that the institute of medicine recommended to us, and one of them as lactation help and support for new mothers that that will now be part of every new health plan available with no copayments, no coinsurance, and i think again it reflects the fact that we are trying to address this issue at the public education level, through our agency for children and families at the cdc through private insurance now covering support and health and certainly working with hospital leaders on what they can do to make sure that new mothers get off to the best possible start and know how beneficial this can be. ..

that's a public health departments across your stated matters and i want to make certain that any rejection and the 317 program would not deter the quality and availability of the infrastructure and public health. >> that is certainly our intent, senator. >> and then let me raise -- senator poznan, i would like to accentuate what he said about

the workload increase -- the opposite medicare hearing increased 247% from fiscal year 06 to 13. we've had an asian population more medicare recipients, but i am concerned he was more on the side of the finance committee, but i'm also concerned this increase may be due to overzealous audit their occurring through the recovery audit program. here's the facts i've been told. over half the cases sent to the medicare hearings and appeals are overturned and the remaining or to 7% are overturned by the department, which suggests there's flawed of allegation cases filed. their appeal to the hospital or provider is found not to be committing fraud or abuse. the point i make perhaps goes

back to the critical access hospital issues and other providers generally have a lot of people in health care out there trying to figure out time, money and effort in regard to audit but ultimately the provider is determined to be successful. we need to have a threshold where the case is not fought in the first place. >> there's two issues here. absolute right of medicaid has increased radically since the last time we had an increase in resources for that office, so we'll continue to ask for resources to try and get rid of the backlog. having said that, there's the category of cases that deal with the difference of inpatient and outpatient code if that was of across-the-board, that we are working to solve administrative leave that should at least respect ugly help with some of

those issues where i think their issues and challenges in overturned by the medicare board and were fixed and on the front end, but i hear you. >> finally, secretary duncan was before us last week. we talked all about health care today on the prekindergarten proposal in the budget. i don't yet understand what happens at your department in regard to head start and how they come together in this new proposal. i don't have time in the remaining few minutes to have you explain that to me. i wanted to point out the secretary duncan stated the head start teachers qualifications are too low to be what is really needed for quality early education. can you discuss how prekindergarten programs would in fact head start and how we

make certain we have quality programs? >> just as a snapshot, what the president is putting forth is a 10 year infrastructure that would actually be birth to five and the notion would be that the children under the age of four would be primarily in settings and programs, more funded by hhs, childcare setting, early head start and this anticipates 4-year-olds and five euros would be in pre-k in kindergarten, more under the umbrella the department of education, expanding access to pre-k and work in the states on full-day kindergarten. >> with the programs be administered by the local school district click >> yes. the president has outlined very much a state where the funding

would go to a state level who chooses to expand into a universal access to pre-k. many states are choosing to do that well ahead of the federal government and that there would be increased funding in our budget for early head start child partnerships to raise quality and increase. the slots available to children who are less than 200% poverty, also increasing evidence-based home visitation program, which is proving to be a very effective, early start to successful parenting, reducing violent and getting kids off to good language start. so those are the pieces in our budget. the pieces in education deal with foreign 5-year-olds and very much a state partnership. this would be triggered unless a state chose to take advantage of the partnership.

>> thank you. that was helpful. senator shaheen. >> thank you. as you are aware, sequestration went into effect six weeks ago on march the first and i understand your office has been in touch with omb about how the cuts will be implemented for various programs. we've been told omb is construct and agencies to develop a plan by the end of april and each grant will be called by their funding agency. on friday, i got a letter from new hampshire's commissioner of health and human services, who is very concerned and frustrated is fair to say about the lack of guidance he has received about how to implement sequester coyote and he's very concerned that because the instructions have taken a while and still are not totally there that he's

going to have to implement those cuts in the last two months of the fiscal year. so i wonder if you could tell me what information you all have received about the timeline on the katsina further instruction may be available. can you work with us to help commissioner campos says he figures out how to deal with this? >> senator, let me start by saying would be happy to work with you and whoever needs to be in touch with the commissioner, this is a little bit of a catch 22 because what we are trying to do as you would appreciate as a former governor is give states flexibility as they look program by program and not impose a doll you must do this in a head start program. you cannot do this in a childcare program. having said that, communicating pretty clearly what the budget

reductions look like, as you know we were given no flexibility program by program. so we can communicate the mission first, said the maximizing the dollars available for services and looking first to any kind of administrative cost of any training, reduction in overhead costs and keeping as many service dollars as possible available is where we are going. we would be glad to work further with the commissioner. >> thank you very much. let me just be clear. sequestration is outrageous. we need to fix it. this congress needs to act and is totally unacceptable we haven't done that. i appreciate the time this puts you in all the other agencies.

>> at $15.5 billion out of our budget for seven months of the fiscal year and 11 million of that comes directly out of medicare services. >> one of the chronic illnesses i've been very concerned about his diabetes. i have a personal connection. my oldest granddaughter has type one. i seen directly the cost in dollars and the personal toll diabetes takes on families. one of the programs i think has been very successful as the diabetes prevention program. what cannot the budget, it appears that eliminates the previous funding for this program and consolidate them into a larger category of diabetes funding. is that a correct interpretation? can you talk a little bit about how you're approaching addressing diabetes in the budget?

>> well, i think senator, diabetes is one of the chronic disease conditions that is getting more attention, both at the prevention level and certainly at the management level. it has been missing in both the those. the budget for, 20, 14 includes the same amount of dollars for diabetes is the happen the 2012 budget. but what we do see is a new coordinated chronic disease funding opportunity. we are not combining programs, but we are allowing states the flexibility and the funding opportunity to identify ways they would use the funding and filling gaps that may happen once they, which might be

different from another state. we've heard it from state health officers that this is a welcome change, but they won't have to fill out five different applications for five different disease programs and really can tailor the federal dollars to the chronic disease initiatives they find most effect is. so while there is a coordinated funding application, there'll still be be in line items for disease funding in the budget. we are trying to send the five and allows states to be more strategic detectives they can apply some attention to coordinated weather often comorbidities, may not be the case in your granddaughter, but a lot of diabetic patients also have a series -- they have high blood pressure or maybe obese, they have a series of things having the opportunity to focus

on all those conditions simultaneously as a step lower. >> thank you. i look forward to see a network we go forward. my time is up, but i want to say how pleased i was the fda issued a guidance on the artificial pay increase and hope they will continue to do that because that offers tremendous hope for diabetes patient. >> secretary sebelius, must you see some thing that has outraged, the final -- [inaudible] >> i will do my best not to do that, senator moran. >> thank you very much. i just wanted to go back because i had this information handed to me. in this job from 2.5 million i just want to anchor my concern that this is one of those

prevention win for the mothers and i don't think i want to make sure when we have an incredibly effect of tool that we draw attention to it, even if there is an organized side to this. >> some of the changes in the 2014 budget reflect the fact the cdc focus and attention they have been on a number of pregnant women and patients who did not have health insurance, did not have access to their own benefits. with the full implementation of the aca coming online in 2013, we hope that will reduce the number of people who went

government services that help and support. we certainly take this issue very, very seriously. they leverage that capability it is highly the average education and may not have it quite right. it merits attention. i want to turn for a moment to access for dependents program. this is often called ada, essentially strategies were folks with low to moderate incomes save money and receive matching grant to engage in the path of a of a sort middle class. my been education, when small business in one homeownership. it is a very small amount of money at this point.

the request is $20 million. i just want to know that the example is the spend 80 billion plus for the homeownership, but almost none of that goes to lower income families buying starter homes because their interest is not exceed the standard deduction and therefore there is no boost if he will. so those who need the most help to become owners only could help to some didn't like the idea program. that's split between folks launching small businesses in three major pathways in the middle-class. the reason i wanted to raise those as this is really a strategy that gets people started in homeownership, which has huge impact on the success of families. children have higher graduation

rate from high school. family state bar of in interest because they now have a stake in it. the equity they built becomes a powerful equity for them to strengthen their family in other ways. i just want to fly that program of one that has little funding, but a very powerful bipartisan strategy. >> well, i would love to have an opportunity to follow up to and your staff on that program and see what we can do to make sure we maximize the limited funding available. >> i was looking at, for example, the cdc. do you have the flexibility to move money between mine and are these pretty well locked in with what we do at the appropriations although? >> cdc director has some

ability, some flexibility, but my guess is not very much. >> well, i want to use my last-minute chest to flag, if you will, that the older american act program, older americans that has been increased, substantial increase from 2012, 2014 in the population of 10,000 folks today, surpassing the age of 60, plus growth in the cost of goods to those programs. the older americans act has been flat fund and despite the growth in inflation. so, are we going to find ways to deliver similar services with the funding, law number of folks

know? >> there is no question there's a higher demand on services within aging population. i shared with senator harkin, we are pleased with the additional community assets we think we can leverage that the creation of the administration on community living. a lot of the support services older americans made, those in the disability community at the community level. we are trying to be as strategic as we can about transportation, food needs, medical needs, housing that are essential to a wide variety of populations. >> you have an incredibly difficult, challenging task in a thank you for your dedication to public service and your extensive knowledge and work with these programs. >> thank you.

>> madam secretary, thank you for your testimony and answered our questions the last two hours. we are appreciative of your presence here not this time we will conclude the hearing at this labor hhs committee. the record will stay open for seven days or questions for the record. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> president obama held a news conference earlier today at the white house, marking the 100th day of his second term in office. he discussed a range of issues come including use of chemical weapons in syria. the investigation into the boston marathon bombings and immigration. here is part of those comments now about syria. >> even separate from the chemical weapons issue, what is happening in syria is a blog -- on the international general public got to make sure we do everything we can to protect the syrian people.

in that context, what i've also said is the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer. not simply for the united states, but the international community. the reason is that established international law norms that say we use these kinds of weapons. you have the potential of killing massive numbers of people in the most inhumane way possible. the proliferation rusks are so significant we don't want that genie out of the box. so when i said the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer, that was in a position unique to the united states and it shouldn't been a surprise. what we now have this evidence that chemical weapons have been used instead of syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who use

them. we don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. when i am making decisions america's national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to chemical weapon years, i've got to make sure i've got the facts. that's what the american people expect. if we end up rushing to judgment without hard, effective evidence, we can find ourselves in a position where we can't localize the community to support what we do. there may be objections even among some people in the region who are sympathetic with the opposition if we take action. so it is important to do this and what i said to my team as we got to do everything we can to investigate and establish with some certainty what exactly has

happened in syria, what is happening in syria. we use all the assets and resources we have at our disposal. will work with the neighboring countries to see whether we can establish a clear baseliner facsimiles called on the united nations to investigate. is the important point i want to make is we already are deeply engaged in trying to bring about a solution is syria. even if chemical weapons were not being used in syria, we'd still be thinking tens of thousands of people, innocent civilians, women, children who have been killed by a regime are rated by staying in power than the well-being of its people. so we are already deeply invested in trying to find a solution here. what is true is if i can

establish and a way that not only the united states, that the international community feel confident is the use of chemical weapons by the ousted regime, then that is a game changer because without pretences eventually were devastating attacks on civilians and it raises the strong pulse ability does chemical weapons can fall into the wrong hands and get disseminated in ways that threat to u.s. security or the security of allies. [inaudible] >> a game changer, we would have to be inc. the range of operations available to us. we ought rather to be invested in trying to bring back a solution instead of syria. obviously, there options

available that we have not deployed and that the spectrum of options. as early as last year i asked the pentagon, military, in telogen officials to prepare for me what options may be available. i won't go into the details about this option might eat, but clearly that would be an escalation in our view of the threat to the security of the international community, our allies and the united states and that means there is some options we might not otherwise exercised that we would strongly consider. >> i was part of president obama's news conference held earlier today at the white house. you can see his entire briefing tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span or anytime at c-span.org.

