schools and what the left has done to teaching in the universities, i do call them left wing seminary. the christian seminaries there to produce committed christians. the university there is to now produce committed leftists and they're succeeding. that's the biggest reason for election results and for the shift in american values. are you don't hear this ideas in an american campus. not here at usc and i'm not picking on usc. doesn't matter where we would be. there are fine teachers at every university, no question, but overwhelmingly it as an indoctrination. bill maher, man of the left, just had a guy from uc san bernardino. who -- said to him, i'm courteous, in light of the latest terror attacks. i'm just curious, if there had

been a show mocking islam on broadway like there is mocking mormonism, do you think first that anybody would have put it on some do you think there would have been violin result and the professor says, no, no, would have been the same. muslims are perfect live okay with that -- perfectly okay with that. you're taught lies on a campus. yale university is so scared of islamists that they refused at the last moment in their own book on the mohammad cartoons in denmark to publish the cartops in a book on the cartoons they would not publish cartoons. on a book on nazi anti-september tim would they have preduesed naziisms about the ju jews in of course. no christian is killing anybody for antichristianity. there's a christ thing that went from museum to museum of the crucifix in the quote-unquote

artist's urine. can you imagine a picture of muhammad in urine what would happen haven't? but yet we're taught there's no bigger threat from the world of islam than there is from the world of christianity. that's taught at here and virtually every university in america. >> dennis prager, where can people hear your radio show. >> guest: at it national. go to dep nit prager.com and i have something that i am trying to undo the dam of the university, called prager university.com. we got the finest thinkers in the world in very sophisticated -- just five minutes, all i ask people for is five minutes, prager university.com. i'm trying to do with whatever god gives me more to live and with the health and energy i have, to undo the damage that is being done by leftism, and the sad part is -- i know this because my extended family is mostly liberal, and i love them. and so i always think of them

whenever i attack leftism. am i attacking my dear extend family and not my immediate family. thank god my boys are conservative. but i love them. and i know they're good: and -- but i believe they've been misled because all you study from elementary school to graduate school is from the left. it is a brain wash. if all you studied was evangelical christianity, from childhood to graduate school, wouldn't the liberals say you were brainwashed? why isn't it true if you just get secular leftism from elementary school through graduate school. do you know that here in cast textbooks are enough by will you -- must include the contributions of the transgendered? by law. you will have to have pages on transgendered contributions.

people who were crossed over sex, or dressed in the other sex. clothing. isn't that absurd? isn't that totalitarian? i thought the purpose of the textbook was to tell the truth, not make groups feel good. but as i point out in the book, leftism is overwhelmingly rooted in feelings. >> host: dennis prager is the author. "still the best hope" is the name of his recent best seller. louis from florida, you're on the air. you're talking with dennis prager. >> caller: i'd like to ask mr. prayinger and his ilk what he just said about truth, why should people believe the bible when that's the biggest novel ever written? who believes the earth is 5,000 years old? how can you follow a book that tells you the world is 5,000 years old and hisclass commentary about the christian

schools and the seminary, how does he say something like that and he wants to be honest? i know this man is a right winger, and he wouldn't fifth credit to anybody, but my main question is, why is he so hung up on religion when religion is just a false pretense? answer me -- >> host: all right, louis, we got the response. let get a response. >> guest: okay. first of all, i don't know anybody and i am rather deeply involved in the christian and jewish world who believe the world is 5,000 years old. there are some people who do. i don't give a hoot. i think the universe is 13.7 billion years old. whatever science tells me, and proves, i believe. so it's a nonissue to me. don't read the bible for geology. i read the bible for moral guidance. so did every founder of this country, including jefferson. jefferson removed the miracles but jefferson wanted -- you know

what jefferson wanted the seal of the united states to be? you can look it up on the internet. jefferson some franklin called deities, the seal of the united states was to be the jews leaving egypt. that how steeped in the bible jefferson was, not to mention adams and washington and so on. that's where we got the idea that we get our rights from a creator that comes from that book. doesn't come from dna. doesn't come from darwin. values don't come from secularism. secularism doesn't have a value system. secularism is the absence of religion but the judeo^- christian value system gave us our values. if god doesn't say do not murder, murder is not wrong. this drives people crazy and i have debated this at oxford and elsewhere, and the leading

