>> she's the first lady to earn a college degree and during the civil war soldier serving and her husband called her the mother of the regiment. >> president obama has renewed his call for closing the guantánamo's beta tense and center. monday the heritage foundation heard from bush in obama's ministries and officials about what's next for the facility. this is just over an hour. [applause] >> thank you very much john and i would like to welcome each of

yo our second event in our new national security law program. the goal of this new program is to research and discuss and debate the myriad legal and policy issues in the area of national security law. since 9/11 there've been many issues and to the detainee policies one of the toughest issues out there. my goal is to manage the program is to bring thoughtful and experienced professional together regardless of political stripe or party affiliation to discuss and articulate these issues in a civil and a political manner. that is why i am particularly pleased to have three friends and colleagues join me today on the stage. each of us has had the privilege of serving in the same job that the assistant secretary of defense as the d.a. as it's

called in the building. each of us have had to tackle tough challenges during our tenure in that job. many of the issues we have confronted then and now are the same. that is why i thought it would interesting for you to hear about the evolution of the detainee policy, the law of the policy, the practice and the realities of the experience. i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge that the outset that thousands of uniformed military personnel who have worked with distinction in implementing detainee policies day in and day out. i also want to acknowledged the career civil servants who work on behalf of the american people who worked across two administrations to help shape policy. each of us on the stage today could not have done our jobs without their help and one of those civil servants is a guy named allen lietzau who was the

acting cda four separate times over the past nine years. i would also like to thank francois, the current head of delegation for the international committee of the red cross and its predecessors. on the help of all of us let me just say that the confidential dialogue between the united states and they irc are has been vitally important. today's format is quite simple. we will hear from each panelist in the order in which they served. each will get between seven and 10 minutes of prepared or perhaps i'm prepared but thoughtful comments and we will start with professor matt waxman and bill lietzau. our first speaker is matt period is the professor in law and tackle the cochair of the roger hertog family law and at columbia. he is also a senior fellow for launch or an policy at the

council of foreign relations and the hoover institution's task force on national cicada. he took his undergraduate and graduate degrees from yale with a fulbright scholar at kings college london where he studied in the department of water and always the overachiever clerk for not only the clerk of the 7th circuit that the associate justice supreme court david souter. sandy hodgkinson was the nerd. she is vice president chief of staff at drs technologies. a defense firm owned by -- a former career civil servant in the united states government and senior executive her per position's included among others distinguished visiting research fellow at the national defense university, special assistant for chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense william lynn the third. deputy assistant secretary of defense and deputy ambassador

at-lar for war crimes issues at the state department director for international justice on the national security council. she spent a year in iraq advising the coalition provisional authority and human rights and justice matters. she has authored more than 50 scholarly articles and serves on the board of directors for international law association. she has been teaching national security law at university law school since 2007. she earned her j.d. and masters in 2007 and graduated with her masters degree from tulane and is also currently a ship made of mind judge advocate general core work last week she was elected to the captain. congratulations for joining -- thank you for joining us today. the firth and current d.a. is ill lietzau a career main core officer who retired as a colonel. he took his undergraduate degree from the naval academy before he joined the marine corps. he took his law degree from yale and hasn't allowed him from the

army jack school in ms and national security law from the national war college. before his appointment, colonel lietzau was deputy legal adviser to the national security council. bill has a long and distinguished resume. among other things he is held numerous pose as a marine attorney including military judge and served in several u.s. delegations in multilateral treaty negotiations and most relevant for today's event being the statute for international criminal courts. as you can see we have a very experienced and talented group of folks and without further ado i will turn the stage over to matt waxman. >> thanks very much. thank you all for being here. i'm excited to be talking about it. let me just begin with a little history of the office and talk about what are some priority

issues during my tenure which was about med 2004 until late 2005. i will also comment a bit on i think what we did well and where we didn't do well. mid-2004, for those of you who have been following this issue it may ring a bell. this is right on the heels of the abu ghraib crisis so i think it was around april 2004 that the issue splashes in the public in the public sphere newspapers television etc. and with some urgency depending -- we decided to establish an office to handle affairs, to handle detainee policy. i mentioned that to start for two reasons. one is to emphasize the point that there wasn't really until 2004 an office within the

pentagon especially within the undersecretary for policy with sole responsibility for detention issues, detention detainee affairs and detainee policy and so forth are they think part of the reason was that until the september 2001 attacks there wasn't really such a thing as detention policy. the detention policy was the geneva. it doesn't mean it didn't come up in prior wars but it was mostly about implementing the geneva convention and long-established.transfer how you run facilities and so forth. after 2001, we had a range of very difficult policy issues that came up, not just with regard to care and custody but transfer of detainees.

many of our detention programs also had an intelligence gathering component to them. we need to coordinate the detention and intelligence peace. there were coalition aspects to all of this so we had a lot of policy issues that we needed to go through. to work through. i would also say that before this office was created, detainee policy was being conducted. it was being conducted and advised throughout a number of different institutions within the pentagon. so the people who are thinking about detention policy for guantánamo were not necessarily the people who are thinking about detention policy in afghanistan, iraq and elsewhere. so the idea behind or one of the ideas behind the creation of the

office of affairs was to consolidate in terms of our priorities. we have a lot of discipline's and policy issues that we need to confront from the beginning. the overwhelming priority was to deal with detainee mistreatment. this came like i said in the wake of the abu ghraib crisis. an investigation into that as well as reviews of our detention program in afghanistan and iraq and guantánamo revealed widespread drop bombs, mistreatment, abuse, mismanagement etc. and the biggest single priority is that early stage was to improve the care and custody of our detainees and make sure that we minimize the likelihood of future abuse and mistreatment. let me say that is something

that i think the office -- this was the pentagon wide effort. i think it was a mixed success during that period. we have a lot of lessons learned that were brought to the surface through internal pentagon reviews and external reviews working with our partners at the icrc to surface issues and working with combatant command and the military services and the various components of the pentagon. i think we did a very very strong job in bringing up the quality of detention operations and ensuring we minimize the likelihood future of abu ghraib type issues. there is one aspect of the detainee treatment issue that we weren't able to resolve. this was something that was frustrating to me personally,

but i think one of the problems that in my mind resurfaced by these reviews and what had gone wrong in the early years of detainee operations was the failure to use international standards as our minimum to include prohibitions on degrading treatment found in the convention against torture and the treatment standards of common article iii of the geneva convention. there were a lot of internal and interagency discussions, whether these ought to be laid out as irreducible. in the end, other branches of government intervened so congress in 2005 passed the detainee treatment act making it clear that the u.s. government

wide for human and degrading treatment was a minimum standard and in 2006 the supreme court declared common article iii of the geneva convention applied against al qaeda so that help to solve these problems. i think due to some policy disagreements and legal disagreements and political disagreements that was one aspect of our process in reforming detention operations that we weren't able to get done internally within the defense department during that 2004/2005 timeframe. just real quickly some other issues that we worked on that were priorities, i think these were high-priority issues but none of them approaching the high high-priority of dealing with detainee treatment issues during those first few years. one of them was putting in place and institutionalizing good

review processes at guantánamo so by the time i stepped in mid-2004 is also followed on the heels of two supreme court decisions of the rosalind hamdi. actually there were already plans within the pentagon to put in place a periodic review process to review in a regularized way they do tensions of remaining detainees to determine whether they should still be detained at guantánamo or released or transferred to another country. the supreme court decision accelerated and led to some changes in the ways that those processes were organized. i think some aspects of those were successful in some aspects of this were less successful. i would say for example the

status of the tribunals were something that we were not conducting in these types of environments. i think despite the best of intentions and very hard in good faith efforts by those tasked with running them i think we are probably not as well-designed as we should have been for reviewing enemy combatant status at guantánamo. on the other hand we had a review process, an annual review process to determine, for even those who could be detained at guantánamo should they be detained there or should they be transferred home to a third country, think we have developed a robust process that led to the transfer or release of hundreds of detainees during this period for approval of the transfer or

release of hundreds of detainees. and let me make a point that i think is relevant here to the current policy discussions about this. most of those transfers during my tenure from guantánamo to home countries or to third countries does so with the understanding that there was some risk that the individual would return to the fighting and engage in some dangerous terroristic activity. these were not transfers where we had 100% guaranteed that there would be something that would be referred to as recidivism. i opened to the fact that there was some risk of the policy view that risk was a risk we should be willing to bear because there are counter risks on the other side. there are counter risk from a humanitarian for liberty

perspective. their resource issues and there are partnerships we are trying to cultivate with other coalition countries etc., and i think we have and as i looked at the guantánamo debates today, we have locked ourselves in politically if we think that the only condition under which we can afford to release somebody as if we can somehow guarantee zero probability of any risk of danger, that certainly was not the standard that we were applying when we transferred or released hundreds of detainees from guantánamo during 2004 in 2005. i will just end by saying another priority issue was transferring especially in iraq and afghanistan. my colleagues will probably talk more about that. i think the bolt of the hard work done during their tenure. this was an immense challenge and i will just mention that

it's often these days, it often appears in the press in the context of transitioning operations from the united states to the government of afghanistan. and it's often mentioned that it has already been two or three years since the obama administration is struck an arrangement with the karzai governments for how to do this. actually goes back much further than that. there was a prior raiment in late 2005 to transfer detention operations and many of the same issues that i think are currently being worked out surface then. so it has really been a few years that we have been trying to work through the very typical set of moves with the government of afghanistan and out to transfer detention operations from the u.s. government to afghanistan.