also tonight from supreme court justice clarence thomas discusses his life and career in the high court. >> we do know she was invalid when she got to the white house, but people think she didn't participate much, but that's not true. she was very, very involved. read it cause than the president this basically. she was very act is. she read daily newspapers, but different points of view to the? president, was able to calm him down and of course she was the grandmother of the house as well

as taking care of her daughters and grandchildren. >> now, the white house announces a new jobs initiative for veterans and spouses. over the next five years, american businesses pledge to hire and train 435,000 that's a military family members. we hear remarks from president obama, first lady michelle obama, vice president joe biden and his wife, trent three. this is 40 minutes. [applause] >> thank you all very much. i am joe biden and it's a

delight to be here with all of you. secretary chin sakae -- shinseki. ed harris, acting labor secretary. admiral, good to see you, man. but that all the brass here. there's no reason we all should be here. the truth of the matter is we are delighted to welcome you to the white house, but all the business leaders, military leaders, it's great to have you here and veterans. the truth is we should all be here. we should all be in the spot at this time because there's so much work to do. my colleagues are tired of hearing me say over the last 20 years we only have one truly sacred obligation in this country. we have a lot of obligations to her children, to the elderly and poor. only when sacred obligation and

that is to equip those who sent toward and care for those who come home for more and their families. that is a sacred obligation. this post-9/11 generation and i see some folks out there. no one is quite my age. books are in the vietnam on them before, all made incredible contributions. but this 9/11 generation has been astounding. over 3.4 million young women in time have joined our military since 9/11, with thomas asserts knowledge they are deployed overseas. 1.7 billion of those brave women and men have walked across the sands of iraq and the barren mountains in afghanistan and many of them as all of you know if some of the art upon them, including the brass didn't just serve once or twice. some served three and four in five deployments. pretty incredible.

every day i get a card and on my schedule card i have a list in the back thanks to the pentagon would call every day. i want to know exactly how many lives have been lost and exactly how many people, how many of our brave soldiers, marines, cartman, et cetera, how many have been wounded. as of today 6564 have died in those conflicts. 50,000 -- excuse me, 22,651 have been wounded. like all of you, i count one. i know how you would've thought that god forgives them and how to to our son when he was mayor and by the way their 6000 who have died, about 65,000 have been wounded. every single one of these women and men have families, historian future and many still have a

future. so this obligation is real and it's going to be lasting in its consequential. the truth is these veterans coming home into civilian life are not the most qualified and women that i've ever served our military because these men appeared the most qualified technically, intellectually. they are among the most qualified americans that were available for the job market. they have capacity to do virtually any job in the private sector. now, to hear from a young man soon who i will not steal his thunder, but works in an industry where they move a lot of equipment and freight around. hire ever talking to someone and i don't say so so is talking about a young man. i said this kid handled more responsibility billions of

dollars daniel -- they don't have around. so tell me this kid can't handle dispatching areas of your tracks. one of the vehicle as he had cost more than all your tracks. [laughter] seriously, think of these kids. what she's making the judgment as to when that jet aircraft lands. through 19, 20-year-old kid standing there with their flag. it's a 19, 20-year-old kid. they then maybe do it once, that sits as a catapult off. they can handle anything. they're technologically proficient, totally responsible and undeniably capable. so what we are selling today is an incredible product. i want to think so maybe business leaders behind me and in the audience for recognizing that fact. as the president said, no one

who fight for this country overseas should have to come home and fight for a job when they come back home. the judge shouldn't have to do that. that is what you're all about. that's over all about. it's not just returning veterans. when other families in men and women in uniform and the sacrifices your families make to allow you to serve. the english poet, john l. once said they also serve who only stand and wait. literally, hundreds of thousands, millions of lives, husbands, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers stated they did to them as well because they have served us well. quite frank way, i've never seen my wife, jill, so absolutely totally committed to any cause and that is the cause of serving

military families and all of you who served. the courtesy of one sent over the last seven years i don't go how many time. everyone, everyone can do something. only 1% of the population is serving, that 90% of the population, 99% others than just the simple act of kindness. i remember how moved we were when we got a call from our daughter-in-law after a snowstorm the winter our son was deployed. the next-door neighbor just walked over to shovel the driveway, to shovel the driveway. never said a word, packed up, left, shovel the driveway. we got a lot of driveways to shovel. we own an awful lot. as why michelle and jill started

shooting for season might be rocksolid commitment of president barack obama behind them have done with your help remarkable jobs. you'll hear the numbers and you know the remarkable job you've done and they've done responding to the needs of the brave women and men. now i'd like to introduce you to a woman whose father served, sons served and who serves us every day. dr. jill biden, who happens to be my wife. [applause] >> thank you, joe. hi, everyone. i am jill biden. over the past two years the first lady and i have had the incredible honor of meeting military spouses all over this country and i'm always amazed by their strength, their commitment

and most import might buy the resilience. these are spouses quick errand oral. schneider has been dale, sergeant first class and the enemy when they were both in high school. not long after becoming an army wife, erin found herself overseas with two young children. soon thereafter, her husband deployed for a year. that was just the beginning. over the past 18 years, they've moved their family 10 times. they are raising three children with erin providing primary care advocates during pre-deployment, each for more than a year and today, dale is stationed at fort bragg in north carolina what erin and their children stayed in the hamptons roads area in virginia so their kids can finish high school there. through all this, aaron pursued

her on education, made strong connections with other military spouses and embraced a wide range of careers, leading to her current profession of serving other military families. aaron is the operation manager for two nonprofits that provide employment, readiness and job placement assistance for veteran, military spouses and more. sharing is here with us today. would you stand? thank you for all you do. [applause] get stories like airings are not unique among military spouses. they are people who when their spouse deploys are carrying our military families, doing the work of two parents, raising

children, running a household and military spouses are the first to step up for their communities, whether it's volunteering to help a neighbor or receiving in the pta. all the while they are building their own careers and because our nation military spouses move 10 times more than civilian counterparts, that's not always easy. just as they are settled in a new job, it might be time to pack up again, move across the country are out of the country and start the entire process all over again. but of all the things michele and i have mine about military spouses, here is what stands out the most. they never complain. whatever the situation, they keep on serving, doing whatever needs to be done. military spouses like erin have so much to offer.

their skill, incredible work ethic and perhaps most of all, the endless energy. that's a nearly two years ago we were proud to launch the military spouse employment partnership. this effort is help spouses build strong resumes, has sponsored hiring fairs in creative mentoring programs. since its launch, more than 160 fortune 500 employers have signed onto the partnership and more than 43,000 military spouses have been hired. more and more companies are finding ways to keep the spouses and their employment, even nostradamus. i'm sure every partnership come to me will say if your looking for a dynamic, resourceful and highly skilled employees, military spouses are exactly who

you are looking for. as joe mentioned a moment ago, our military spouses serve right alongside our servicemen and women here through joining forces, we honor all military statement and ask all americans to join us in finding ways to show her gratitude. from the beginning, the private sector has played an important part in supporting feature enforces initiative. our next speaker is a veteran who has benefited from this private sector involvement. it is my great pleasure to introduce, david padilla who served in the united states navy for five years as a second class petty officer operations specialist and he has a new -- [inaudible]

david, thank you for your service. [applause] >> good morning. my name is david padilla. i served honorably for the united states navy is operational specialists into deployments, first as a database manager in operation iraqi freedom and second as their controller and watch supervisor africa partnership for countries such as kenya and congo. my times have you valuable skills, how to manage a team, work with data and operate high-tech equipment not to mention discipline and hard work that cost her uniform. when the kids to start a job search utility companies didn't see that in me. after returning from the navy at site countless jobs purging to interviews a week, nothing ever materialized. with the help of the g.i. bill

and wrote at mercy college in new york, where it earned a bachelor's degree in finance. just after he graduated, my fiancée discovers she's pregnant with her beautiful daughter, and the liana. i knew for a growing family needed to double down on the job search, even with a bachelors degree. so sign up for veteran's workshops, update my resume and attended dozens of job fairs, but still a struggle to find work. i was unemployed two and half years before and after college but thanks to paralyzed veterans of america, which provides support to veterans looking for work, ups hired me as dispatch supervisor i could use training i received in the navy and after for months on the job, ups recognize my leadership skills and promoted me where responsible enough for dispatch and 75 drivers and optimizing delivery schedule.

ups has given me the opportunity to build my career and provide financial support for their family. i want to thank ups and scott davis for giving me the opportunity and making veteran veteran hired a priority and so the companies here today who make hiring veteran spouses a priority. i hope more companies stand up for families like mine. no one understands this better than commander-in-chief and first lady. they've met their mission to support troops, veterans and military families and i have a great pleasure to introduce them now. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our president, barack obama and first lady, michelle obama. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you. match. please, everybody have a seat. david, thank you so much for sharing your story, most importantly for your extraordinary service to a nation. we are very, very proud of you. thank you to our partners in crime, the outstanding joe biden and even more and, jill biden. [laughter] [applause] you know, we are grateful for the leadership, their commitment on a whole range of issues, but particularly for the passion that jill, you have shown when it comes to military families

because you know what it's like when a loved one is deployed and that passion comes through with everything you do. we are very, very proud of you. i want to recognize members of my cabinet and joint chiefs and top brass who are here. we appreciate all the great work they are doing in your presence reflects across the entire government. i've got a simple task this morning. that is to introduce a grateful, brilliant, inspiring love of my life, first lady, michelle obama. joe and i are just warm-up acts today, which in our families means it's just another tuesday. [laughter] that's how it generally goes. what about the honors and privileges, the opportunity to meet incredible people like

david is among the things i cherish the most. david being here today is representative of the 9/11 generation, men and women who volunteered to put the uniform on, even though they understood it was wartime, knowing full well they can be sent into harms way, executing the most dangerous missions on the planet, operated a cutting-edge complex technologies, beating their peers and involved in further decisions can determine life or death. as we saw as guardsmen and veteran, they put back. she and experience and skills they've earned serving in our military to use every single day. george washington once said, when we assume the soldier, we could not be licensed.