athiest philosophers all agree if there is no god the wrongness of murder is soley a matter of personal opinion. i like yellow, you like blue, i like murder, you don't like murder. only there there is a god who says do not murder is wrong. so i'm very fearful for the united states dropping the bible in favor of, you now what? feels. because i don't trust the human heart very much. >> in the section of your book, the moral record of islam, allah alone runs the world, reason some nature have no say, you write, and that is probably the primary reason why, after a certain date, science ceased to most likely could not develop in the muslim world. >> guest: i back that up. we talked about leftism the whole time but the book, after all is bat islamity. there's islam and then there's islamism. islamism is the believe that

sharia should govern the society. that's what i'm worried about. i'm not worried about the moderate muse him. it's no nonissue to me and the secular muse limit i'm worried the muse him going society. there was a terrible battle, and i back this up. 400-footnotes in the book. a terrible battle during the early middle ages within islam. do things happen because they happen or solely because god/allah wills it? and theliale -- the allah wills it team, as it were, prevailed. so the example given, if an arrow hits its target it's not because of wind velocity of the ability of the archer it's solely because allah willed it and so reason some obviously

science ultimately became rather rare in a major part of the islamic world. >> host: dennis prager, miguel, posts on four facebook pain for you, the left is for the state to play a fair arbiter and equalized role, once achieved the state fades away in prager's view, however, corporate, religion, and social darwinism should be the rule that opresses the masses and benefits the few. >> guest: okay. the state fading away, if my -- i stud yesterday marxism at the school of international affairs so i'm very familiar with that. everything marx predicted did nod come through. this is one of them. the state doesn't fade away. it always gets bigger. i don't know writ is getting smaller on earth or ever got smaller. it gets smaller only if

conservatives prevail, margaret thatcher or the late grate ronald reagan. if willfully it is made small. that is by the way the american ideal, this person obviously, god bless them, doesn't agree with the american ideal of small government about i have a motto, and it is a truism. the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. as the go gets bigger, you and i get smaller. as the government gets smaller, we get bigger. we take care of our neighbor. we take care of ourselves. we take care of our families. instead, as in europe, the government is everything. the biggest concern of most europeans is, can i work fewer hours and how many trips can i take because now it's a human right in europe to travel? we have had -- why did we have -- why do americans give so much more charity than europeans? why? are we born better? of course not. we give far more charity than

europeans because the european has been taught, you don't have to take care of anyone. the state will do it. and why? why are lefties proud of that? what is beautiful about that? i conclude a mars cyst because the state will take care of my neighbor. cohad a huge demonstration on behalf of legal marijuana. wow. if my child had gone to a, let's celebrate legalized marijuana i would have believed i failed as a parent utterly. the mass simple involved here, that is what preoccupies you. you're now a free to get high on marijuana. just think about what animates a lot of people? it's just painful, frankly. so, this -- and social darwinism? is this what the left uses to attack the belief -- i don't even know what belief they're attacking. what about social darwinism? that the talented and the harder

working get ahead? why is that darwinism? why didn't that merit? i have in there from -- i believe it's a harvard economist, a princeton economist actually. man won a nobel peace nobel pri. and he shows how much more television poorer people watch than richer people, because richer people don't have the time to watch tv. they work so hard to get ahead. this doesn't mean that poor people don't work hard but on average, in america, by and large, there is a correlation between hours worked and income. by and large, of course there are exceptions at both ended. >> host: booktv is on the campus of the university of southern california "the los angeles times" festival of book, and matthew in portland, oregon, you're on with dennis prager. >> caller: good morning,