>> thanks, matt for setting the stage. it's important that folks realize the office of the pentagon was a necessary improvement in terms of focusing our energy on one place across all of dod on detention operations. math leaves the pentagon and goes across the river to the state department and acting for a few months and then i came to the pentagon after nine separate interviews, the first interview is actually for a year. and one of the main things that is still left to be done and what matt alluded to and that is establishing eight core board the standard of care treatment for all detainees regardless of their legal status.

there had been a previous dod instruction and instructions are sort of the top law for all of dod components out there, the 1994 instructions dealing with prisoners of war and another focused on wartime but it had not been updated since 9/11 so 23.1001e which matt worked very hard on with dod to incorporate some of the things he has talked about still hadn't been done and it was very clear to me when i came on board in talking with not only people within the pentagon but outside people that something good would have to happen before we could actually incorporate among other things common article iii and verbatim within the dod instruction. that big thing ultimately ended up being the hamdan decision at

the supreme court in 2006 in the end of jan and i want to talk about 2310 hamdan and a few of the other big things that happened during my tenure period is a humble guy and he didn't take credit for this but i will say matt works very hard with people at the pentagon and within the government to craft agreements with not only the government of afghanistan but saudi arabia because the populations and that is as this he said to engage in thoughtful, not risk-free, but thoughtful transfers of those detainees that the executive branch believe should be transferred back to the government of afghanistan and saudi arabia and that process is ongoing when i came to the pentagon. but i think matt picks up on another point that week can

highlight for a moment period said it wasn't as the detainee policy wasn't happening when he got to the job. of course it was happening. one of the first persons in the field, the lawyers in the field was a marine major who was in afghanistan and in charge of the legal side of what standards and care treatment applied and started bringing people together in afghanistan and his response was well we need treatment consistent with the geneva convention. that is how i am trained and that is how i believe we should treat detainees. among other things, another outstanding thing to be down was the army field manual on on interrogation which there have been previous versions of that but the one that wields mag published after the hamdan decision with this one is fm to. 23.2 which is the collector operations. the debate in the and dod was what if any, what techniques

should be authorized and should there be a classified annex to that particular document? it took on more significant as matt said the amendment passed in the end of 2005 and among the other things it said that only those techniques authorized in the army field manual may be used for dod effective control of dod. so it took on added significance as we made it and discussed and worked through the hard issues of what should be authorized and ultimately we decided we decided didn't serve among other things in need for transparency. one of the processes map was involved in was the defense senior leadership oversight. for those of you who remember

there were 12 major investigations after the abu ghraib scandal and those 12 major investigations put in place 492 specific recommendations. at the pentagon we do a good job with numbers and many things so we laboriously and methodically works through trying to implement all 492 of those recommendations. from the 12 major investigations and the way we were forcing functions to do that, we ultimately implemented 486 of those 409 to recommendations by the fall of 2006 when i published the dod instructions in the army field manual. so i think that was part of the process of making forward progress in fixing this. in may of 2006 when i was there

with the u.s. government presented its second periodical report to united nations committee against torture and i was part of the dod delegation. i believe actually matt and andy were there in their respective roles in the state department. it was a very large delegation and john belzer led the u.s. delegation. one of the things matt talked about is the number of people who are held accountable during, for the mistreatment of detainees. i went back and looked at our report to the rapid tours in geneva and as of may of that year, 103 folks have been cart -- court-martial for detainee abuse in and 89 were convicted and their work 100 folks ejected and so the process of holding people accountable for their mistreatment was ongoing and the numbers have gone up since then.

after 9/11 like many people in the reserves i was recalled back to active duty and i was sent to jacksonville florida to be a senior defense lawyer. my colleague and buddy buddy was lieutenant commander who ended up later in the military counsel for hamdan. when i came to the hamdan charlie was representing hamdan and the first case for the military physician and when i was at the pentagon the hamdan case for the supreme court so i remember it like it was yesterday a morning of the decision. i called charlie very early in the morning with the news. i told charlie i think he would have a big day and congratulations for what he did. in fact i saw the hamdan decision as an opportunity to jumpstart the issue of the dod instruction and in fact our

staff pull together the latest version moments after the decision and we shifted around the various folks at dod to try to get a jumpstart and jumpstarted and push through an alternately it was published in september of that year. we touch on to other things and i will turn it over to sandy. there was a debate as many of you have read within the administration on what to do or how to move forward with military commissions after the hamdan decision came down. within dod, i was one of the small group of people as the only former fellow prosecutor military prosecutor and i have a lot of respect and got a lot of respect for military course and commissions and ultimately the decision was taken to start with the ucmj and work backwards

under practicability to peel back the the impractical wartime's commissions case. there was an update that updated some rules and i think wisely so. but that took up a lot of our -- and a lot of things happen on september 6. you had a confluence of events. hugh had on one day publishing the dod instructions, republishing the army field manual interrogation sending the military interrogations act language up to the hill and then the president announced that 14 high value detainees who were previously in custody were brought to the cia, brought to guantánamo and of course i was involved in all of those events. i think the last thing i would

say is and this may come as a surprise to some of you for but secretary rumsfeld felt very strongly about the need for more transparency at guantánamo in our detention operations there, so he ordered me early on in my tenure to take as many people to guantánamo's possible, congressman, senators, go on the record. other people were on those trips and just take people there and let them make up their own minds. part of that process we were fortunate enough to take the first three european delegations to guantánamo bay and i think to the extent practicable we need to be as transparent as possible about what we do in detention operations and i agree with matt 100% that we transferred a few hundred folks off the island during my tenure and we actually ramped up operations in iraq in advance of the surge and worked

with the karzai government on the tough issues there. .. there wasn't a lot to do when i got into the position in 2007. that's kind of a joke. there have been a lot of tremendous work done by a lot of

people in this room and people throughout the government, but one of the areas that was still a pretty big challenge was working through the transfer processes which you have heard about and i'll try not to be repetitive. as far as transfers we tried to work with other countries to mitigate the risk and threat they posed. it doesn't mean that you can ensure they won't go back to the fight. no one has a crystal ball. but we did make every effort possible to work with governments on measures that would he them monitor activities when they were in their country, or being prettied for crimes. we could feel relatively confident these particular individuals, if they went back to their home countries, would not suppose a significant threat to the united states. it was never risk-free but it did take a lot of effort from

people throughout the government, from all the agencies working together to try to find ways to get more people from guantanamo bay home. why are we doing this? the elephant in the room is the fact that guantanamo was then, and remains today, unpopular. it was unpopular with the allies and even at home, to a lesser degree at home now, i would say, but certainly with our allies, it's always been up -- unpopular so when we were trying to work with them on sending home they're detainees its wait -- was partly because we felt it was important to move guantanamo into the best place possible. so we did that with transfer office people we thought we could mitigate risk, and we also did it with continued progression on the treatment standards and trying to find continued ways to make that better. so, things that we did during the time i was there, at least

enhanced while i was, there were these efforts to try to get more contact with family. so for people who had been detained over a large period of time, how can we ensure their families at home that they were healthy, safe, alive, and that they were communicating there had been letters back and forth, but we increased effort to create better family visits in a variety of places and in places where we couldn't, we tried to increase the ability to see one another, whether through a video teleconference or in other way. that was the progression of trying to enhance he people we're detaining. >> a lot of other things that happened in that time -- i'll talk about iraq and afghanistan where i think we have some significant changes during the twoeer i was in the position. we took some great suggestions from the field, from particularly a wonderful marine general, general stone.

he had in strong proposals we took seriously in washington, ultimately implemented, which were taking what had previously been just detention facilities and turning them into his concept -- a theater ininternment facility but rehabilitation and integration center. the idea was we had so many people we were detaining, particularly in iraq, that the detainee population had swelled. the bigger the population, less manageable, the more security threats we had to deal with inside the wire, not just outside the wire, and the idea of trying to work through rehabilitation programs and integrace when they were released from detention, was new concept for the recent conflict but not one that is unprecedented under law of war tee tension. we looked at ways of productively using their time inside the wire. and so ultimately not everyone is convinced that people who were previously predisposed to

fight us, would somehow change through these programs. some people believed it. others didn't. i think everybody believed that at least while they were the detention they were must productively spending their days doing things other than wanting to fight one another or wanting to fight us. then ultimately at the end of the day, as most people generally agree, the better you treat people while you're holding them. the more likely they will be predisposed to like you again, if that's going to happen, that's the better scenario. so we spent a lot of time in iraq and afghanistan focusing on rehabilitative and integrative types of activities. that would be, we had some work -- job work programs where they can earns' money and try to buy things for their family during the family visits. we also looked at different opportunities for them to reintegrate better at the end. trying to get partners in the local communities that at least, upon ultimate release, would be

there to somewhat be someone they could talk to and someone that would help them re-integrate into their local area with a job or some other type of program. so, while certainly never anymore foolproof was detainee transfers are, these were the things we tried to put in place with the ultimate goal that people we leased from custody would be best positioned to integrate back into a normal enough life following the period of activities. i'm talking about this because as we look forward to the future here -- we are really talking about law of war detention and while it may be characterized in different ways, it has never been designed to be indefinite. always been designed to be temporal detention that occurs during a period of hostilities and when that period ends, the individuals are in fact released and repatrioted, and considering