troops and military families are right alongside them. they keep us strong in faith and as commander-in-chief, i've pledged just as they left their homes and families take care of us, we have to make sure we take care of them when they come home. that their sacred obligation to get the care benefits i'm not include economic opportunity. good jobs were the incredible talents. unfortunately they hit the job market, employers don't wreck it as the high-quality high-tech skills gained in the military. it understands the leadership this under extraordinary circumstances. when these men and women are looking to look forward to your second natural, scraping together odd jobs to pay the bills. our economy is screwed jobs and make distant bases. although i had a press conference, we could do better if we had more cooperation on the street.

but for 9/11 veteranscome employment lags behind the national average and that's especially true in most if not make any sense. if you can save a life on the battlefield and you sure as i can say one in an ambulance and a state-of-the-art hospital. if you can oversee a convoy of equipment and track assets, you could run a company supply chain or balance its books. if you can lead a platoon in a war zone, i think you can lead a team in a conference center. there's lots of extremely talented young people who are more than qualified. we've got the end of the iraq war, war in afghanistan drawing to a close. i than 1 million service members are trained to sinead to life in the coming years, so we've got to do everything we can do that very opportunity to succeed. thus by year and a half ago i

sign a tax credit unemployed veterans appointed warriors in the number of veterans hypertext credits as a double and my budget proposed extending tax credits permanently. congress needs to get that done. we are working to help troops get credentials for jobs in manufacturing, medicine or transportation. we strengthen the post-9/11 g.i. bill come out to veterans at a minimum this get a college education. for the first time in 20 years, we've overhauled the military transition assistance program to help veterans can be for private-sector jobs. are on veterans jobs bank has 2.5 is searchable job posting, whether veterans gold card with the six of personalized career counseling. in my direction, the federal government hired 650,000 veterans. we've made progress, but the

government alone can't put up a military spouse to work aired a year and a half ago i went and issued a challenge to america's business. i returned 100,000 veterans and military spouses by the end of 2013. i'm proud to say these companies step up. businesses have already hired 125,000 veterans are spouses. they're committed to 250,000 or more. the leadership they represent here today. we could not be more grateful for the commitment that these companies. they are doing at present because it's good business to make a great employees. they also do it because the pitcher's and they really care about this country and understand they don't succeed unless they've got an incredible military that's doing this.

it is not just a picture to do. it's a smart thing to do. look for highly skilled workers, has cut veterans and spouses for jobs. let's connect them up. good for families, businesses and our country. that's by joining forces is so. it's a way to honor and said the and women that serve us so well but also to the country forward. that's why we've got to step up into her purse. houses of worship, neighbors, and obviously military in pa and we had a power game and we're not there yet, but we continually try to strive to improve to make sure we do the right thing. just as a defense to military families, serving military families have to define who we are as americans. none of this is going to have been had he not extraordinary work michelle and jill have

engaged in over the last two years. that is a call we are doing here today. i've got to tell you, i am proud of my wife all the time. i could not be prouder of the work that she and she'll have done in the sufferer. they care about it deeply. they identify so deeply with these military families because they understand the sacrifices they are making. so with that, let me introduce a woman who heads the lead out that message every day as a wife, mother, tireless champion of military families, love her dearly, my wife, first lady, michelle obama. [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you, all.

then they start by thanking the president of the united states for that nice introduction. it's always nice to get a good introduction from the president and from your husband. but i want to thank you and joe because truly we could not issue these challenges without leadership and that he spent in jail i say is we are out there on the frontlines pushing this initiative, but the only way we get this done is because we've got strong leadership in our president and vice president. and of course, to jill who is not just an extraordinary partner, but wonderful friend in this endeavor. not just military families, but this interesting life are has-beens have got nothing to you. [laughter] jill is a true champion and she taught me a lot about what it

means to serve them a part of the military community. i couldn't be more grateful. i always want to recognize the leaders of the, the military and throughout the country, specially veterans and military spouses here with us today. thank you all for your commitment and service to this nation. finally, i want to take a moment to say a special thank you to someone who didn't know i was going to thank him, but has been a cornerstone of this effort throughout this year in a difficult time when we been in transition, these two were running for some thing, but we could not have kept this effort going without captain todd bz. [applause] and believe it or not, today is todd's last day as are joining forces executive director. it is another miracle, the fact

we get so much done with sporadic support like todd's. i want to make that point because it's not just jill and i., but todd and a small team of others really keeps this going. and this year has been a success because of view, so we decided as a reward we would have is your last hurrah to plan an event with every single one of your bosses. [laughter] because we may you could pull it off because that is what navy seals do. but in todd, we saw his skill determination on display every single day and i'm just so proud. we'll miss you here at joining forces. todd, i just wanted to say thank you -- barack and i wanted to say thank you. you, too. at least i caught that one.

[laughter] though we are grateful unimpressed by your talent, integrity and the incredible work ethic that you've shot. [applause] very bashful. we kept out of the remarks so that you would know is was there. really the same thing can be said, all those wonderful traits can be said about the service members and military spouses that had the honor of meeting over these past four years. these men and women are some of the most talented, accomplished dedicated people you'll ever meet and that is why two years ago, when the four of us came together to launch joining forces in this room, our goal was to create initiative worthy of their character and service. we challenged every segment of

our society to stand up and take action and make her go commitment to support and serve our military families. since then, this nation has truly joined forces in so many amazing ways. we've seen doctors and nurses tape both missteps to care for the families affected by ptsd internat brain injuries. we've seen college assignment to train teachers to be more responsive to the needs of military children in their classrooms. we think community groups and houses of worship and citizens from every walk of life showed their appreciation for military families, not just with words, but with these. today we are here to recognize tremendous efforts of businesses all across the country. together we been partnering to do everything in our power to help veterans and military families on the jobs they need and deserve.

these efforts are about so much more than a paycheck. this is about giving these men and women a source of identity and purpose, providing thousands of families with financial security and giving veterans and military spouses the confidence they can provide a better future for their children.

we became even more determined to make it right. with that challenge, we all snapped in to action. since then it seems like every week, quite frankly, every day new gets involved in the effort. there hasn't been a no from anyone. today i'm thrilled to announce that in less than two years, america's businesses have hired or trained 290,000 veterans and military spouses. [applause] which is almost triple the original goal with eight months to spare. and we are all so proud to announce that american companies have committed to hire or train another 435,000 of these men and women over the next five years.

[applause] and we are so grateful to all of the business leaders here today who are part of this effort. these commitments come from companies of every shape and size, bsnf railroad is hiring 5,000 veterans in the next five years, ups hiring 25,000, home key pot 25,000, mcdonald is hiring 100,000. deloitte is doubling the veterans hiring over the next three years. usaa is pledging that 30% of the new hires will be veteran or military spouses. walmart is telling any veteran who served honorably, if they want a job in the year after they separate from service, walmart is going to hire them. and their goal is to do it

within thirty days of the veteran's application. the black stone group that challenged each of its 50,000 hiring managersed at the affiliated businesses to hire at least one more veteran. at&t is greaten -- creating an online military exchange for a group of businesses. if one company can't hire a veteran at the moment, they can connect them to someone who can. the international franchise association helped more than 4300 businesses own their own businesses since 2011. as we speak, the u.s. chamber of commerce is holding the 400th career fair since last march. full fulfilling a commitment it made to us a year ago. we are thrilled with all of the new innovative idea and in awe of meaningful employment commitment. ultimately, the companies aren't

just -- committing to a number. they are committing to people, people live david. right here in this room, there are so many stories like his so i'd like to take a moment to tell a few of these stories. as i call your names, i want you to stand and remain standing. staff sergeant sean murphy, please stand. sean is an eight-year army veteran who transitioned to become a sixth grade special education teacher in delaware for three years. [applause] a little shoutout to delaware. working for teach for america. today he has been promoted to lead teach for america's nationwide effort to hire more veterans as teachers. yes, indeed. he's doing it all. because as he said, when you hang up the fatigue and put the boots away, you don't want to

feel like you have given up your sense of service. there's staff sergeant courtney beard. [applause] courtney has servedded in the new jersey air national guard for six years including a deployment in iraq, but when she's not serving on active duty she's putting her skills as intelligence analyst to use at cicso. small but tough. really smart. [laughter] thank you. [applause] and then there's chrisy johnsen an teenage with us. chrisy is an mother and army wife from san antonio. her family has been transferred three times over nine years. leaving her scrambling for jobs

at restaurants or call center or beauty counter. usaa gave her a shot to build a career. today she's a senior financial foundation specialist on her way to earning her mba. yes! [applause] and there's sergeant eric parella. ericed served in combat infantry for the 82nd airborne division and deployed two times to the middle east. when he came home to california in the middle of the housing crisis. he couldn't find a job. soon he and his wife found themselves homeless. fortunately eric was accepted in an electrical apprenticeship program in san francisco. even though he and his wife were living out of his pickup truck at the time. he was able to pinch enough pennys to buy enough gas to

drive to and from the class and finish the program. he's employed at pgne. taking on leadership roles within the crew. he's hoping to buy a home for their growing family. [applause] [applause] these veterans and military families are talented, resill yentd, disciplined and matter to do the job no matter what it stakes. these characteristics connect all of the veterans and military spouses in the room. all veterans and spouses stand, if they are able, so we can give you a round of applause. [applause] [applause]

thank you all so much. -- [inaudible] but they are all around us. across america and around the world, the men and women in uniform and standing up for. they're standing up for our value, security, and community. in so many ways all they're looking for is another way to serve. all they need is the next mission. all they need is a job. so to every business leader in the room, and throughout the country, i just want you to remember these stories, every single day. think about all of the skills these men and women possess. all the people they have lead, all the risks they have taken, and sacrifices they have been endured for us. and then i want you to ask yourselves what more can you do for these men and women? what more can you go? if you own a small business, can you commit to hiring a few

veterans? maybe even just one? if you own a larger company, can you hire a few hundred? maybe a few thousand? can you retain the veterans already in your work force so they are able to grow within your company? can you team up with other businesses to hire more veterans all across the country? and again, i want to reintegrate that. my husband and i are in this with you. and joe, we are in this work we'll keep working to develop partnership to help you put the men and women to work even faster. because while we're proud of how far we have come, we know that today is not the finish line. today is simply just a mile marker. and we're not going stop until every single veteran or military spouse, that is searching for a job found one. these men and women have stood

up for us again and again and again. now the question is will we do the same for them? and everything that we have seen in the past two years gives me confidence that the answer is absolutely yes. you live in a grateful nation. and people will stand up. so to all the business leaders, i want to say thank you all, thank you for getting us this far, and to the veterans and military families here in the room, and around the country, thank you again. we can't thank you enough for your courage and your service. we will stand with you now and for decades to come. thank you all. god bless. [applause] [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ thank you very much. [applause] [applause]

tonight is booktv in prime time as we focus on the impact of technology. starting at 8:eastern. "always on" which exams on online and technology are inthriewnsing how humans read, write, speak, and listen. the present shock. everything happens now. they talk about the book "big data" looking how digital information. all the program tonight on booktv on c-span2. president obama held a news conference earlier today at the white house marking the 100th day of the second term in office. he was discussed a group of issues including the use of chemical weapons in syria, the investigation to the boston