mr. prager, pleasure to talk with you. >> guest: thank you. >> yeah. trying tomorrow my original question because you said so much. i appreciate you comments. you mentioned a comment earlier in the interview about how the left sees making you-topia on earth and religion is more about utopia in the afterlife. i would say that u.s. history, especially revolutionary history, is that the founding of the country and the special values we have are all men created equal, and all those special things that are new to the world, not necessarily making utopia, but all those -- wasn't just sitting back and accepting what was. it was trying to make it better. how do you respond? >> guest: that's good. thank you very much. of course -- look, my whole

point of the writing of the book is that we have the best system for making a better society. a better society is not utopia. the president of the united states, five days before he was elected, said to a very large crowd in five days -- the fir election -- in five days we'll fundamentally transform the united states of america. i don't want to fundamentally transform america. utopians want to fundamentally transform america. i want to improve america. not fundamentally transform it. that's the utopian streak at the hart of leftism. we can make a world where there is no suffering, no evil. of course it's a beautiful goal, but to have it as a reality? everyone who has tried to make a you utopia, my viewer, everyone, everyone who has tried to make utopia on earth has made hell on

earth. those who want to incrementally improve it make a much better place. >> host: from our twitter page, carol romano asks: mr. prager, why are liberals so vested in box -- boston bombers being home-grown white terrorists. >> guest: there was an article on a liberal web site, where the author, a man i debathed once -- debated once, said he hopes it is a white american, home-grown american. can you imagine had somebody written an article, i hope it's a black? or i hoch it's -- i hope it's a middle middle easterner? can you imagine the tsunami of con tell he would have received? look, that man and others don't want to recognize that there

really is a moral problem within islam today. that to say that means you're a hater. we can't say truths. if you're against affirmative action, you're a racist. if you are -- if you think the human fetus has any rights more than a dog or as much as a dog, you're a sexist. if you think summary judgment be defined as a man and a woman, then you're a homophob. there's a one-word label for all of us that is thrown out. so if i say, yes there is a bigger moral problem in the world today in the world of islam, an the clippity or buddhism or hinduism, then you're an islamophobe. so, therefore no debate is necessary. and that its the reason they do it, because, as i have found and had on my radio show the greatest, most of the biggest leftist names, except "new york times" columnists. they don't go on shows.

tom freedman will go on npr but not on any of the conservative talk show hosted. i don't blame him, even though we will treat him perfectly decency and i'm known for treating folks i disagree with decently. that's why they come on. i just had on the great university of chicago professor, one of the leading names on the left, and he was delighted to be on and we don't agree on anything. but my motto on my show is, i prefer clarity to agreement. so, if i clarify where i differ with the left or whomever, good. back to this. to merely say that there is more of a moral problem today in the islamic world than in the christian or jewish or buddhist or hindu is to be called names. people are afraid of being called names. i'm not. and it shuts up a lot of people. >> host: kathy in west mont, illinois, go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: mr. prager, i have a question. one of my questions for you is,

can you name any society that you're aware of that doesn't suffer from deep levels of poverty that is not crime-ridden? >> host: kathy, can you very quickly explain what you anymore. >> guest: can i name a society that is crime ridden that does not suffer from deep poverty. the point being that there is only crime where there is poverty, is that -- first of all, every society has poverty. and i would turn the question around. were the impoverished ancestors of virtually every living american criminals? my grandparents had less money in absolute and relative terms than the average poor person today. the thought that my grandparents would have committed a crime is laughable because they were

religious jews who had a value system that never said, if you're poor, you can rape. so it's unbelievable to me to ascribe evil to poverty. >> host: dennis prager, elizabeth posts on facebook, on a personal level, what has been the hardest challenge in your life and how did you get through it? >> guest: the hardest challenge on a permanent level? or an idealal. >> host: personal. >> guest: divorce after 17 years was a terribly painful thing. terribly. and you build hopes, you have dreams, and they -- and you have a child, and it's all very painful. i am very open on my radio show, as i am here. people know about my life. i don't think there is a closer second to that. i had eave dream of a picket