that state is something to hold in the policies we have as we move forward. and so, continuing with a couple of these thoughts, as we look to a future here, for whatever guantanamo may be, some of the lesson we had in iraq and afghanistan may actually be helpful as we do that. iraq, we did have more than 25,000 people in detention, and two years later had brought it down to zero. some there are are some very, very high threat individuals we held in crosswalk we tide the best we could to work with alcohol authorities authoritiesl authorities to final bays to integrate the men. some of them still posed a threat so there was no ideal notion that everybody was harmless upon release but part of the process of moving from a period of hostilities into a period of ultimate peace and

where the rule of law in the host nation and open criminal justice system can take on the threat in the future. so, i think as we look in guantanamo bay to what the future there will be, we obviously do need to remember that it's not indefinite detention. at some point the hostilities will end, and a series of different commentators have made projections what might be the characteristics of a different state of the conflict. but when it ends, the detainees have to be released, and i'm absolutely certain that some of them will continue to pose a threat to the united states at that time. and so how can we best position these individuals and best position with a series of laws and working arrangements with our allies and others to ensure that at that time they pose the least amount of risk to us as possible. one other thing i'll comment on as far as what we were doing during that time besides focus

only reintegration program, was also continuing the trend in working closer with our allies. because as much as we have been traditionally the police force for the world at different times, the reality is we can't be that for here and into the future, not with the kind of threats we face today and will continue to face, and so we spent a lot of time working with traditional allies and nontraditional allies on strengthening their own rules and laws so they can bert handle these threats in the future. setting up cooperative arrangements through nato and other organizations to true in the future to work closer and better on some of these detention issues, and it wasn't an easy math to -- path to take considering we were coming from a position of being criticized they weren't. so we had to work together as best we could to share ideas and get a more common ground, and i i think the government -- and continued that through bill's time and i think we're in a better place farce as all that goes. so, the last thing i would justt

the end of the conflict and what we have to do, but as far as how in the future not get to the same place we got to over the past ten years. i certainly would recommend consideration of holding people closer to the battlefield in the future based on the experience we had. the farther you remove them phloem place they're picked up, would argue, the more difficult it has back to return them at the end. to keep them close enough to their families, for family visits and all the other types of things. so, detention closer to the battlefield would be something to keep in mind for the future. and at the end of this conflict, i think we'll have to look long and hard at the release process and the transfer process, and make sure that we feel that this is the place that we hoped to get to by the end. certainly i know that bill will have some great comments about where we are today and the latest thinking on all that. so i'll turn it over to bill.

>> well, thank you, sandy, and thanks for inviting me here. i don't know how to begin. usually at panels where you're talking about detension -- i know everyone here has been on those panels and we haven't been with each other. so you're usually at one end of a spectrum and how i begin is i say, i'm the guy who is cleaning up the mess created by my predecessor. and i can't do that as well today, and seriously, can't because frankly it has been educational for me because i've seen how far we've come and i do reflect on that in a big-picture way. listening to colleen and sandy, reminds me again, we are building on something. it's also nice to be with people who understand there's a complexity here that doesn't usually find its way into the kind of pithy one-liners you

might read in the press. when associating the word guantanamo or detention in general. what i'd like to do is kind of summarize where we are and i think where we're going, and it really does follow nicely on where we've been. i think if you look at this administration in 2009, president obama began kind of a dual course. in address the issues which we have been discussing. on the one hand he announced his desire to close guantanamo, and on another hand he talked about -- through a series of executive orders and directives, he published us toward a more principled set of detention policies. now, with've been notoriously unsuccessful at closing guantanamo, and everyone here is familiar with the various political machinations that it have confounded that goal.

but i think, as was discussed by all my predecessors on this panel, pushing on -- and in adding to the paths they started, i think we have been very successful in developing more principled, credible, and sustainable detention policies. now, make no mistake, the president is absolutely committed to closing guantanamo. we're also absolutely committed to transferring those detainees whose threat can be mitigated by some other means. but i want to make something clear. kind of summarizing where the united states is on detention policies. we're not committed to the transfers because the detainees somehow deserve to be released. transfer is a function of our own national security interest, and any principled detention regime must involve the discretion to transfer if there's an alternative means to mitigate the threat. i think all of my predecessors

agreed with that. that said, we're at war with al qaeda. and its associated sources, and throughout history armies have captured and detained enemy forces in war. we do not capture them in order to prosecute them and bring them to justice. we capture them in order to mitigate the threat they would pose upon the battle field while hostilities continue. now, again, that said, this being a war this, is a different type of war than in the past. one, i think it's harder to identify the enemy, and i think all of our -- all of my predecessors have had to grapple with that. number two it's harder to identify when hostilities have reached their conclusion. there's not going to be a treaty signed on the deck of the missouri. it's in michiganball. there won't be any ship that will have a treaty that will

make a clear ending to the conflict, and because we have dealt with terrorism using a law enforcement paradigm for so long, it's there's naturally a confusing of the two legal regimes as they kind of reach a confluence. that attending war and the law of war and that attending criminal law enforcement. and then, moreover, kind of on top those of three issues that make this war different -- that may be associated with the fact it's different -- there's a paucity of legal guidance for this particular type of conflict with unprivileged bell lidgeans in a noninternational armed conflict. how we treat unprivilege belligerents. how we deal with the end of war, in a place where we don't have a body of law recently niated.

the general have no -- geneva conventions were the last rules in terms of international conflict. now, i believe that we actually have made great strides in developing our policies, and you have just heard about some of the details how we made those strides, and i think those strides have put the united states in a position of leadership, where it should be, and how you hold people with respect to the developing law of war. we developed interrogation practices, as you have heard, that are principled. we have detention policies that adhere to the highest standards. i don't think anyone could visit any of our detention camps and say that's not an appropriate way to detain people under the law of war. we have identified gaps in policy and started filling the gaps. matt talk about combatant status review tribunals.

the boards we now hold in guantanamo, the detainee review boards, often cited, maybe by me, as the gold standard, but by other people as intel not just mimicking me. right now, if a combatant is captured in afghanistan, commanding officers making a decision right away within 24 hours as to whether we have the right person and they need to be held. within 60 days they're going to go before a board of three field grade officers, with the assistance of an officer who can help the detainee present a case, and a decision will be made as to whether in fact we do have the right senior who l in fact the threat is so significant we need to continue holding them and can't mitigate it some other way. then every six months thereafter we hold a board to determine whether or not that person should continue to be held under the law of war. and in the long run, it's something that worked their way

to guantanamo years later, you'll have full access to u.s. courts which every detainee in guantanamo has had, and you're going to have an ability to again have your detention assessed as to whether the threat is such that you continue -- you need to continue to be held. even if under the law of war, you legally can be held. i think unfortunately guantanamo is never going to be a term that is associated with the best practices in detention. that's not our goal. at this point in time. but i do believe the united states currently leads the world in detention best practices, honestly. this past year a number of countries got together and put down on paper a set of best practices under -- called the principles and guidelines for detention in international

military operations. it's part -- called the copenhagen process that led to that document. i you look at that document you'll see that it describes u.s. detention practices. and, frankly, it's only the united states right now that is in fact engaging in those practices that are in complete compliance with that international standard. as how we began, described detection, -- du detention, you said the most difficult issue that's wars was brought in 9/11, none of us dish would not have identified detention as the issue that would divide americans from each other, or certainly divide americans from our allies. but in many ways it has become that. perhaps because of some early missteps, but i think mow more profoundly, because this is a

new type of war. and of course we have made mistakes, but in the end, i believe we have made principled progress. you have heard about it today. and i believe in doing that, the united states has played a leadership role in the safe and humane care and custody of detainees in wartime. >> folks, before we get to q & a, please give our payablists a warm round of applause. thank you. [applause] >> bill, i want to open it up to q&a but i want to thank you in tech for coming and thank you the administration for allowing you to come. as i stated my goal is to bring people from across the aisle, regardless of party affiliation, to heritage to discuss these issues in a civil way, and i really appreciate your being here. so, the rules are easy.

please state your name, your affiliation, and then actually ask a question of one of the panelists. and if you want to direct it to all or one, go ahead. but microphones will be coming around. >> i want to ask you a question about the ongoing hunger strike at guantanamo. recently there was a new -- revised medical management of detainees on hunger strike, a document created in march of this year, and i wondered, why was that document revised from the previous document? and also, why in this document does the commander have to get permission for feeding of detainees on hunger strike when that person is not necessarily a medical doctor?