marathon bombings. here's part of the comments about automatic spending cuts. >> you will recall that, you know, even as repeatedly as my campaign republicans were saying sequester is table. it was a disaster. it's going ruin or military, be disasterrous for the economy. we have to do something about it. then when it was determined that doing something about it might mean that we close tax loophole for the wealthy and well connected, suddenly we'll take the sequester. and the notion was somehow that we had exaggerated the effect of the sequester. remember? the president's crying wolf. he's chicken little. the sequester is no problem. then in rapid succession, suddenly white house tours was terrible. how can we let it happen? we have to fix that, and most recently, what are they doing coabout potential delay with

airports? so despite the fact that a lot of members of congress were suggesting that somehow the sequester was a victory for them and it wouldn't hurt the economy. with a we now know what i earned earlier and jay warned repeatedly is happening. it's slowed our growth, resulted in people being thrown out of work, and it's hurting folks all cross the country. the fact that congress responded to the short term problem of flight delays by giving up the option of shifting money that is designed to repair and improve airport over the long-term to fix the short term problem, that's not a solution. so essentially what we have done is said in order to have --

we're going ensure delays for the next two or three decades. >> why did you go along with -- . >> hold on a second. so the alternative, of course, is either to go ahead and impose on a bunch of delays on passengers now, which also doesn't fix the problem. or the third alternative is actually fix the problem by coming up with a broader, larger deal. but, you know, jonathan, you seem to have suggest that somehow these folks over there have no responsibility and my job is to somehow get them to behave. that's their job. they're elected -- members of congress are elected in order to do work for the constituency and american people. so if in fact they are seriously concerned about passenger

convenience and safety, then they shouldn't just be thinking about tomorrow or next week or the week after that. they should be thinking about what is going to happen five years from now, ten years from now, or fifteen years from now. the only way for them to do that is engage with me coming up on a broader deal. that's what i'm trying to do. continue to talk to them about are there ways for us to fix this? frankly, i don't think that if i were to be veto, the -- it would lead to the broader fix, it means there would be pain now, which they are trying to blame on me, as opposed to paying five years from now. but either way the problem is not getting fixed. the only way the problem gets fixed if both parties sit down and say how are we going make sure we are reducing our deficit sensibly, make sure we invest in

things rebuilding our airport and road and bridges and investing in early childhood education and the basic research and things that help us grow, and that's what the american people want. that was part of president obama's news conference held earlier today at the white house. you can see his entire briefing tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span or any time at c-span.org. also tonight's supreme court justice clarence thomas discussing his life and career on the high court. he talked about race in america, the inner workers of the supreme court, and law school students shawled do after congratulation. -- graduation. he recently spoke in pittsburgh. you can see his comments to be the at 9:00 eastern on c pan. now a discussion on why drone, fair may not be legal, northerly, or effective. we here from academic and authorities at the event hosted last month.

it's an hour and forty minutes. thank you, thomas. thank you for our audience members for being with us today. i'm here at the college and director of the peace and conflict. as tom said, we want to make sure we are on the same page. so i have a few questions i'll direct to avery plaw and the capacity as editor of the drone data base, that tom referred to and move on and each speaker have ten to fifteen minutes and finish with hopefully half an hour's worth of question from the audience. my first question is basic. what is a drone? how does it work? >> drone is a male bee without a stinger who has a job to have sex with the queen bee and not responsible for gathering

honey. more typical these days it's used to refer to a family of unmanned aircraft that are guided by a remote control. so drones refer to a whole class of airplaneses that are crod from a distance often from the far side of the world these days. places like an air force base in nevada. you hear the term uav, or air force prefers the term rpa remotely piloted aircraft. they are referring to the same family of remote control planes. actually it's a diverse family with a few members who have recently achieved great celebrity. the biggest current military drone is the global hawk with wingspan of 116-feet weighing over 25,000 pounds when fueled. and it acts as high altitude surveillance drone. at the other end of the spectrum, there's the rq11 about the size of a model airplane.

weighing about 4.2 pounds and launched by soldiers by hand. but the most famous drone, the work force of the fleet is the mq1 predator. weighing around 1,000 pounds. it's a slow propeller-driven craft. flying at 85 miles per hour and can stay in the air for up to forty hours. the crohns are used for surveillance, and also have been armed now for attack. the predators carry red camera and normal television camera and laser december designator which allow them to attack. they are -- anti-tank missiles that the missiles around 64 inches and weigh and about 100 pounds and can take out tanks and cars. in the last year or little more, the predator drones are being ampled with a smaller scorpion

missile 21 inches long, 35 thousand, and designed to make a come pat explosion to avoid collateral damage. the predator is recently being joined bay larger cousin deployed now. a third longer, third labelinger wingspan. can carry hare conditions -- heavier conditions. including a bomb. >> [inaudible] when did drones start being used for dropping poems as opposed to reconnaissance missions? >> they were initially used for reconnaissance and -- found to be useful. they weren't armed until a shortly after september 11th. and they were used in the initially in the innovation of afghanistan. where they had some successes. for example, taking out mohammad, the al qaeda number three at the time.

>> which u.s. government agencies used them? >> drone strikes in pakistan are run primarily by the cia, well, in yemen, somalia, the military, the joint special operation command, plays a larger role. >> which countries have been the primary target of drone strikes. how many are recorded in the country? >> the american drones are being used in conventional theater of war such as afghanistan and iraq and also in pakistan, yemen, somalia, libya, and some reports of them being used in the philippines as well. there is diversity of opinion on the exact numbers involved. i can five you some -- give you some ranges. strikes in pakistan probably are somewhere between 365 at this point and 420 strikes. there are at least 43 to 53 strikes in yemen, and probably

more. at least three to nine in smol yap. the number in libya are fudsier. there'sed at least one strike confirmed by the pentagon and some reports suggest there were quite a few during the civil war with the georgia forces. at any rate the majority have been in pakistan. >> finally, what do we know about the cost of drone strike per strike or separate budget we have public knowledge of that the cia military how do we assess the cost? >> we have some knowledge about the money spent on drones. since 2001 they spent more than $26 billion on drones and plans to continue to spend $5 billion a year. in august 2011, they announced they would invest another $23 billion in drone development. predator drones cost about $4 billion each. and missiles around $25,000 each. the u.s. military accrued more

than 250mq1, drones and ordered 400 more. and the cia has some as well. but we don't know how many. in 2000, the u.s. had only fifty drones. but today it has over 7500. the majority are the smaller ones they mentioned. still close to a third of all war planes. >> all right. thankthank you very much for introduction. we'll start with the physicians with professor david kole. >> thank you. as. of you probably know, senator rand paul spent thirteen hours on the senate floor last week talks about drones. tom said each of us had to stay under the thirteen hour time period for hours.

i thought i would start with facts. it's a report i pulled off the internet. it's a report of a university of minnesota poll finding that the majority of americans are opposed to being killed by drones. and the poll found -- [laughter] the poll, which has a margin era of five percentage points. those 95% of the agreement strongly agree with the statement i do not want to be killed bay done. with 3% answering don't know, no opinion. then as you have to do, they interview an expert from the university of minnesota who explained that the idea of being killed by a drone is not playing well out there. then in a focus group, one member of the focus group said it doesn't even seem like the government is trying to come up with alternatives to killing us with drones.

it seems like they can figure out some kind of system where instead of just killing us by a drone people can maybe present evidence to see if they're guilty or not. and then jay carr any responded to the white house spokesman responded by saying, look, people are afraid of getting killed by a drone. we get that. there are broad public support for drone killing somebody else. that was ann any -- andy hour wiz reporting on a fictitious poll. it underscores one important point about the public blat in the united on the subject. that is there is much greater concern about the notion that the president can kill one of us by pushing a bullet ton or ordering someone to push a button. without trial, charges, or

opportunity to present evidence to determine whether or not he's guilty or no. there is with respect to the use of drone to kill pakistany, yemeni, somali, and afghans. i think the practice raises legal, political, and ethical concerns whoever the victims are. whether they are us or the victims are them. now, i want to start by suggesting that this -- the drone issue sometimes it's referred to the days as obama's guantanamo. obama still has guantanamo. but l obama's guantanamo just as guantanamo for president bush was a material headache -- material headache created a lot of resentment in antiamericans around the world. that's the case with drones today. of course the grant moe concern,

much of the concern about guantanamo is torture and the way we treat people detained at guantanamo. i think there's a basic difference between torture and drone strikes. torture is simply not permissible. it's not permissible under international law or constitutional law. no exceptions including in time of war. killing, by contrast, is a part of war. it's not a very nice part of war, but it's a necessary part of war. it's inevitable part of war. it's not an illegal part of war. targeted killing is better than untargetted killing. so why, then, is there so much concern about drones around the world and particularly in those countries where we are deploying them? i think -- and concern that is akin to the concern that was raised about george bush's use of torture to interrogate

people. and i think it's a number of factors. one is the secrecy surroundingment -- surrounding the program. yes, we are killing people by pushing buttons. wed don't acknowledge we are doing that. an war al-awlaki killed in yemen, killed in october -- september of 2011. the united states has still not acknowledged they killed them. essentially killed them in secret and continue officially to deny that it played that role. so as the whole architecture around the drone policy still remains significantly secret. so there's this remarkable power that the united states is able to employ and is employing and does so in secret, not acknowledging that it's doing it, and not setting forth in any public way the rules that guide it. second, and relatedly, it

reflects a kind of american exceptionalism. because would we accepted the practice of drone killing if it was russia killing alleged terrorists with drones around eastern europe? and just denying that it was engaged in it doing it on the basis of a secret policy and making general statements about how they have the right to defend themselves? no, we wouldn't accept that. and yet we're willing -- we, the american people, who have not risen up against the practice are willing to accept if it's american that are doing it. i don't think that the united states, as a nation, would accept a world in which each country was armed with drones and was deploying them under the terms that we are deploying them today. so there's this sen that we're doing it in a way because we can

and because at least for the moment, we have a monopoly. third, there's the issue of the scope of war. right. it's not controversial to use a drone to kill somebody on the battle field in afghanistan. who is fighting again us. nobody suggests you can't kill people who are fighting against you in an ongoing armed conflict. but when you start to use drones thousands of miles away from the battle field, and to use them in context that are outside of that kind of traditional armed conflict there begins to raise the question of, you know, are we engaged in a war with al qaeda or are we engaged in some kind of global war on terror as president bush initially articulated it, president obama rejected that term, but sort of scope of the drone policy sometimes suggests that any

terrorist threat we see out there who poses some kind of threat of attacking us. we can, instead of arresting him, bringing him to justice, we can kill him with a drone using a cienld -- kind of war. and that seems deeply troubling to the rest of the world. and then the fourth factor, i think, is the ease with which drones make it possible to eliminate a human being. they make it easy to kill. they make it to easy to use lethal force in ways that are, i think radically different. some people say, you know, drones just another technological development in fighting wars, and, you know, bows and arrows made it easier to kill people than bayonet, and rifle knead easy -- made it yawsier than and planes made it

user. it's another -- but i think not. i think that what the thing about drone is because they are so -- they can be targeted remotely, because they can be targeted precisely you can use lethal force without putting any single american life at risk. without putting any boots open the downed. without invading any obvious physical way the sovereignty of another territory. you can do if in ways that don't create the risk of significant civilian casualties innocent civilians which bomb lesses surgically precise bombs create. so -- and you can do it, quote, unquote plausibly denial ways. it's hard to deny when you drop a big bomb on a country. but, you know, if you target a

individual, take out the individual, it's a little bit easier to deny. and so it's taken away the disincentive to go to lethal force as a response to problems. there were a lot of disincentive before, i think drones have eliminated many of them. this makes it automatic the more critical that we have some kind of clear set of legal rules that are acceptable, not only in the united, but around the world that would regularize and justify and constrain the use of this tactic. and right now, we don't have that or we don't know whether we have that because of the secrecy surrounding the program. with a we know about the program comes from speeches that obama administration officials have given in which they have given very broad outlines of the program.

