement, and in human development, it was the top of all 20 # -- 20 countries. there have been things that have gone right in afghanistan, but of those 20 societies, 16 are at peace today, so 16 of those 20 interventions succeeded in bringing enduring peace, and afghanistan is one of the ones that didn't, and after all of that, that's a central failure in any kind of peace operation, and so what did we do wrong? well, i think in the 1990s in the course of the clinton administration, we learned something about nation building, post conflict intervention, reconstruction, stabilization operations, whatever terminology you want to use. we learned, i think, three big lessons, particularly after the initial failure in somalia, a

complete catastrophe. you know, lesson one was go in big. don't dribble your forces in, don't be incremental, deploy a large, impressive peace keeping force, establish security, and then draw the force down once you detoured the emergence of any violence resistance movements. secondly, recognize that in the aftermath of the conflict, the indigenous institutions for public security will have been disintegrated or discredited by reasons of prior behavior or totally destroyed, and as a result, you, the intervening party, are going to have to assume responsibility for public safety, for policing, for some interval until indigital nows institutions can be restored, that can take over those responsibilities. thirdly, you need to involve the neighboring societies in your project, not in the peace keeping element of it, but in

the political aspects of the project. if you feel your project, a society you're trying to build or rebuild is not in their interest, they will have, by reason of their proximity, by reason of their commercial, remedial, religious, ideological, tribal connections, the ability to subvert your effort. the classic case of that is when we brought peace to bosnia, we invited the presidents of croatia and ser ya, both guilty of the genocide we were trying to stop to the peace conference involving them in implementing the peace conference. if we took the view that they were war criminals and were not going to talk to them, they would be still fighting in bos bosnia. it's the cation of making sure the neighbors are brought into the project. the bush administration came into power in the 1990s, and they opposed all clinton interventions, and they

criticized them and they criticized the project of nation building. during the three debates that gore and bush had leading up to the presidential election, the only foreign policy issue that was discussed in all three of the debates was nation building. happy days when the only foreign policy that the presidential candidates had to discuss was whether or not to send peace keeping forces into post-conflict societies, but that was it, and bush said he was not going to do this anymore. of course, in the first three years in office, he invaded three new countries so he went into afghanistan in 2001, into iraq in 2003, and, by the way, we forget, in 2004, u.s. troops went back to haiti, yet again. the bush administration felt compelled intoed nation building, although it was not called that, even though they promised not to do it, and they were determined to do it very deformly. they were not going to learn the lessons that the clinton

administration absorbed. they were going to approach this fundamentally differently, and don rumsfeld explained the small foot bript low profile approach to nation building arguing in flooding kosovo with economic assistance and manpower, we made the two societies, turned those societies into permanent wards of the international community, and we were going to avoid doing that in afghanistan and iraq by absolutely minimizing commitments by putting in the smallest number of men and smallest amount of money possible to afghanistan and iraq would be self-sufficient more quickly. this was, in effect, a transition of the 1990s debate of u.s. welfare reform to the interthacial realm, and it could not have been more enacts. the strategy of forcing the operation under failure of

raising it once the initial commitment shown to be inadequate, only after you were facing defeat on the battlefield, turned out to be an absolutely terrible way of resourcing and vastly more expensive way of resourcing these. the first mistake that we made was inadequately resources afghanistan. if you impair initial resource for bosnia and afghanistan, for instance, the average after the war got $800 a year in international assistance. in afghanistan, it was $50 a year. in other words, bosnia on per capita basis got 16 times more assistance than afghanistan. if you look at the amount of international military forces committed to security, then the number's more striking putting 60,000 troops, we, nato, put 60,000 troops in a society of 3 million people. a year afte w