>> thanks. i'm not sure exactly what revision you're talking about, but i am familiar with our policies with respect to hunger strikes and feeding. as you know, throughout our detention camps, iraq, afghanistan, and i failed to mention some of the things sandy left off with on iraq and afghanistan because, as you know, historically this was kind 0 -- reached this -- the detention piece of those conflicts. but we have dealt with hunger strikes throughout the history of detention. and always it's the commanding officer's decision as to when someone should be fed and he always does it based on the medical advice given to him in each case, based on body weight, blood sugar levels. the detainee's own statements.

there's a medical assessment done as to whether the person's health could be put at risk by not enterally feeding them and then that decision is made be the command canning officer based on medical advice. >> i will say na historical perspective, the secretary back in 2006 stated that we should take a wholesale review of the policies and practices of providing nourishment to those who want to politically protest through the vehicle of hunger striking, and so we assembled a team of critics and supporters, and essentially experts, medical ethicists, doctors, nurses, and took them to guantanamo, let them not only view one of the detainees while they were being nourished, but also the protocols, written and in practice. and that trip was very helpful

to the government in terms of informing us. we were fully aware the world medical association does not agree with that policy. but that -- to bill's point, is a situation that was happening when i got there. i'm sure it was happening during your tenure, matt, yours as well, sandy, as far as hunger striking. >> next question. the gentleman here in the front with the tie. >> hi. i'm a representative of one of the detainees in guantanamo. this is a question for mr. -- i know there are 86 detainees designated for possible transfer. some of whom have been designated that way multiple times, and a number of the panelist have mentioned in the past we have negotiated with countries, like our allies, saudi arabia, afghanistan, and so on to try to transfer the

detainees. i was -- my question is, what is garnishes -- guess why is the administration not negotiating will some of our allies such as tee niesha and great britain who are trying to work with the united states to have the detainees transferred. the law cite as a sticking point and finger pointing on both side but there are exceptions that have been nut place that allow the administration to waive certain blocking points and sort of provide the detainees for transfer. so i was wondering what the administration can do and why they're noting too it. >> thanks. first, i want to identify a very unhelpful trend of directing questions at me, which i -- with respect to the transfer process, though, as i said, the administration's absolutely

committed to transferring those who can be transferred, so long as the threat can be adequately mitigated, and as matt and others suggest, that's certainly not a zero-risk calculus. now, that said, i don't know where you got the idea we're unwilling to negotiate with countries as to whether they can provide appropriate security assurances, appropriate treatment for detainees, we are involved in that regularly. yes, the nda and some transfer restrictions click matters a little bit but in fact we're well aware of the waiver process and are continuing to work on finding appropriate countries that can mitigate the risk of those detainees, who are designated for transfer. i use it, too, to just clarify something. you frequently read in the press unfortunately i think cleared

for release, as describing detainees, and i appreciate you didn't use that term because it does bring about some kind of confusion, like the detainee is somehow not a threat to the united states, not a threat as a terrorist, and, therefore, is just being wrongly held. as i said, they've all had access to u.s. courts. can bring a case if they think they're being unlawfully held, and the question is, as a matter of discretion, can and should the united states transfer them if we can in fact negotiate appropriate security acommunication we're trying to do that every day. often you run into a situation where -- i began by saying we're at war with al qaeda and its associates. not all countries are at war. that was one of the complexities in the afghanistan turnover and the iraq turnover, we're leaving behind a peaceful country. we're in a counterinsurgency

where u.s. troops are on the ground, we when we leave we're hopefully leaving behind a country at peace rule by the law of peace, and law enforcement would be the reason you hold somebody. so that's the shift that has to take place. somebody gets captured in afghanistan, when we turn them over to president car car karzai. he wail hold them as a law. matter there will be a delta there and thatwith will happen with those we transfrom guantanamo. so it's not as easy as simply transferring them. >> i might pick up on a comment that matt made, which is the certification process has become more onerous and in fareness to the process it's a lot more difficult for somebody in the administration right now to make certification for a transfer. that is an area where we want to continue to work as well as we can with members of congress to fiend the balance between how ownerrous the certification

process is and to look into the crystal ball and say this particular detainee will not pose a threat, rather than in the likelihood of all second wes believe we have appropriate assurances in place. those or two different things because it's not a risk-free proposition. >> the lady in the back. >> thanks so much for coming and being on the panel. i've attended all the hearings for the last 17 months and you mentioned something about during the past administration making sure that members of congress could attend. it's been the case there have always been many seats that are empty and when i try to put congressional members and staffers in touch with the commission so they mail might avail of themselves of the seats to see on the ground what is happening they have been flat out denied. i don't know if it's an attempt to use deserts but they're tiled have to make their own plane and not utilize. besides tha addrethe idea of

using federal courts, skirting around guantanamo bay. thanks. >> she didn't designate it toward me. >> go ahead, bill. >> i am -- i have to say i'm not familiar with the situation with respect to military commissions. i believe that if a congressional member wants to go to a military commission, there are ways to too that. d ways to do that, and this is the first i'm hearing there's difficulty getting down there when in fact there's an availability with empty seats. of course there's difficult at the getting to cuba. i shouldn't say there's no difficulty whatsoever. you have to get on an airplane that goes to cuba, but that has been done many, many times, and i think that there's a great push for openness and transparency on the military commission side that i have

seen. realize that the military commission office -- you heard talking about involvement in military commissions. earlier in some my keir i was involved in military commissions right out in at a different office so i may not have the exact specifics on what the process is for getting down there, but i'm not familiar with any holdup. and i forget the other -- [inaudible] >> oh, and all i can say is, when a -- when law enforcement paradigm seems like the best one to mitigate the threat of anyone who might be involved in hostilities. we're going to use it. there's a full recognition that this is a very difficult fight. we have to use all of the available instruments of power that the united states has to

defeat al qaeda and its associates, and certainly our courts are among them. >> can i just jump in and say, i think the obama administration is correct in using federal criminal justice as one among a variety of tools for mitigating the threat of some terrorism suspects. it's often -- each time there's a terrorism prosecution it seems to kick up debate again about whether ale criminal prosecution is somehow not sufficiently serious in engaging a war against al qaeda. i think that view is totally wrong. i think there's also a misperception often that during the bush years, criminal prosecution was not also considered an option. that's 100% wrong. during the bush administration, there were a number of federal prosecutions brought against terrorism threats, including

those who were suspected of being actual hijackers on the 9/11 attacks. so, -- or bringing down planes subsequently. so, i think it's a -- this is actually something that both administrations have gotten right, which is that our federal criminal justice system is a very powerful counterterrorism tool that ought to be in any president's arsenal. >> and the position we have taken at heritage is exactly as matt says. as a former federal prosecutor i obviously have immense for our federal courts. an issue dusted up again with the boston bombing case, with some people, even some legislators, suggesting you should go to military commissions. rule 202a, the military commissions act, clearly states it's subject to only aliens for their jurisdiction so since he was a citizen, obviously not subject to the jurisdiction, the near row limited and appropriate jurisdiction of military commissions. and so it's sort of surprising

to me that some folks don't realize that only a certain narrow class of individuals are actually even subject to the jurisdiction of the military commissions, and on the other side of the coin, that our federal court are an invaluable tool. you want to be an all of the abover to give the officials the right tool in the right play. last question. i think you were here next. thank you. >> hi, i'm just here as a private citizen. i have a background in federal criminal law and familiar with tools used in the civil prosecutions to measure recidivism rate. i'm curious whether there are tools used to measure recidivism rate among these type of bell --

belligerentses and -- year i'll take a try at this. to my knowledge, there's no actual measurable tool that specifically is designed to handle recidivism here. people in the earlier days would try to look at the percentages and say, how is this like or not like the parole process and people that previously commit crimes and get out and whether they go back in a criminal context. obviously the scale of threat may be different and so there may be a different him to what people think is a society is willing to take as far as the numbers. but i think there have been a lot of efforts, at least, through the intel community and other studies, to try to determine in a more bree indicative way who are the more likely types of d can premore predictive way what types of activity to they edge gage in that helps you know that person is more or less likely to go back to fight as you call it,

the battle feel determination of recidivism. but i don't think there's a perfect science to and it if there were more studies we might by able to predict better who are individuals likely to go back 0 to the fight and who aren't. that is what makes this a complex area when you're dealing with real people's lives and want to hold the heist standards possible but there are other lives in the balance elsewhere, so trying to find the perfect balance of who to transfer back, who to let good and who to continue to hold has been very, very challenging. >> just so that you're not a left without all the data you may be looking at if you're looking into this, while i think sandy is exactly right on how we would theoretically determine a recidivism rate such that we might have it inform a specific transfer, realize that the intelligence community does do regular reports on the recidivism rate. we tend to call etrenne

gaugement rachel i'm pushing tornado the law of war paradigm as opposed to criminal justice pair die. but a re-engagement rate and they have attempted to come up with a setoff criteria for that and they -- i'm not sure how periodically put an unclassified summary of the report goes to congress periodically during the year. >> folks, we have come to the witching hour and we have to bring this 0 a close. once again, if you can please join me in thanking our panelist today for the excellent presentation. insure insure. [applause] >> we're adjourned.

>> in every society the major buildings reflect the ground out of which they grow. so, major buildings reflect the philosophical, economic, and political situation of their culture at the time. this building does that. this is an eloquent building. it reflects the movement towards secession. it reflects the use of slave

labor. it reflects the social turmoil of the post civil war ear ramp it re -- era. it reflects the new south and it continues in use and reflects south carolina today. the building was designed to be september metric -- symmetrical, and the original architect intended a square tower rising above the roofline, but you'll remember the construction was stopped during the civil war and the state after the war was not able to afford to build the foundation of that massive stone tower. so, what we see now on the outside of the building is a pressed metal dome. on the inside of the building from the lobby, we look up into what we think is that dome but in fact it's architectural

illusion that two domes inside the original dome, because the exterior of the building and the interior floor plan are not september metric -- symmetrical. an the outside it looks like the u.s. capitol dome. on the inside it's smaller and different. >> during the event he took questions about the ongoing benghazi investigation. you can watch the entire event on our web site. here's some of what president obama had to say.