but not the detail. and of course, the devil is in the detail. sometimes i think that, you know, trying to figure out what the drone policy is united states is a little bit like what the soviettologist during the soviet union tried to determine what soviet policy was in the picture and who was standing in front and who was standing behind. and that shouldn't be the case in a democracy that we have to guess at what our government's authority to kill including killing us is. so i think the biggest problem with a drone program is precisely the secrecy. the -- i'll briefly mention two other problems and then sit down so we have more time for discussion. but the two other problems are

imminence and feasibility. what the government has said in a leaked document, said they have the authority to kill even americans who they say as an operational leader of al qaeda, taliban, or associated forces who pose an imminent threat of attack on us. and it's not feasible to capture. and they're relying with the respect to the imminence and feasibility of capture language on the notion of deserve. a nation is authorized to use lethal force under international law against an another nation with an armed way or demonstrate actor like al qaeda who attacked us on 9/11. we can use military force against them. we can use military force against an imminent attack. , but the critical requirement of imminent is designed to

ensure it's the last resort. the forces the last resort. if the attack is not imminent, there may be a head -- way to head it off owner using lethal force. so the law requires that this be the only option, the last option. al-awlaki was put on the kill list a year before he was killed. so he can't pooblly have been he posed an imminent threat when he was put on the kill lie. went a year when he was attacking us. when he was killed killed in he wasn't in the business of engaging. he was driving somewhere. they said anybody of that ilk an operational leader who wants to attack us and might attack us at any time by definition supposes an -- poses an imminent threat. the problem with that, if there is not engaged an attack against

it, if we can't capture them today we capture them tomorrow. secrecy, imminence, and feasibility. if you can't capture, you can kill. if you can capture, you should bring the person to justice. give them a thrill, eth, et. cetera. what does it mean to say it's not feasible to capture somebody like al-awlaki. if we sent enough troops to yemen, we could probably capture al-awlaki. if we supported yemen in trying to capture al-awlaki we might have been able to capture him. apparently they tried once to capture him and didn't scweed. we don't generally think if the cops come to your house to arrest you and you're not there that they're free to shoot you. we try again to arrest. so the feasibility of capture criteria raises questions

particularly when capture might actually put american lives at risk. by push the button on the drone. puts american lives at risk. i think it's critical we resolve these questions in a fair and legitimate reason. what we do will be 0 prezzive for what the rest of the world does. i don't think we want to live in a world where the rest of the world feels free to engage in the drone attacks in the way we have done. secondly, i think they cause a tremendous amount of resentment and antiamericannism out there. they are a recruiting tool for the enemy. it's in our interest. third, you just -- i don't think you have a concept of democracy where the president can kill any of us in secret without --

that's inconsistent to me with the notion of limited government and democracy. fifth, was as i suggested earlier. drones mach it easy to kill. i think it's an ethical and moral issue we create a set of con straibt on the new and very scary. thank you. thank you, david. our next speaker is avery plaw. david raises excellent points. i'm going ignore them. it for now. in the interest of generating debate. what i'll try to do is lay out a positive case for the use of drones in certain circumstance and litigate the detail of the

proper definition of imminence, for example, in the question and answer period after wards. tonight i'll argue that drone strikes against individual known terrorists, pose an imminent threat and cannot otherwise be neutralized for good and defensible policy. hour, i will also argue that some types of strikes, notably what are called cig qhur strikes are counter productive and should stop. that's the position i'm going defend today. i'm do it by outlining five arguments for drones. first, the effectivenesses, second, the safety of operators, third, the discrimination, forted, the lack of alternative, and fifth, venture to the gray area of legality as best i can. i will argue they are legal when they take the form of personality strike although i'll suggest that significant strikes are problematic. first argument,

effectivenesses. drone strikes are highly effective while directly and indirectly. in regard to a lot of lower level militant. claim plausibly that 21 of the top al qaeda who reportedly became al qaeda number two. the drone data base on which i work identified 82. you can actually see short bio of each and pictures where available at u mass drone.org. the long horn journal counts 80 new america foundation was 51.

in regards to suspected militant other than leader, the numbers were larger. the u mass drone data base reports 2,101 suspected militants killed. 75.3 of total fatality. the new america foundation records 061 killed. and even the bureau of investigative suspected militants killed. or 72% of the total. obviously there was some variation in the turm ins reported here. and it should be noted that all the data bases are based on

large part on media reports. but i think that the general pattern reflective across the data bases across all the years from 2004 on ward 2002, if you count the give a loose indication behalf is going on. and they show that the drone strikes are doing very real and substantial damage to the targeting. on top of the direct results, there was a lot of evidence suggesting that drone strikeses are doing more general harm to the targeted groups as well. in particular creating a climate of fear, keeping leaders in particular on the move, preventing assembly, training, disrupting communications, et. cetera. these observations come up often in local reporting. the reflected in the behavior of the groups themselves. and perhaps most clearly seen in intercepted communications including from the hideout of bin laden who was clearly struggling in the letters to figure out how to respond to

drone strikes. he writes, our brothers are frankly exhausted from the enenmany is. he complaints they. cannot safely remove. the leadership is becoming inexperienced through atryings, and he contemplates abandoning the former safe hoven all together. i think indicate substantial effect of the drone strike particularly in pakistan. second argument. the safety of the operators. second obvious advantage of using drone they don't endanger the teams operating them. they remain safely back on secure bases. i want to stress the protection of soldiers, even if they are safely on base, should never be bought at the cost of unnecessarily endangering civilians. and i'll talk about civilians in a second. but thing being equal a tact take protects soldier is better than one that exposes them.

this charge is understandable in at least once sense for the killing of civilian even if unintentional. it is also true; however, that some civilian deaths are inevitable feature of war. particularly often thought today one side deliberatingly in the civilian population. so there's also a sense in which the complaint against u.s. drones are at least discomplaint seems -- for most of the data we have suggests that u.s. drones are pretty discriminating. especially when compared to the alternatives. for example, according to the long war journal data base civilians make up 5.8% of casualty resulting from drone strikes. new america foundation estimates

actually that civilians make up maybe 1 4%. however the bureau of investigative journalism suggests that it's higher. maybe as high as 22.6 percent from you average the range they present or take the top number of the top of the ranges around 24%. finally, according to the drone data bass, very clear civilian casualties make up 3.7% of the total killed, at least in pakistan. the data base also includes another category of unknowns. that is cases where there's not enough data to be confident about whether the person killed was a civilian or not. the category accounts for 20.8% of those killed in pakistan. obviously there's divergence among the numbers. it can be explained. the u mass drone data in particularly the category of inknown is actually the key. when you add that 20.8% of

unknowns to the very clear civilian cases of 3.7%, what you get is 24.5% had is exactly the number at the very top of the bureau of investigative journalism's range. in other words, the difference between the lowest proportion of civil yabs killed and the highest is exactly this 20.8% of unknowns. people it's very hard to determine. to in other words, the difference between the drone data bases result is how they're counting the 20.8 percent. so the long war journal, for example, trends to classify unknown as a militant and as a result they get a count i count of 5.8%. the bureau of nightive journalism counts every case there's a remotist doubt where they are civilian. and the as a result 24%. if this quick analysis is an all

accurate. what we can say with some confident it's probably somewhere between the low end 3.7 percent and the top end 2%. depending how the unknown cases should be assigned, which it something we'll probably never know for sure. the new america foundation estimate of around 14% might be a good rule of thumb. but even if we accept the bureau of nifghtive journal numbers at face value and say civilian casualty could be as high as 24%. they are still smaller than associated with alternative means of conducting counter terror operation in the area. of pakistan were droant strikes are taking place. that's command raids and prosuggestion are tillty strikes have killed a higher portion of

civilians than drone. in fact the bureau of investigative journalism shows the same pattern where it separates them out as it does for yemen. for example. similarly, the pakistan army is reported to have killed a greater po portion of civilians than drone strike between 2002 and 2007. the pakistan army produced thousand of refew agree, and also self-experienced casualty -- among the sold injures that don't occur with drone strike. 1990. eighth civillage death for each

killed. obviously the proportion of civilian casualty which is over 88% is much higher. the casual if i produced by drone is high as 24%. so i suggest the civilian casualties were as a resulting in drone strikes are horrible. essential. they are more modest than the available at tifer. and a final important point here made here is that all of the data bases that record this information show sharply falling rates of civilian casualties over the last four years. if you average the data bases together, and separate them by year these are the numbers you get. in 2009, the average rate was 123.8 percent. in 2010, it fell to 4.15%. there was a bump back up over 2011 to 8.48%. and in 2012 the number fell to 1.57% of all the casualties and civilian casualties. and finally the numbers of

civilian casualties so far in 2013 is low as well. even the bureau of investigative journalism. which i noted tends skew high. shows 0 to 4 civilian casualties in pakistan for 2013 as of last week. one additional important point relating to pakistan where most have occurred there are no viable alternative to after al qaeda leaders. the pakistan -- pakistani reaked to the boots on the ground. the most recent in a raid in september 3rd, 2008. which resulted in pakistan general publicly promising to attack american forces and shoot down helicopter if every repeated inspect essence leon

panetta describe it the only game in town. legality. it brings me to the last point i want to make. i think a strong case can be made the state of war exists between the united and al qaeda and taliban forces. and that most drone strikes perhaps not all are per michelle. my lawyer is i'm no a lawyer. my wife is a lawyer. i rely here on leading scholar of the arm of armed conflict from michael schmidt to i'll emphasize it's also the view of the president who was a constitutional lawyer. before he became president. the attorney general, and the office of legal council which cites the supreme court. the common view that the

practice and opinion of the states has changed at least since september 11th. after september 11th not before to accept the possible of a noninternational armed cob flict between a state and terrorist group permitting the state to use military force. if that state persistently unwilling or unable to prevent an ongoing pattern of attacks. finally, i don't think there is anything about drone strikes in particular necessarily vie rate lates the humanitarian law on the conduct of war itself. to strike with great precision give them the creator -- than other weapons. it make sense to be the

preferred weapon. drones will be rejected by those who reject of idea of war between a state and terrorist organization. i think there's genuine controversial over this. armed drones are clearly weapons of war. and not of law enforcement. they cannot demand surrender or negotiate or arrest anyone. they are designed to kill. but please note, if you take this view that there cannot be a war between the united states and a terrorist group like al qaeda, the taliban, then you must be equally reject, for example, the killing of saudi bin laden when was an operation equally intended to kill even if it didn't use drones to dot killing. but i don't think that most person americans condemn that operation. they do see it as an act of war. and i think that they're right to do so. but just because i think the drones strikes against imminent terrorist threats that cannot be

otherwise neutralized are defensible in principle doesn't mean i agree with erg the u.s. is doing. aimed at the particular named person. who has been placed on a list of legitimate target. signature strikes, by contrast, are not base order the individual identity of the target, but on an observed pattern of life which suggests combatant like affiliated known terrorist or providing them with shelter or carrying weapons. doubtful whether the pattern of life, in many cases, are sufficient to establish qat assistant that status and the law, ethic, and common sense require the doubtful cases with treated as civilian and therefore not targeted. i suspect that at times the u.s. has failed to properly draw this distinction. and that does need to be

rectified. because they have at times been misused. there no more ron to prohibit the use of drone than to ban helicopter per that. i have been misused at times. what is required is clarify the rules governing the use and tighten oversight and accountability to make certain that the uniquely effective weapons are used but used properly. >> thank you, avery. the final speaker is from princeton. then we'll follow up with questions from the audience. thank you. thank to tom and vice for inviting me. obviously all of you for coming. it's a great treat for me to be on the same panel and avery.

drones are an amazing piece of technology. and that technology but one of the reasons that we're having the discussion that we're having tonight is because failure of foresight from both the bush administration and the obama administration. neither democrats or republican have really put in place either a legal and ethical or policy framework for how it is drones should be used. in fact, we're now hearing, as we hear much about the drone program from anonymous sources from leaks in the "new york times" and "the washington post, that the obama administration is scrambling to put together some sort of drone playbook. drones, i think, can be an

effective weapon or a weapon that does more harm than good. and that is what i really like to talk about tonight. the way drones are described, they are talked about as being legal, as being ethical, and as being wise. i think david did a great job of the legality as did avery who touched on it. ethics is something we can debate in the question and answer. i would like to talk about the wisdom of drone strike and the effect i haveness. i think drones are a particularly seductive weapon as david pointed occupy. the threat to american lives, when using drones, is neither immediate nor apparent. that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. ..

the idea that have to cannot do some magic missile solution to an incredibly difficult and very complex problem. i think one of the things we see, avery did a fantastic job of pointing out how many people are killed when they are killed were civilians, suspected militants. who do we know, who do we not know? what we don't know however is that artifacts are a barometer to measure success in a warlike

race. does this mean we are actually winning this war? is the fact that osama bin laden is dead mean that the u.s. is defeating al qaeda? sudan and cared pc popping up a rare and the u.s. is killing more than ever before. so what does this tell us about our current u.s. strategy quiets these are some very important question we need to be asking. another thing that i think needs to be taught about and i don't think it often as his drums are very and here they are dependent upon human intelligence on the ground. you can have an incredibly accurate throw to hits the car, but at the wrong people are in the car, it doesn't matter you have which are aiming at. you killed the wrong person. it's the lack of human intelligence or bad human intelligence that is really the

achilles' heel of u.s. intelligence agencies in places like yemen and in places like pakistan. as hussein organizations like the cia move doing what it is the cia has done over the past 10 or 20 years witches gather, analyze intelligence. in a place like yemen, jsoc runs a drone program. you have to agencies that's why there are steps you can have their own separate killed as they going after. it would be much better if the cia and jsoc work with operating our night in the military around the operation, let the cia provide intelligence. he doesn't seem to be with have been in a very effective way. i've been back and forth for the past 10 years and the four

americans killed have been in yemen obviously. it's still a little wary giving some of the people i talk to when i am 90 amen, how some of these people are dying because according to what we now, only one individual, only 10 were all lucky who was killed in september 2011 was the only individual in the u.s. countless. the other three individuals killed in november 2002, summer hot in the same strike that killed anwar al-awlaki and anwar al-awlaki 16 girls son, an individual named abdallah or al-awlaki, they were not intended targets and yet they are all dead. i want to spend a little bit of time in a few minutes that i have left talking about yemen and the u.s. approach they are. on christmas day 2009, al qaeda

and arabian pendency, they put a would-be suicide bomber on a plane over detroit. thankfully for all of us he was unsuccessful in the bomb failed to get me. at the appointed time, al qaeda in the arabian pendency from the group the u.s.'s current in about them rightly concerned about was two or 300 individuals. a testament to the yemeni government and the u.s. government. i've tracked al qaeda for quite some time. i think those numbers are probably pretty accurate. today after more than three years of strikes come in the vast majority of which have begun strikes -- drone straits. the state department said it has a few thousand fighters. so the obama administration continually says what it's doing in places like yemen and pakistan is disrupting, dismantling and defeating al qaeda. but if we look, just measure the

organization in terms of how many fighters that has come away appears to be happening is after three years of strikes and sit at disrupting, and defeating them always seem to be exacerbating the problem and expanding threats from al qaeda. avery talked about the two different types of drone strikes. they remind a particular piece of intelligence that an individual is in the car or at the place. this is for instance the strike that killed anwar al-awlaki. they don't necessarily know everybody else. it's a nicely no senior hamas leader, but they knew anwar al-awlaki was there. then there's the signature strikes, sometimes referred to individuals in the cia as crowd killers. in a place like yemen, this is really, really dangerous because

not everybody who has a beard and carries a gun and talks islamist law is a number of al qaeda. if the u.s. six and circle of who it is targeting, it tends to drive more and more individuals into the arms of al qaeda. what the u.s. needs to be doing is limiting the circle of who at targets in places like yemen. power just to count the casualties are also very, very important. the u.s. tends to count any identified mail of military age, which usually means over 16 or 18 of the suspected ellison. that might work in washington, but that's not how people are seen on the ground in yemen. on the ground in yemen, you may have an individual who is affiliated in some way with al qaeda or knows members of al qaeda. al qaeda has members in yemen who are members of particular families. does that mean the entire tribe

is ill see an entire family is guilty? these are important to ask him or particularly when the u.s. uses patterns of life are targeting people based to it as they associate with. e. then s. -- all of us have different identities. if you're a member of al qaeda in yemen, al qaeda may be part of your identity, but you might other affiliations as it may be particular times can you stress the identity of being an al qaeda member when you're going through training camp or talking to one of your shakes or whatever. but with your tribe, that's the identity or stretching. individualist u.s. has evidence about and may even be affiliated in some way with al qaeda underground they are seen as tribesmen. the me tell you a quick anecdote. last time was a few months ago in the yemeni court sentenced

two individuals to death for belonging to al qaeda and their al qaeda members. they are tribe cut off the electricity to the capital city. so you have a situation where in the morning these guys are sent in to death for being members of al qaeda. in the evening, they are tribesmen. this is a real problem for the united states. it is determining who is people are, how it is we identify them and how it is because our targeting. in a place like yemen and the sister around the world, the way the u.s. is organizing its counterterrorism strategy is based on an unspoken but very real assumption and that is the u.s. can win this war on it. i know think that's true. the only people in a position to decisively and definitively defeat al qaeda in a place like yemen or the yemeni tribesmen and clerics.

let me sell you another story that i think about this. and the far east of yemen is a desert valley, sort of this one strip of her that runs through a pair of a new it from the pharmacy ribbon of green on the metal. it was a cleric and a mosque in one of the village is doing exactly what it is i suggest needs to be happening on the ground. he was standing up every friday and really make a al qaeda. he said what al qaeda is doing has no place. al qaeda is carrying out terrorist attacks here. al qaeda is kerry not crime, doing this. yemen is not a legitimate detert jihads. why these people carrying suicide attacks out? who is make such a difference. al qaeda was recruiting in that village really declined. that is often hopping because it is on my packet and for

afghanistan where you have arabs that are al qaeda in a non-arab country. you have yemenis are members of al qaeda. they can move much easier in society. a bunch of al qaeda guys get together and say we pay to have a chat with you. would like to see if we can get you to talk down your rhetoric. so he meets the al qaeda people. you don't always know who is an al qaeda member. favorite tree present at the meeting was attacked by a u.s. drone straits. the cleric was killed as were the al qaeda members. did the strike to mark her more harm? i don't know. i don't think anybody knows people we haven't heard other stories about clerics state had taken the fight to al qaeda. one other in before you close quickly. on november -- the night that president obama won reelection, there was a drone strike that

took lazy and in. this could set the capture killed on the david talked about. one of the best books is kill or capture, a fantastically reported to. the argument has often been the u.s. only kills as a last resort and only kills that it can capture. in a case like anwar al-awlaki, this was made because he was in an area out out of government control within yemen. so yemen is a difficult place, hard to travel around. government does not full control of the territory. on november 7, 2012, a strike killed an individual who is a member of the yemeni military who had been arrested for his vision of being involved in a jailbreak of that al qaeda members that are present. but he was also somebody that the yemeni government used to mediate with al qaeda and he was

killed only 30 minutes from the capital within sight of the former president of the house. senator mccain and his question to john brennan before brennan was sworn in for before brennan became cia director asked about this particular strike. he asked why was it not feasible to capture this particular individual if he was in an area controlled by the yemeni government. in fact, right outside his home. we knew where he was. the yemeni government to where he was and is a real concern here that when drone straits becomes obedience about the killing is the most convenient option. when it's convenient not as a last resort can live better selves into a very, very difficult problem. i know my time is up. let me close with a couple things. drone straits can be incredibly

effective. i think very powerful weapon, when the u.s. has the identity indicates that al qaeda does not have. but i think the u.s. needs to use them judiciously and it needs to be very, very careful about for using them. since 2012, the u.s. is carried somewhere between 40 and 60 strikes in yemen. in an attempt to kill what the u.s. says are 12 to 15 individuals. so that means either our intelligence is horrible, that drones are not as accurate as we are constantly told they are, or redo something entirely different than what it is to tell reporters in "the new york times" and "washington post." those are the only things i can come up with. i think the u.s. has to take signature strikes off the table.