>> with respect to benghazi, we've now seen that argument that has been made by some folks, primarily up on capitol hill, for months now, and i've just got to say, here's what we know. americans died. in benghazi. what we also know is clearly they were not in a position where they were adequately protected. the day after it happened, i acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism. and what i pledged to the american people was that we would find out what happened, make sure that it did not happen again, and we would make sure we

held accountable those who had perpetrateed this terrible crime. and that is exactly what we have been trying to do. and over the last several months, there was a review board headed by two distinguished americans, mike mullen and tom pickerring, who investigated every element of this, and what they discovered was some pretty harsh judgments in terms of how we had worked to protect consulates and embassies around the world. they gave us a whole series of recommendations. those recommendations are being implemented as we speak. the whole issue of the -- of talking points, frankly, throughout this process, has been a sideshow. we have been very clear about throughout that immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had

carried it out. how it had occurred what the motivations were. it happened at the same time as we had seen attacks on u.s. embassies in cairo as a consequence of this film, and nobody understood exactly what was taking place during the course of those first few days. and the e-mails you allude to were provided by us to congressional committees. they reviewed them several months ago, concluded that in fact there was nothing afoul in terms of the process we used. and suddenly three days ago, this gets spun up as if there's something new to the story. there's no there there. keep in mind, by the way, these so-called talking points that

were prepared for susan rice, five, six days after the event occurred, pretty much matched the assessments i was receiving at that time in my presidential daily briefing. and keep in mind that two to three days after susan rice appeared on the sunday shows, using these talking point which is had been the source of all this controversy, i sent up the head of our national counterterrorism center, matt alston, up to capitol hill and specifically said it was an act of terrorism, and that extremist elements inside of libya had been involved in it. so if this was some effort on our part to try to downplay what happened or tamp it down, that would be a pretty odd thing that

three days later, we end up putting out all the information that in fact has now served as the basis for everybody recognizing that this was a terrorist attack, and that it may have included elements planned by extremists inside of libya. who executes some sort of coverup or effort to tamp things down for three days? so the whole thing defies logic, and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivation. we have had folk whose have challenged hillary clinton's integrity, susan rice0s integrity, mike mullen and tom pingerring's integrity. it's a given that mine gets challenge bid these same folks. they used it for fundraising. and, frankly, if anybody out

there wants to actually focus on how we make sure something like this does not happen again, i am happy to get their advice and information and counsel. but the fact of the matter these four americans, as i said right when it happened, were people i sent into the field, and i've been very clear about taking responsibility for the fact that we were not able to prevent their deaths. and we are doing everything we can to make sure we prevent it, in part because there are still diplomats around the world who are in very dangerous, difficult situations. we don't have time be playing these kinds of political games here in washington. we should be focused on what are we doing to protect them? and that is not easy, by the way, and is going to require resources and tough judgments and tough calls and a whole butch of diplomats out there who

know anywhere in harm's way and there are threats tom come through every so often with re spoke our embassies and consulates. and the british have to deal with the same thing. and we have a whole bunch of anymore state department who constantly say, i'm willing to step up, i'm willing to put myself in harm's way, because i think that this mission is important in terms of serving the united states and advancing our interests around the globe. and so we dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus. what happened was tragic, carried out by extremists inside of libya. we are out there trying to hunt town the folks who carried this out and trying to make surely we fix the system so that it doesn't happen again. >> the state department envoy for human rights in north korea set a special review on north korea will be presented to the united nations next march and

could go to the u.n. security council or the international criminal court after that. robert king spoke in an event hosted by the institute for korean american studies. this is just over an hour. >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you, dr. kim, for this opportunity to introduce ambassador robert r. king. dr. king became the spacial envoy for north korea and human rights issues in november of 2009 following confirmation by the united states senate. ambassador king was under ambassador davies and has the lead on human rights and humanitarian affairs. prior to his appointment ambassador king was on capitol hill for 245 -- 25 years, 24 of those as chief of staff to --

from california. he was formerly director of the foreign affairs committee of the united states house of representatives. democratic staff director of the committee, and held various professional staff positions on the committee since 1993. he holds a degree in international recommendations from the fletcher school of law in diplomacy and has authored five books and articles on international relations. and now, ambassador king will address north korea's human rights issues. [applause] >> thank you very much for the opportunity to be here with you today. i appreciate the opportunity of talking with you. i appreciate the invitation, mr. kim, for the chance to be here and talk with you about north korea's human rights

concerns. since november, 2009, when i assumed the position of special envoy for north korea human rights issues, we have seen very significant changes in the dprk. the death of kim jong-il, the subsequent rise and consolidation of power in his son kim jong-un. unfortunately one thing has not really exchanged that's the human rights situation in north korea which is deplorable e.r.a. afflicting on north korea's humanitarian and human rights issues, i'm convinced of two things. first of all, we need to continue to hold the north korean leadership accountable for its deplorable human rights record. we need to call attention to these problems, and second, we need to break down the barriers to information, and increase north korea's exposure to the outside world if we're going to

create the kind of positive change we would like to see in terms of both security and humanitarian challenges, greater flow of information i think is key to that process. let me say a few words about calling attention to the human rights abuses in north korea. north korea's human rights problems are well-documented. state department produces annually the state department's country reports on human rights practices. the most recent report was released a couple of weeks ago by secretary kerry. the report continues to note that we receive reports from reef few gees, defectors who have left north korea, and they continue to report extra judicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detension, arrest, political prisoners, torture, the judiciary is not independent-doesn't provide fair trials or due process.

the north korean government continues to control almost all aspects of its citizens' lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, association. reports continue of the government severely restricts the freedom of movement of its citizens, and subjects its citizens to forced labor. it disappointing to see so little change from year to year in the human rights reports on the situation in the north. one important development that helps in terms of the process of calling attention to the human rights abuses in no north korea was the decision mailed be the u.n. human rights council in march of this year to create a commission of inquiry on human rights in the dprk. the u.s. actively supported the discussion of the north korean human rights situation and the human rights council in the

general assembly. for over ten years now we have had annual debates in both the general aassembly and human rights couple on north korean human rights and we have had resolutions adopted in the general assembly and in the human rights council in general have no extra, calling for improvementness -- improvements in human rights. we appointed a special investigator to report on human rights abuses and a special report annually to both the general assembly and the human rights council. last october, the special investigator on the situation of human rights in north korea, in his report to the general assembly, identified nine disturbing underlying patterns violations of the right to food, the right to life, torture,ary temporary detention, freedom of movement. after a comprehensive review of all the u.n. reports on north

korea, over the last several years, mr. doctor hisman called for the creation of a mechanism of inquiry to further document these abuses that he has called attention to. in january of this year, the u.n. high commissioner for human rights, pele, also said it was time to create an inquiry mechanism to look further at north korea. i'm happy to report that in march, the united states cosponsored the resolution creating this commission of inquiry. it was proposed by japan and the european union with the strong support of the rep of -- republic of korea and a number of other countries. the resolution directs the commission to examine the grave widespread and systemic violation of human rights.

just a couple of days ago the president of the human rights council announced the appointment of the membership in this commission of inquiry. mr. michael kirby of australia, a former justice of the australian supreme court has been appointed chairman of this commission of inquiry. miss sonya circle of serbia, the leading human rights advocate the bachans, is a member of the commission, and then marzuki, formerly indonesia's attorney general, and is the special investigator on human rights who will serve as a member of this commission. we will continue to work with our partners here and elsewhere to support the commission of inquiry on its effort to look at these human rights problems, to make recommendations. the committee on -- the

commission of inquiry will present its findings to the human rights council in march next year. so, we'll have the opportunity to review these recommendations when that report is completed. it's significant that the resolutions that have been adopted recently in the u.n. general asemi and in the human -- general assembly and the human rights council, the last three have been passed without recorded votes. basically the consensus was overwhelming and it was not even considered worth the bother of voting because there were so few in opposition to the criticism of north korea, including the decision to create the commission of inquiry that was done just a couple of months ago. one of the things that has probably contributed to this growing emphasis and concern with human rights in north korea

is a growing awareness because of reports, books, other things that have been published, in the last year two very important books came out in english, talking about the problem of human rights in north korea. one is escape from camp 14. the author of this book is a journalist for the -- formerly with the washington post, and he basically tells the story of a north korean political prisoner, young man who was born in this most stringent of prison camps. his parents were there not because they had committed a crime, but because they had brothers or sisters who had left north korea. the two parents were allowed to marry in the prison camp, and shin and his brother was born

from the marriage there was nothing that justified his precious in the prison camp and yet he was expected to spend his entire life in this prison camp. the story, the accounts of life in the prison camp, his escape from that camp, are remarkable document of the nature of the north korean political prison system. a second book that appeared just about a year ago also extremely important in term0s the prison camp issue, was david hawk's second edition of hidden gulag. he went through and carefully documented locations and nature of prison camps scattered throughout north korea. there's some excellent publicly available satellite imagery that is used to identify these camps and indicate the scope and size of this problem. but this information -- both of these books have called considerable attention to the

seriousness of the problem. these reports and other reports on the prison camp system indicate that there's between 100 and 200,000 north korean political prisoners in this network of prison camps. pore portionally this is -- proportionalie his this enormous. we're talking bat number of political prisoners proportionately, larger than what the soviet union had for most of its history. might be about the same as what the soviet union had during the worst of the purges of the '30s, but basically this is incredible in this day and age to have a political prison problem like this. the one thing i think is most important that we can too in terms of trying to move towards encouraging change in north korea, is to work to break the information blockade that exists

in north korea. north korea is one of most closed societies on this planet. we've recently seen very modest indications that, despite government restrictions, this is beginning to change. with u.s. state department funding, an american research institute, intermedia, did an extensive report on availability of information and changes that are taking place in availability of information in north korea, a quiet opening north koreans and a changing media environment. this report indicates that north korea still has virtually no internet access. one of the few places on earth where the internet is not generally available. it's not a question of lack of equipment. it's a question that the government does not want population having access to the internet.

the -- despite the fact that in north korea, as you know, it is illegal to own a radio that can be tuned. the only radios you can legally buy and legally own in north korea are radios that are preset to the government channel. despite this fact, there are a surprisingly -- we're talk ing to to 30% of refugees who left north korea indicated they have listened to foreign radio. and at a time when radio is less and less important as a source of information, in north korea, radio is still the most important source of information about the outside world that is reaching north koreans. foreign dvds are seen by increasing numbers of north koreans. the enter media study suggested that 50% of north koreans had

another study done by voice of america which suggests that up in is as high as 80% of north koreans. i am not a fan of south korean soap operas but north koreans apparently are and they're very popular there cell phone communication has been available in north korea in the last few years. just in the last few years. calls within the country are possible. though they're probably very carefully and closely monitored. calls to parties outside of north korea are not possible on the official cell phone network. nevertheless, there are now somewhere probably close to two million cell phones in north korea. now, to give you an indication of the difference between north korea and south korea, in north korea, with a population of 24 million people, there are two million, one in 12, have access

to a cell phone. in south korea, the number of cell phones per person is 1.3. differences are dramatic. but nonetheless, the changes in north korea are significant. people are able to talk with people in other parts of the country and in other parts of the city. the price on goods in the market circulates very quickly. and with these kind of information tools available, we're beginning to see changes taking place in north korea. given the nate tour of north korea and the limitations on information that is available, one of the most important things of the united states -- that the united states does is to support the broadcasting board of governors with the broadcasts on voice of mare and radio free asia, and we're now providing somewhere around eight hours a day on medium wave radio

transmissions that go into north korea. and it's interesting that in north korea, prime time is not until 9:00 at night. when you can fall under the covers and listen to the radio without having anyone know you're listening to the radio. daytime listenership to foreign radio in north korea is zero. in my earlier incarnation i worked at radio free europe, broadcasting to countries of central europe during the colored -- cold war. the communist party newspaper complain about teenagers listening to radio free europe with pop music in the afternoon. that is not a problem in north korea. one of the things i think is clear is that we need to

encourage north korea to invest its resources in feeding and educating its people, and not to continue down the path of isolation that it's followed. we would welcome meaningful measures, economic or otherwise, that would improve the lives of the people of north korea. one way for pyongyang would do that is -- we have long made clear we're open to improved relations with north korea, if it's willing to take concrete actions to live up to its international obligations and commitments. though given the events of the past ten months, the bar for resumption of meaningful engagement is certainly much more difficult to reach.

president obama put it best during major speech he gave in november in burma. in a passionage that was clearly directed at north korea, he said, let go of your nuclear weapons and choose the path of peace and progress. if you do, you will find an extended hand from the united states of america. if north korea ultimately wants to take steps to join in the international community, it needs to refrain from action that threaten peace and stability of the korean peninsula and of northeast asia. and comply with its commitments in the september 2005 joint statement of the six-party talks. and also its obligations under relevant u.n. security council resolutions to abandon nuclear weapons and nuclear programs. north korea will also have to address its human rights record. north korea's choice is clear. investment in its people and

concrete stubs towards denuclearization, improvedded relations with the international community, including the united states. we have a deep concern over the human rights conditions in north korea and the well-being of the north korean people, and this reflects our commitment as americans to the rule of law, to respect for individual rights, and for our support of these rights. and we look to the time when north korea will move in a direction that will be positive in that regard. thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you about north korea's human rights. [applause] >> thank you very much, ambassador. by the way, shin missed one element to introduce you. we have been working with your

predecessor. they're all -- ambassador king is the first fulltime ambassador on human rights issue. so we are very happy to have you full time finally. >> i can assure you it's a fulltime job. >> okay. that said, now, i'm going to ask dave or larry -- larry, please. >> one of the problems we have had with regard to human rights issue in north korea is getting the north koreans to talk to anybody outside of north korea about this. i know ambassador king has had difficulties in even meeting with the north koreans and you might want to. a my identify -- amply fly on

that in 2003 and 2004 some of you may remember the european union made major initiative to be systemic dialogue onreans to human rights. ee.u. made some significant diplomatic efforts, sending officials to pyongyang about this, but it fell through, due basically to north korea's unwillingness to agree to this kind of dialogue. now, one of the interesting things about the human rights issue -- i think perhaps we overlook is that north korea has what it describes as a human rights agenda towards south korea. demands that south korea stop

blocking pronorth korean web sites into south korea. that south korea stop prosecuting south korean citizens who, quote, illegally, unquote, travel to north korea. and that south korea, the government lift restrictions on leftist labor unions in south korea, and if you follow the north korean media, there is a fairly constant raising of these demands on south korea. and i guess the question i have is, is there any possibility or perhaps should we give some consideration to try to take advantage of these north korean demands, to put in pressure on them, to negotiate on the

elements of their system that ambassador king talked about in term office a north-south negotiation on all of these issues, both what north korea is demanding of the south, and the agenda that ambassador king has laid out. is this something perhaps we ought ton terms of a counterproposal from south korea? saying, yes, we'll negotiate with you on these issues, but there are things about your system, your treatment of your citizens, that will have to be on the negotiating table as well. is there any consideration that we might sit down with our south korean allies and talk about -- in terms of taking this kind of initiative to try to perhaps put

north koreans in a little bit more of a difficult position with regard to the human rights issue? >> thank you, larry. >> one of the issues in terms of delling with north korea for the united states, is making sure that we deal with north korea in a way that is done in cooperation fully with south korea. these are two peoples who are the same people, basically, and they're divided by a government -- by governments. and the real question becomes, what this role of the united states? one of the things we have tried very hard to do is to make sure that what we do on north korea is done in cooperation with

south korea. and we want to make sure we understand what we're doing and we cooperate on that. at it difficult for us to suggest that maybe the south koreans ought to be more liberal in terms of allowing south korean citizens to go to north korea. these are decisions the south korean government makes. it's got sensitivities it has to deal with. we worked with the south koreans, talk with them how they do what they do. it's difficult. it is, for example, american citizens can travel to north korea. we don't have any restriction on going to north korea -- there-economic sanctions in terms of what you can do and spend money on and take with you and that kind of thing, but there's no limit on your ability to go to north korea. the south korean government has different issues. they're a lot closer to north

korea. they have security concerns and various governments have taken different attitudes on that. we work with the south koreans and try to cooperate with them but whaver we do, we try to make sure we're working together and pushing in the same direction on these issues. we like to engage the north koreans in discussions of human rights issues. we have human rights discussions, ongoing dialogues with the chinese. we have significant differences with the chinese over some issues. but most of you here-much too young to remember this, but earlier, china was in a very different situation on its own human rights situation. and while we still have problems with where china is today, remarkable progress has been made. if we could get north korea to move as far as china has moved, we'd all be cheering.

we're trying to move in those directions. part of to problem is the relationship with north korea has been sufficiently strained in the last while, it's been difficult to do that i did have some discussion with the north koreans on the possibility of engaging on human rights. it was in an earlier time when things were more positive. we'll see if we'll continue to do that abuse we're interested in movingor on discussions with north korea on human rights. >> thank you. >> very informative presentation, ambassador. my question is precise lay followup to your point about china. what role does china play in the north koreaian human rights issue? do they support what the u.s. is trying to do or consider it more external interference in korean's affairs. >> our relationship with china is an interesting relationship. on a lot of areas we strong agreement, on some areas

disagreement, but it's interesting to see where we and are hutch progress we have made. on north korea, it's a complicated issue for china. it's a border country. they're nervous about who is just across their 800-kilometer border. one of the areas of concern for us is that, for north koreans who want to leave north korea and go elsewhere, the only way out is through china. the north koreans have kept the border very tight. there are indications it's becoming increasingly difficult to get across the boredder in the last year -- border in the last year or so. we have expressed our concerns to china because when north koreans make it to china, frequently if they're captured, they're returned to north korea as economic immigrants. it is hard for us with our own border problems to be too

critical of china on this issue. we have argued that in fact these are not economic immigrants as much as they're people who want to leave north korea and go elsewhere. we don't want them to stay in china if they don't want too stay there, we want them to be able to go to south korea and hope theould wor terms of doing that in the last -- well in 2011, there were problem somewhere around 25 to 2800 north koreans who left north korea, went through china, were able to make it to south korea. last year that number was only 57%. just a little more than half of that number. and the numbers so far this year have been still lower. it's a concern for us because we feel that people who want to leave their country, to travel freely, should be allowed to too -- to do so and we'd like to

see that happen and issue wes have concerns about. but an us we discuss with the chinese in many areas. we are very cooperative in terms of our relationship and our efforts with the chinese in many areas. >> i think china has many of the same objectives in terms of stability in northeast asia, and we continue to work very closely with each other. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. i fully appreciate how difficult your job must be. and in particular the fact that i think your work its much overshadowed by our focus on north korea nuclear weapons. and i can't prove this but i would throw out there that i'd say in the last 60 years that north korea is responsible for more deaths due to their human rights violations than their current stock pile of nuclear

weapons could ever cause, and i say that with some sarcasm but i think there's -hould realize -- i'm very appreciative of the work you're doing. remember those 4 million people that are suffering up there at the hands of the kim family regime. i've got a couple points i want to make and then one really hard question. i can't agree with you more about information flow. and i agree that we're seeing much more information getting in there. the defector organizations, dvds. i've had depressions with diplomat polited at cell phones and interestingly some traveled around and have had internal creme phone coverage the entire way and that's encouraging, because those are things that can be exploited. and i can appreciate if you can't answer this, but let me preface this. i think we need a comprehensive