i think taking signature strikes at the table come increasing human and telogen, much easier said than done would do two things. it would greatly reduce the number of civilian casualties in a place like yemen is driving al qaeda's rapidly growing numbers from 200, 300 to well over a thousand to a few thousand. it would reduce the civilian casualties, which would cut down the number of recruits in me taking signature strikes up a table and using high-value target much more judiciously, that opens up a great deal of space to the yemeni tribesmen and clerics, the ones in the best position to take. so thank you very much. >> i'm sure you'll join me in a round of applause for a fantastic three speakers. [applause]

speaking on the professor has spent 14 years unsuccessfully trying to learn to get that powerful set of arguments and taking 20 minutes each, i'm very impressed we be able to do that in a concise period of time. we only want to take 20 minutes to maximize the time for questions. i will boil it down to two questions to direct to individual speakers and let them at on and after 20 minutes to go to questions from the audience. if you die to ask a question come as you see me moving into the 50 minute. tommy might have been a nap behind the microphone. as long as we have time we'll have to cut off when we run out of time. one of the biggest debates between all three speakers is a question of how many civilians are killed in what the affects of them are. how much is first direct equation to a very nasty others to jump in on this. first a clarification question how confident we are in the numbers of civilians and what effect that has on the

effectiveness of the program. as is reported in "the new york times" in a major article last year that expose a lot of this for the first time to the public, in terms of the way the obama administration defines men between 15 and 45 who happen to be killed in a drone strike unless they are posthumously proven to not be militants are assumed militants. from jo becker and scott shane article was a major exposé of this program for the first time for major paper in the united states. a senior administration official said the number of civilians killed in drone strikes was in a single digits. and it is, three former intelligence officials expressed disbelief the number of civilians killed could be so low. one official said it bothers me

when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants. they come to corpses and may not for sure they are. want to talk about civilians, are we sure the number you're citing a what we would commonly understand to be civilians that are not including what could be a large category, especially societies were not a lot of women hang around, so when a man is killed to happen to be 15 to 45 are not necessarily safe in assuming they are not civilians. how clearer we that we talk about what we generally understand is the billions. avery gave a lot of good detail about the various estimates from different agencies about the percentage of people in various attacks or civilians and may be as low as 14% of the people, different estimates of the new america foundation on the moral standpoint always better to kill fewer civilians for sure.

from a policy standpoint, i wonder if even a small number relative to the larger size if it triggers blowback does not have been unsuccessful in terms of the larger effectiveness of the program. former director of national intelligence tennis player believes they are counterproductive and pakistan because they create so much sympathy. as you mentioned between 50 and 80 major al qaeda leaders are to be at been killed by drone strikes. how many times do we kill a third person in al qaeda? so there is also the possibility with the idea you create the matching your, even if civilian casualties are low, they are high enough perhaps to create enough resentment that when that number two, number three, number four is killed, plenty of people are ready to take the place. a clarification on how convinced we are when they say civilians

are killed and what you think of the argument that if the numbers are small percentage wise, how do we do with the possibility of blowback next the policy in effect this? >> the strategy of counting that was reported that the government is using all adult males is likely militants unless there's strong contrary evidence is implausible and unfortunately undermines credibility of any numbers the government announces. they've announced in low numbers. john brennan at one point announced there have been civilian casualties in a year and presumably he must've been using this technique of counting adult males is automatically militants because all the databases i've referred to here show lots of civilian casualties over that period of time. an article i try to be good

showed other seems to be a strong as i want everybody strikes. there's been a fair number of civilian casualties and a few people interviewed people who had had present to further validate that information. becerra says that i'm quoting the needs of the presentation, none of them use that technique. they are all independent services basing their reporting principally on media sources. i love from pakistan and some with deep reporting capabilities. this as differences among them about how they account civilians. some methodologies are more plausible than others. the safest conclusion is simply to say it's very likely the actual is somewhere among the

ones being reported by independent agents used, independent databases. the new america foundation i suggest it has a fairly plausible estimate that somewhere in the middle of that range. those numbers are very loose and i should emphasize they are based on media reports on a range of different sources, each report they only had two or three sources, sometimes only one foreign intelligence official here. a lot of them report on local individuals who were present at the time. in some cases reports are validated by the taliban spokesmen as well, that hospitals sometimes validate the claims. so it's true we can't be totally

confident about the accuracy in reporting, that the pattern that emerges over time as reported by independent databases based on media reporting to provide a broad indication of what's happening. the second question is how can we estimate the degree of blowback occurring in the amount of reason than an anger against the united states and sympathy generated for al qaeda and the taliban. these drone strikes and how much recruitment is driven by the drone strikes so you might end up at the larger al qaeda or taliban even if you eliminate the little militants from the organization may grow because of the recruitment created through resentment at his strikes. that's closely connected as he suggested with a number of civilians being killed.

it's very hard to get substantial numbers overestimate the degree to which this is occurring. it's probably underreported because it's hard to get a clear sense of how many people are recruited as a result of drone strikes. intuitively the number is likely much larger been civilians being killed. that's an excellent rationale for saying let's stop doing the signature strikes, which produce a much higher rate of civilian casualties and focus more on the personality strikes, which we seem to do accurately and generate less blowback and reset and 10 sympathy for al qaeda. i think that is a useful response that plays into what i'm advocating order. i contextualize that for bradley encinas and a good deal of success by the cia and the military as statistics indicated

in reducing the number of civilian casualties is not just us in this room aware of the concern. it's also the government and they have reacted by using much smaller scorpion missiles that produce less collateral damage have a more human intelligence on the ground. story suggest they are able to attack more accurately. live in turkey and the militants after in their cars so there's less danger for producing civilian casualties. their efforts to seem if you track the numbers to be showing some success as i indicated, that doesn't have a sharply reduced number of civilian casualties. >> just very quiet, i know we're short on time to get to everyone's question. i have confidence most of the

numbers being reported. i've seen reporting done in places like yemen. it's difficult to get out of these places. journalism standards are and always high in this any strikes that the nature of where it is they are taking place are an incredibly remote areas. a particular drone strike that said seven people died and others had size. when an american reporter went to the scene he found that only two people had died. you see this going both ways in the media reports here. problematic. they are the only source we have come as we tend to rely on them yet that doesn't necessarily mean they are an unimpeachable source. on the joke about how many times are we going to kill the number three, we sing in places like yemen reported that three in four times.

we killed anwar al-awlaki three different times through for the u.s. killed him. today the second command, a former detainee from guantánamo bay, one of the guys instrumental in putting the bomb on the plane in 2009 was declared a couple months ago. reports come out today that he still alive. so we know a lot less than we think. >> one question to each of the two review so she could keep answers or if that would be great. gregory community argument to blowback problem is acute in yemen message is quoted from dennis blair, he believes the same is true in pakistan. you've argued much of the problem would be eliminated if the strikes are remote and focused on personality strikes. picking up on something david said, if instead and the limiting personality strikes, if there's more reliance on this on

the ground for better cooperation with yemeni security sources -- for us is, are not widely loved by the yemeni public, i think to capture and try these people, would that not also need to blowback? >> is very good, very pointed and very fair question. u.s. boots on the ground would be a mistake. this would rapidly increase the recruitment for al qaeda. there was a report there was an interview given and released yesterday in a paper in which a member of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, the guy know, journalists close to al qaeda who is dynamic car hit by a drone straight before. the biggest problem of qaeda in the arabian payment to those facing today is eyes. spies within its ranks. this is what is most important for the united states and is

saying that the u.s. is the worst that right now, gathering human intelligence on the ground. if the u.s. has proper intelligence, we can effectively harness this amazing technology we have nec to minimize the number of civilian casualties. it's not only signature strikes not only using the high-value targeted strikes were judiciously, but all it is built on a faulty foundation, all of it is problematic and the foundation has intelligence. >> one quick question for david. you may be arguments problematic the administration has irritated decisions about when to kill american citizens and we need a more transparent process with better logix or when that's done. a little more idea from how that might be done. for example, the lead of work wonton amount they detainees in which the supreme court found

the bush administration policy was a legitimate has argued the way to get around this would be a national security court within the administration and executive branch with expert lawyers arguing in favor of drone, a jury that would be most senior national security adviser to issue decisions in writing what should be given to aid intelligence committee for review. others have said you can't trust the administration to oversee it of should be a court like this in the actual judiciary. could you give us a sense of what would be a plausible way to have more oversight and transparency? >> i spent most of my initial remarks talking about the substantive criteria by which the united states identifies people to kill, but also the procedures to ensure criteria if

they are being applied justly. very little except for what is it to "the new york times," which includes every tuesday a conference call the 100 people around. i don't know how many of you been on a conference call with more than five people. whatever procedure we need to ensure we don't make mistakes. a conference call with 100 people is not the response. secondly, we know these kill those coming people can be a killer for a very long time before we take them out like anwar al-awlaki. there's not a sense of urgency so you could build a procedure provided personnel testing. it could be in the court. it could be in the executive ranch. the court is better in terms of checks, having some independent entity do it.

the administration has to put a cap on your phone, should they have to go to record if they want to kill you? and when it's time to do so. could there be a clear set of procedures that allow for a defense of the person, someone whose job it is to defend that person. we may not go to tell the person in advance he or she is on the list, but we could have a double set kitty plays the role of arguing against that person being killed. we don't know whether any of that is in place. doesn't seem like any of that is in place. again, that undermines the legitimacy of this rather extraordinary tool. just a couple things in response because it does bother me the way we figure and talk in a very calm and anodyne way about how these are safe, effective.

it sounds like is to paster sent them. we are talking about killing people. it doesn't put americans at risk. well, so was stopped to the bomb in hiroshima. it is very safe and then put americans at risk. does that mean he was right or just? the notion was as any other ways to kill people. but that's not the only question. it's not how do we best kill people. it's what should we do what we have believed the person poses a threat of terrorism against us? one possibility is to kill them. if you tell them, to better to do it in a targeted way that i'm tired away, et cetera, et cetera. bringing them to justice is another possibility. it's interesting to wish captured hundreds and hundreds of al qaeda suspects around the

world, obama in his five years has captured less than a handful will killing hundreds and hundreds. we have substituted killed or captured. that undermines the intelligence gregory points out is critical to obtaining a victory because he can't get intelligence that of a dead person. you could get intelligence out of a live person. in terms of the alternatives, 14% innocent civilian casualty is not so bad compared to the other ways. think about the alternative to justice. would anyone say we have the death penalty in the united states and only 14% of the people we put to death or anything. so it's pretty good. it's completely unacceptable. it really turns on whether you just accept the war paradigm, even when you are far from an

armed conflict. whether you are willing to question that war paradigm when we are not in an area of armed conflict. >> we have a long line of folks lining up. let me start with the first person. >> at evening. many of his first donkey and a teacher at holy cross on intelligence. i share many concerns the speakers have raised about the use of substitute. i particularly believe we overuse them. but i have a question, which may now in the face seem like it relates to drones, that you will see where i'm going in a couple minutes. >> a little less than a couple minutes. >> hopefully oc where i'm going. my students sometimes aren't sure. but anyway, president eisenhower

during the 1950s established established -- he implemented a three-part defense strategy for the united state. one of those parts relied on using the cia to conduct covert operations to advance american foreign policy entries. now, eisenhower understood perfectly well that covert operations are often dirty and immoral and innocent people get killed. president eisenhower's calculators, his perspective looking not the extraordinary number of casualties during world war i and to, casualties military and civilian came to the conclusion that covert

operations, which as i say and balance are better than the extraordinary number of deaths the two world wars of the 20th century had generated. the question is, can this perspective be applied to the use of drones? >> w-whiskey dancer total two to three minutes if there's more than one person like to speak to maximize the number of questions we reach. >> i question the presumption that if we had engaged in covert action, starting with eisenhower to the present time, we would've had world war iii. that seems to be the presumption that we somehow avoided words by engaging in this activity.

one of my concerns frankly is as drones become more globalized, that this will be a very real -- create a very real risk of sparking more armed conflict because of the ease with which they can be deployed. so they are attempting to deploy and will be deployed. when we deploy them, people will not come and attack us, but other countries don't have such failsafe defenses. they don't have militaries that to work the countries combined. the risk is this becomes a trigger to more conflict. a better response is law, international law, the ban on the use of force except in response to armed attacks and the geneva conventions and engaging in secret killing.