influence campaign to try to influence. you touched on that, voice of and then i'm glad you mentioned about the eight hours a day in and the prime listening time, because that's often criticized why we're not broadcasting 24 hours. people don't understand the assessment you just provided there. that's very important. one of the things we're not doing and we haven't done in some years, is the use of so-south korean and u.s. military psychological operations capables. there's been a merer toum on that, and i -- ben a merer toum -- been a moratorium on that, and we do everything in concert with south korea but for the military aspect to contribute to influence operations in the north, and i think we should do that and we haven't. so we need to take a holistic approach because information is the key. i'm optimistic because of some

of the things that have been happening recently, and we know kason has been closed and the workers are not being disbursed back into the population and that's an indication how afraid the regime is about outside information. i even think the continuing reports we're getting on kenneth bay from the government, as recently as today, they are saying that he was bringing in information, he was trying to conduct some sub versesive activities and the like, and what i'm getting the sense is that the external information is having a difference in the regime is afraid of that. and so i think we really need to reenforce that and use all of our capables, civilian and military, supporting south korea to be able too -- to influence the north. my real question -- i'm grad you talked about the u.n. commission

of inquiry. i don't think that is in the news enough. and i didn't realize that march 14 was the time for their findings. my real question is, what do you think the prospects are of being able to operationallize those findings, be able to do something to -- with those findings? i think we all in the what the findings will be, and how -- i mean, the reports, as you've indicated, continue to show a pattern of real tragedy and abuse, but will the u.n. be able to take those fine examination operationallize them somehow, some kind of plan to really influence the north? i guess that would be my specific question. >> i think it's dealing with the human rights situation, it's a long-term, continuous effort,

and the mn thing we have to do is keep it up. and i think one of the things the commission of inquiry does is sort of raises the level of attention on north korea and north korea's problems. the north koreans don't like being singled out. they don't like the u.n. security council voting on sanctions against them for their military activities. and i think the same thing is true in terms of the commission of inquiry. i think we continue to document, we continue to establish the facts, and there's a growing sense that north korea is out of step with the rest of the nations in the world. and i think this commission of inquiry is part of that process. the economists intelligence unit produces reports periodically. they did a report on freedom, what countries have the greatest

amounts of freedom, who are the best countries in terms of human rights and so forth. they went through a process of giving numerical values to certain kinds of criteria, and then ranking all of the nations of the earth as to how they stand on human rights. the united states was in the 20s. north korea, there were 167 countries in the study and north korea was 167. now, no matter what your country is, that's not a good place to be. and i think we need to continue that effort. we need to continue -- and as information into north korea increases, i think this information is going to have an effect on the leadership. in addition to -- you mentioned some of the things. i talked specific live about radio and videos and this kind of thing getting in. one of the things that's also

happening, because of some economic improvements with china, there are increasing number office north koreans who travel to china, and you can't go to china, particularly the northeast china, and see the vibrant chinese economy, the relative freedom, particularly compared to what you see in north korea, and not have an impact on the people who see that. and there are thousands of people who are going back and forth in china and doing it legally from north korea. so i think we continue. i think -- it is very hard in this day and age for any country, including north korea to remain totally isolated from the rest of the world. you just can't do it. we live in a global world eventually north korea, whether it wants to or not,er is going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st 21st century and we need to continue to work on that in terms of the human rights record.

>> is this on? the first -- this is the first time i attend the icks, icas meeting and it's been my mistake. despite your invitation i have not coming. i just retired last year, and although in my college years and so on, unification and korean issues were predominant on my mine, the roast of my life has been spent on making a living and family. now i want to pay more attention that dr. kim will find me perhaps disturbingly too frequent attending here. the ambassador king said that the recent survey north korea ranked 167. i would disagree. it must rank 1,675 out of 167 countries. and many of the panelists have

wondered how in this day and age such a country can exist. actually, really a little more surprising to someone like me. i was born in north korea, my parents are not originally from north korea but my father, during japanese time, had a business there, and out of six children, two of us were born there, and i moved south when i was four years old. he talked about -- recommended a greater human intelligence effort in north korea, and he expressed the hope that, like all the other dictatorial systems, north korea will one day face a similar fate, and ambassador king said in this day and age the a system cannot be closed forever and must somehow be open up.ul signs and i have

such hopes, and deep inside. but many things indicate north korea is not like any other country. north korea -- country like north korea never intissed in -- existed in the history of mankind. a few weeks ago talked about how intelligence, getting human intelligence or any intelligence of north korea compared -- carrying that to iran. iran is like an open book. during the worst days of china, we have human intelligence. the cia were able to walk through provinces and gather information and talk to people. no stranger can walk through anywhere in north korea. i have met some people who are g-il permitted to exist.sity,

it selects -- sort of elite intelligent, very intelligent people and educated most of them in science and technology, and they came and talked to us some we asked them questions, and only thing he could talk about was the few people he -- meet in that compound, and the few people they met outside of the compound they decide notice have much stories to tell outside pyongyang at all. they have not been outside. they cannot talk about north korea in general. that's the situation. so, now, the people of east asia, asia, often criticize western medicine because they observe symptoms and they try to cure it. you have a headache? they take a bayer aspirin. and we get rid of the symptoms, and the fundamental cause that

cause the headache still remains. ... never had -- north koreans -- there was a city a little bit west, the city in relationship is similar to seoul.

[inaudible] it used to be called in japanese times -- [inaudible] many of us grew up believing it was the name of the city. about -- it means in japanese in china's means character. the control. the police officer of japan would be stationed there and they would be found dead next morning. it was very difficult for japanese military to control the city. they said change the name of the city. control it. that's how north korea -- [inaudible] actually throughout the dynasty most of the rebel began started in the north. the people who are silent today are against the unspeakable system one of the most vocal and repeal use in our history. what is it? what is the secret? what makes them -- i'm a

sociologist. if you want to know one person can write a book, a person can shout. if you want to make any difference in the real world, you have to talk to somebody. you have to talk to somebody about why should we live like this? life with be better. we can actually -- you have a -- [inaudible] this is the 21st century. somebody should be able to stay to somebody in north korea. you cannot do that in north korea. can you imagine that? i talked to when they waged the military i said in order go that on the regime, she had to -- he had to meet some of his people

in the restaurant and talk about how to wage it. he had the money to buy -- [inaudible] nobody in north korea has that. nobody has money enough to entertain five people on a dinner table and talk. they cannot talk -- five people cannot get together and talk for ten minutes without somebody else knowing it. what would the human rights expert in the united states do about conditions like that? gather more information? i don't know. it's just -- [inaudible] >> north korea is a tough place, and part of the difficulty is the repressiveness of the regime . there was still -- [inaudible] there's not an one in north korea. the government is 0 so

successful in keeping people repressed. one of the problems is simply the number the number of political prism is so high. that's one way they do it. it's a lot more people. the other concern is that virtually everybody in north korea, knows someone dragged off in the middle of the night and disappeared. when it happens it makes you mad. why did they get dragged away in nobody ever knows the real reason. you are careful about not doing nick to cause it to happen to you. a regime that is successful in terms of keeping it down. this is why we need have more information. as people learn about what conditions are like elsewhere, what conditions are really like

in south korea or in the united states or in china, it makes a difference in terms what people are willing to put up. there are indications of problems asteed currency reform in 2009. there were some things that the government wouldn't accept. it's something that may happen over time. it's very difficult on the north koreas are particularly a bit of repression. thank you. >> go what we say. i wish that was the case. but i would like to talk about the human rights. i think it was important for north korea, but we have to think about the regime --

they're going to have more structure violence. the fighter of the goal the more regime stays in power as most of you know. in order to counter that is going on. i think it was during the reagan administration, i think reagan said we wouldn't use food aid as a sanction or tool of foreign policy in the matter. we do so when it comes to north korea. when you tie things so closely together like that. it goes to the we know somes

trickles down to the people. we don't -- in order to meet and have it in a restaurant or meet and discuss the movies and we want to make changes in the future. having said that something elongated the statement how do we in addition to the information flow which was necessary, and the need to maybe get some newed there. how about other soft tools of foreign policy such as the form of soviet union. the exchanges of -- [inaudible] at the height of the cold war. that some said there's a great effect on that soviet union that the time. we did those things. we don't do them with small rogue nations or regimes we don't believe we want to change or don't have the ability to. what would you recommend for

that? any gentleman on the panel to start using other tools we have in our hat for the foreign policy. i think we important we engage the north koreans, and we have tried to -- there number of american ngo that are involved in north korea. we have ried to encourage them. -- quite frankly, it's probably more helpful if we aren't too close to it. there are a number of american ngo heavily involved in north korea. we think it's helpful and encouraging there. there a number of programs that have attempted to be involved in educational exchanges. last a lack of money and we should probably come up to do it. it may be useful if you talk to

the member in congress and say it's worthwhile in terms of putting money to exchange programs. a number of universities have done exchange programs they have brought people to look issues like economy, global issues, how do you deal with foreign trade issues? there are some that have done it with agricultural. these are helpful and useful and things we try to encourage. i think there's great value in engaging the north koreans. it's difficult because there's not a lot of money available. you mention the humanitarian assistance, we have probably been the country that is provided more humanitarian assistance, food assistance to north korea than any other country. in the number of american 1990s as the famine was going. the united states was major contribute per weapon contribute