>> the essence of the question is do you want cheerleaders sometimes to get their hands dirty? t. think it is part of being a good leader if he faced a situation in which the country would be good. for example, if you didn't send me unethical, that we would expect them to do that. what we want them to do that? the truth is we want them to do a do not tell us about it and we want to have the gratification of complaining about it afterwards when they find out they didn't tell us about it. the truth is we want it both ways and probably if we want our leaders to be responsive to us, we need to be responsible and telling them what we want them to do. it's good for having debates and working out the ethical issues connected with this.

the other part is we should send back a clear message about whether we want our leaders to be doing what is necessary to protect us, even in a legal gray area where we willing to uphold the exact letter of the geneva convention, even if the process as significant danger. it is great to do both unobvious super or protect ourselves better, that is fabulous and that's an easy choice. the hard question is what do you do when they don't converge? >> that argument is exactly what is coming to torture, guantánamo and abu ghraib. >> would need to move on. i'm sorry, there's a whole bunch of folks behind you. >> one final thing. >> very quickly.

>> i did see was a three-pronged strategy. the first promised nuclear deterrence. so there was no presumption they are heading towards world war iii. >> thank you very much. >> after the u.s. struck a comment bombs in world war ii, there's been a race against nuclear weapons through the crisis during the cold war now in north korea and iran try to become nuclear in the u.s. contains a number of nuclear countries. a similar pattern can be seen with the space race, militarization of space. obesity and international security crisis is more countries get drones? i do urge the future cost? >> right, do you want to start quick >> that's a very good question and the point david race a couple times today has been particularly apt. the u.s. is killing people right now identified as terrorists.

not everybody in the world identifies individuals. there is a real possibility, which will soon become reality in which countries like russia or china d. space and what the u.s. response can be when russia uses a someone to tell someone else that impression controlled territory that the u.s. does not see as being a terrorist is going to put the u.s. in a very dangerous position. that has been the failure of foresight from the republican democratic administration we've had under president bush and president obama. the u.s. has often had leaders who look at the present with one eye and precedent with the other and i don't think that's happened over the past 10 years. >> -- either hadron technology themselves are purchased drone type allergy.

arianne hans a drone they called the ambassador of death. it doesn't fire missiles, but a flies into the moment. no doubt they will find a better way eventually. [inaudible] >> so the delivery at the embassy of death due directly. so this is going to be a proliferation that is going to occur in the next 10 to 15 years and it's a good thing if we could get clear norms and conventions that would restrain the use of drones in the future. i would caution we may also be tended to exaggerate because in 50 countries have drones used broadly, there's no assurance other countries will follow the example we set. it's not enough just to redo it in the way we are comfortable

with. if you want there to be norms, we have to develop international convention, some treaties to make it part of the icc to oversee drone years. if you want to restrain the behavior of other countries, there's going to have to be more institutional oversight. >> next question. >> hello, my name is claire and i have an observation and a question. on this matter of effectiveness, it's always a relative term and you pointed out we are here at worcester, but cnn is possibly see my pakistani friends. what is effective from our perspective is not necessarily effective for the bears. particularly since her to catholic institution, it's not measured on nationalistic terms, but more what is effective for human being.

that is my reflection. the moral dilemma -- it's not even a dilemma. it's a huge moral problem putting on one place although it should always be in the forefront isn't just a game changer in the state crowd. just the fact you have one country doing targeted assassination, violating national boundaries, isn't that a significant change in the rules and which states can interact and is not contributing to the difficulty pakistan is having any kind of alliance the u.s. can make with some states like pakistan, where what are they going to do? we are allied with americans who periodically happened to bomb our citizens about giving us the heads up. my question is asking about

that. is drones aside from the shifting to ologies, isn't it a shift in the way states engage with one another? >> i think that's the risk. it reduces disincentives to using lethal force in another sovereign jurisdiction. but the administration would say in response to the fact is we use it in another sovereign jurisdiction if they agree to it and allegedly, although i can't because they don't acknowledge these things, we don't have anything public. but yemen consents, pakistan consent your >> look at what is happening to pakistan. they are crumbling and we are loosing a functioning ally there. >> that is the effect of this argument, which is a very serious argument, serious enough that tennis player who was the head of one of our major

counterintelligence operations under both bush and obama now says that he now questions of morals, ethics and bought aside, we shouldn't engage in drone strikes because they are good. they make the world in the world for his first save, not more safe. i don't have the ability to second-guess him, but i think that is certainly a concern. imagine if another country were regularly dropping precision bombs out of the sky in killing people here. imagine 86% were bad guys or even 95% were bad guys. how would we feel about some other country asserting the

power to push a button, even with the so-called secret consent of our government because the government couldn't possibly tell us because we would put that government out of office if we never consented to another country executing us. that's the situation in these places. the reason is because they cannot be public within those countries, just as it can be public in this country. that underscores the difficulty. >> there's a whole bunch of folks behind you. >> i would just say, you know, diplomacy is incredibly difficult and the problem we see in places like pakistan and yemen and somalia is that these countries, from the perspective in washington have simply become too hard to do any idea is that the u.s. can hire enough missiles and kill enough bad guys, it can keep al qaeda and groups like that back on their

heels to the point they can plot, plan and launch attacks against the united states. i find that strategy to not be very effective in the long term and i'm worried about the consequences we may reap as a result. but there are consequences there are consequences diplomatically. >> if you want to establish a convention of drones outside the spheres of armed conflict with the editors of armed conflict, we have to accept that as an application of a situation arises the terrorist group in the united states and they carry out a of attacks i must say canada, they are repeatedly attacking ottawa and is a series of attacks we don't do anything to stop the pattern from continuing, the canadians would have the same right to carry out

drone strikes against the group attacking them as we claim to have in the case of pakistan. it may be a very beneficial thing to create rules and regulations, but they will have implications for us as well. >> thomas informed earlier five-minute bus. what i would take three questionnaires. but it would give us your questions and sit down and that the best you can in the remaining time. would that be okay? thanks, guys. >> one of the biggest things we have going on with the unconventional warfare is the fact we are not fighting a state bound enemy is winning hearts and minds of the people in countries we are in for now seemingly going against us because we fire more and more missiles. the consensus of how we went or not when, km drone warfare

coincided the hearts and minds of people of these countries? >> if president obama in the united states government had planned a mission involving special is to capture anwar al-awlaki and during the mission he was killed, would they be the same discussion to kill citizens going on right now? >> professor cole comes is primarily for you. you wouldn't article in the new york review of books and basically one of your primary arguments is making a comparison between policies of the bush administration and the obama administration in terms of a grounding in the rule of law for the obama administration versus certain policies as well as reppert had the ball. as a professor of law and

someone well-versed in not come you obviously torture something unequivocally illegal as a tack tick, how do you sort of bridge the gap between torture and the use of drones, which for a lot of people is viewed as something that has a tenuous link to legality in terms of signature strikes and collateral damage. >> why don't we start with david and let avery have the last word. >> i go back to what i said at the beginning of my initial remarks, which is torture is never permissible under the convention against torture is clearly and expressly prohibited, even in times of war full text come the end of story. if you're going to be within the rule of law come you don't torture. you don't take people on water

board than 183 times. that's what we did. consider to be the dirty work. but the obama administration has tried to do is use lethal force and over use lethal force in response to the terrorist threats we face. but to figure out how to do so within the confines of the rules of law in the killing of anwar al-awlaki respondent 83 page memo that applies the various legal standards and concluded under specific conditions, non-feasibility, that weslaco. those are hard questions. one thing all three of us agree on is you can't rule out the use

of drones as a pragmatic matter where they go matter during work. killing is appropriate. the challenges in designing the appropriate scope where we did before george bush ruled out the use of torture. that's the principle difference between the two administrations. the same piece you refer to it when not to criticize the obama administration for a variety of tactics, in putting in particular the drone policy. >> briefly, can they be compatible with the hearts and minds? we've talked about the strikes happening every don't always know what is a drone strike and what is launched from a plane and from a naval ships. it tends not to be the mad of the weapon delivery system that are upsetting and driving recruitment. it's not even key and high-level

al qaeda leaders. it is mistaken drone strikes on civilian casualties. if the u.s. were to use more judiciously, they would take signature strikes off the table and a ferry back to on the ground, then we go a long way towards winning the hearts and minds. on the issue of anwar al-awlaki, i absolutely think we would still be having this debate because anwar al-awlaki isn't the only u.s. citizen killed. there's been three others in yemen alone. the closer to quit points. in referencing the department of justice, the white paper that came out said that a senior qualified official in the u.s. government would determine who is the senior operational commander within al qaeda. there's a very real assumption

the u.s. has it's not perfect, near-perfect intelligence about what is happening in the inner workings of al qaeda. i think that's a dangerous assumption to make. as i said, i've been going to yemen since 2003. i've talked to a lot of different people. one of the things most frustrating to me over the past decade is the u.s. is self-evidently right. the u.s. has more technology, more munitions and then it has my money and yet on the ground in a place like yemen, we appear to be losing. >> i think drones or a tack tick. they are one instrument of trying to deal with a deep-seated complex problem then they cannot solve that problem for us. they can be one element, that

they need to be a complex strategy, which involves more intelligence, modulated use them focus on the decapitation of leaders because that has the greatest impact and produces the least blowback. it have to be part of a diplomatic strategy to build up the government and its authority and credibility for closer cooperation as well. so that hopefully addresses the immediate american interests, but there's also broader questions raised by drones in terms of how they're used in the future. we have to think about around interests and strategy in the next two years, but how drones will be used on the line. when he accuses us of an attitude of exceptionalism, we can be thinking in terms of a weekend day because we have the power to do it and what will advance their interests. we have to give consideration to

build institutions. and regimes that will restrain their use. we have to think about their applications will be for us in the future. it's not necessarily a terrible thing if countries have a disincentive from operating from their territory are a way for other countries or international institutions to put pressure on countries that do about that. thank you, mr. chairman. in terms of global stability can be a positive force of regulated properly and that's something we think beyond the scope of our own immediate concerns. >> "the new york times" noted last month they are now treating more pilots for its drones pairs of this is only beginning of a long policy in addition to what david pointed out, they all agree under some conditions,

they would also agree more debate about when and how to use them as necessary. i kid you not call for calm horridly for starting the debate in thank you for coming. [applause] ..

>> next authors discuss their books about technology. in her book, always on, naomi brown talks bet the influence of mobile technologies. then douglas rushkoff, and then the book, big data, looks at how information is being used to predict human behavior. >> american university professor anyway ohm -- naomi book is called "always on." >> host: american