$800 or $9 million dollars. it's a policy of the united states we do not provide food on the basis of political considerations. ronltd reagan is quoted by everyone these days. in addition to locking how we provide food aid, there are three principles that effect what we're able to do in term of providing food assistance. it applies not only in north korea but other countries as well. first of all, tan we provide, humanitarian aid we provide has to be based on need. we have to be able to go in and assess the need, determine what the need is, what is needed, how much. and that's the first consideration. second consideration is that we have to look at assistance to a particular country in the overall local need demand for resources we can provide. right now there are problems in

africa, fairly serious problems in africa. there are problems in certain countries in the middle east where economies are having difficulty adjusting to changes in places like egypt, libya, tunisia. a lot are in need of our assistance as well. we have to look at the demand for what resources we have. the third thing we have to be able to do, is being able to have some reasonable assurance the food, the assistance we provide reaches those most in need. it means we have to be able to monitor and carry out the monitoring. we have been able to do that in the past in north korea to some extent. it's not an easy to monitor. it's a difficult place to get around. roads are trouble. -- terrible. it's difficult from getting one things from one part of the country to another. i think it's probably not an issue. i think the issue is one of do we have assurances that there's a need?

are we able to determine that? and what is the competition for resources? one concern we have from when we were considering i spent most of the year negotiating with the north koreans over whether we can monitor the aid and came to the conclusion we probably could. the issue was with the north korean observe the agreement we reached and in april and march of 2012, adds we were looking whether we would provide assistance to north korea basically reach an agreement with us and understanding us on nuclear issues. and within two weeks announce they were violated. we are sitting there looking at providing 240 tons of food. we have people in africa and other places who are in need of food. we say can we trust the north korean to keep the if we enter

in to it. we greeded to provide 500,000 tons of food assistance to north korea in the fall of 2008. right at the end of the bush administration. began the process of distributing the food and distribute 170,000 tons of food. there was another 320 -- 330,000 tons of food online to be distributed pen at north koreans in march of 2009 said, get out. to all the aid providers. the people there. monitoring the distribution of aid and so forth. that was the end of it. in many cases they are their own worst enemy. there's no question for -- it's

fuff -- tough to provide under circumstances. agree with you. -- to north korea. in north korea still going in al albania they gave up in the early '90s. at the end the world war -- two we sent people there to overthrow the communism dictatorship. we gave up. all the people that we sent in got policed up and killed. we said they are too good in the internal security. we stopped trying. we found out later that the reason they were all being policed up was because the

british head of half of the operation. it was a british-english operation. it was a communist spy in the british system. so, you know, for fifty years, we let those people live like that, if we perhaps if we kept going, we could have made a change. when i got there in 1993 i can't tell you how many people asked me why did you do this to us? why did you leave us under that government for so long? why didn't you do something to help us. you knew what was going on here. i didn't have a good answer for them. the ambassador and the folks like -- they're doing the west they can in the system we have but, you know, we can't not try all of the elements of influence

and power. i don't mean to sound bellicose, i'm not advocating for invading north korea. we have to do more than wag our fingers. we have to keep thinking and never be satisfied with the result until result is at all of those people are free or at least moving in that direction. they're not right now. they are all captives. >> thank you, steve. in interest of time, i why don't we do this. -- [inaudible] >> a quick question. there is a little doubt what the findings will be. if it recommendation that the security council refer the dprk situation to the international

criminal court, will the united states support that or not veto it. if not, why not? >> thank you. george, a question. the grand master. just one thing i disagreed with that lead to it is korean is now korean -- [inaudible] [laughter] i agree we have to have a strong position in order to protect the ally and interest and have a better way to negotiate. but engagement of an engaging with the north koreans since 1988. we have been giving american chock late and candy. they are hard to get by. if i get them, i love them. i'll have to bring them in next time. we had them in new york on top of the empire state i building. the staten island ferry, and new york pizza. i was with them in central

europe touring with them. when my mom died, i got e-mails from my north korean friends praying for my mother's soul. engagement. we need to do this. it's not a question. it's a comment. it's a request. in order for us to engage, we need to depoliticallize the visa process, and we need have somebody in the state department assigned to help us walk us through these things. everybody has said engagement and historically the record is clear. even the ambassadors and the agreement all is pushing for this. we can't do it. in north korea when we go there, they sub diaz our travel. it's in their interest to get us there. i didn't want to ask for money, if we can get money, it makes it easier. thank you. >> thank you, george. >> okay. dave. >> i would like to make one

comment. i support all of ambassador king's work. but with his comments up there, the elephant in the room is nothing is going to change as long as the kim family regime exists. that's it. and the comments -- george's comments and steve's there's growing potential resist tens in the north. it takes engagement and contact. change the best change will come from within. everything we can do to facility that. that is repressive. and the cifm family regime as long as it exists is going repress the people. it's going to develop the nuclear weapons. it's going a threat to south korea, to the region. and really, to the international community. so until the regime goes away. we're not going to see any change. but there is growing potential for change from within. we have to support that.

>> we did terms like political, diplomatic and so forth. i think from the -- if we look at the behavior of the regime, we must deal with them politically and diplomatically in terms of international systems, but i think the behavior can be termed as a regime or nation. it is sociopath logical nation lead or headed by sociopath logical heads of state. and i think it's very difficult to deal with that. if it were a family, rarch a nation we would be using those terms. i think we are being very

politically correct in using the term "human rights violations" i think that's a gross understatement. that's it. >> thank you. that said. i'm listening to -- [inaudible] questions and comments. >> i'll do it really quickly. >> first of all, grace's comment on the referral of the findings of the commission of the security council and possibly the international criminal court. that's one of the things suggested. recommend that it should be referred to the security council. the politics of a security council goes well beyond my capabilities. dealing with the chinese and the russians as well as other member of the security council.

make it very difficult. if it's referred it's simply something we will look at. it's dpiflt because i'm not sure that the chinese are going to want to do something like that. it's remarkable, however, that the security council and the resolution 12094 after the north koreans tested their last nuclear weapon. the chinese agreed to very tough language in that resolution and the indications in the press, at least, that the chinese are moving in the direction to enforce those sanctions that were agreed upon in the resolution. i would be -- surprised. with regard to -- the efforts are noble. we went through the contortions for getting visa for the group

to come to the united states. i saw it as very positive. we have been able to give visa to a lot of groups like that come to the united. the less official they are, the less high they are in terms of ranking the easier it is to do it. keep up your work. it's a good thing. it's important. it's important both in terms of -- them seeing the united states. it's also important in terms of them seeing what americans like when you're in north korea. so you're doing good things. you're doing god's work. keep it up. with regard to problem of the family, and repression. one of the things that i think needs to be kept in mind with regard to north korea. when you look to central europe, the most repressive country in central europe is east germany. they were the nastiest, the toughest, infiltrated

everything. it's not an accident that north korea is like that. you have a divided nation both are pulling in different direction. i think the effect of that is the intensity of the concern, the ability of people to go back -- south korea fits in quickly. and the result is that the intensity of repression is greater. on the other hand, we saw with east germany when the intensity breaks down. it breaks down very quickly. and we'll see what happens with regard to north korea. in terms of -- yeah. north korea is a difficult place. and the behavior there, i mean,

it's good job for sociologist. in terms how looking to they are allowed to go on and continue. it's a strug m. it's tough. it's groups like this that get together and talk about these issues and raise issues and try to raise awareness that are helpful in terms -- [inaudible] keep it up. thank you. >> thank you. for that matter. in philadelphia a few months ago. and paper on the website. we have a good working relationship. [inaudible]

it's about twelve years or something like that. it's a long-term. he can'ted the political issues within national -- [inaudible] u.n. security council. >> yeah. the politics and the security council is very tough. with that, among other things, he as a judge cannot engage in anything else. when it comes to the chamber. [inaudible] along with him. the group of people on the mission of inquiry include people of legal expertise. and experience dealing with the situations. so i have confidence they'll make the decisions. let's give them a round of

applause. [applause] thank you very much. the meeting is adjourned. thank you. [inaudible conversations] coming up next on c-span2, a speech by the creern ambassador to the u.s. and a look at u.s. korea relations. after that portion of last week's senate jew judiciary and later the heritage foundation looks at the future of the guantanamo bay detention center. glmpleght on the next washington journal, feminist on legislative efforts being made related to gender and compensation. looks justice department civil

rights division and critics opposed labor secretary. a group of house respects lead by representative steve king will hold a news briefing to announce their opposition to the immigration bill worked on by the senate judiciary committee. you can watch it live on c-span 3. they don't like what is happening. the cia has drawn in a little bit. to what is going on. reagan has not officially told the cia to do anything like this. they get reagan to sign a

presidential finding a document. because i order the agencies to do this and this and this. it's fairly specific. there were two things about this finding that were highly unusual. the first thing is it's retroactive. it's contrary to the law. the law states clearly a finding is supposed to be signed by the president before the covert action is initiated. all prior actions are here by ratified and approved. second thing unusual it states explicitly don't tell the house and senate intelligence committees about this. don't tell them. it's a very, very unusual and

questionable document that reagan signs. why do do you that? it's basically because people of the cia insist that reagan has to give them a legal and political cover. lecture in history saturday night on 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. an monday the korean ambassador after a summit between president obama and the south korean president. his remarks and panel discusses trade north korea's nuclear program and relations with china and japan were part an event hosted by the korea exhibition institute of america. it's an hour twenty five minutes. good afternoon. my name -- i'm the vice president of the economic