fence, not necessarily dogs but -- my wife wanted dogs. i'm currently married to the love of my life, and she loves dogs. i like dogs for the record. don't love them. >> host: next call for dennis prager comes from dennis in st. louis, missouri. >> guest: i bet you dennis is over 50. are you over 50? >> caller: i sure am. over 070. >> guest: there are no young denniss. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i'm also jewish, and i've been interested in our york for along time. not bass i afree with you but because i enjoy disagreeing with you. quickly, and make you have already answered this, from a jewish perspective, how do you explain why so many jews seem to support a much larger role for the state than you die and even why so many jews are more

critical of israel than you are? which by criticism i don't me support -- mean supporting the palestinian cause. and then a comment -- also a retired teacher and i thought you inflated the power of teach -- not the power of teacher unions over bread and butter issues about i thought you inflated the influence of teacher unions over what is actually taught too -- to students. >> guest: not. by state law. >> host: dennis? very quickly, we'll get mr. prayinger to respond do you listen to his radio program? do -- >> caller: i read a few of the books and articles, and occasionally have gone on c-span to pick up other programs. i use your web site a lot to listen to interviews. so -- >> host: , thank you, sir. >> guest: all right. well -- >> thinks for call. >> guest: why are jews on the

left is a very complex question, and i could devote the hour it to but i won't. so here in a nutshell. when jews left judaism, they stayed religious but the religion tray affirmed tenned to be any form of leftism rather than judaism. this it not a condemnation or insult. it's a description. jews have been taught by judaism to make a better world. that is the message of the prophets. and if they warrant going -- weren't going to do it through -- teach the world god is the source of ethics and demands ethical behavior -- they did it through secular ideas. they rejected religiousity and accepted a new religiousity which is secular. many people describe marxism as secular. here's an interesting statistic and at it in my book. didn't come up with this, a

professor at brandeis university did. the most procommunist press in the 1930s, outside of the soviet union or inside the united states was the yiddish press. jews took a new religion as as substitute for judaism and that was, you name it, feminism, environmentalism, marxism, socialism, and for some even communism. but jews love-isms. they create new moms and every one will make this great world and in state of using the -- their religion that came with being jewish, and it's a very sad development to me. >> host: still the best hope. nancy is in georgia. go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hi everybody. hello, mr. prager. this is the first time unfortunately i have ever heard your name, although you're very

interesting. >> guest: where do you live? >> caller: i live in south of atlanta in georgia. >> guest: i'm on atlanta every day for three years. >> i'll have to listen. i'm a wherein christian, aim neither left nor right. i think that both arecast casting stones and they're corporate owned. jesus said we're all one and within that i'm often troubled by the talking headed of bowling sides -- i don't mean that as a percentage you'retive -- where they don't do anything to reach out one to the other. i found our biggest problem is reaching across laterally, and it seems that the talking folks on both sides tend to help -- >> guest: what do you mean by reaching out? does it mean agreeing with the other?

dialoguing? on my she, have the leading spokesman whenever possible from the left. is that reaching out? if so, i'm innocent of your charge. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: actually wasn't a charge. at it simply an observation, and i have never heard you and i will seek you out. >> guest: that's right. i'm not -- i'm an example . >> have heard other folks. what i find is a lot of talk that separates us and i'm talking about the everyday people, which is what i am. i find that rather than when we talk laterally, what i hear or a lot of talking points from both sides instead of, i am 69 and i have been around jesus for along time and i really believe he didn't stutter, and i never hear his words put out in terms of reaching -- coming together and trying to resolve our differences. because we are diverse.

it's in our differences that are constantly reinforced that create the problem. the other question i have for you if i may is, i consider myself a clip of there are christian of neither party but many on the right would call me more to the left because we're all one. and i'm wondering why the christian left is often ignored and are they not viable? and my final question is, do you really believe, because i lived in ireland marx i father was irish, rest his soul. do you really believe the rest of the world do not have comparable value inside i wish you blessings. thank you very much. >> guest: i wish you blessings, too that's correct. don't think the rest of the world has comparable values. that exactly right. if i thought so, not only would i have not written the book, i would have abandoned the belief that there is better and worse in the universe. you believe jesus has better values. who doesn't believe that what

they believe in has a better value system? if my value system isn't better than every other -- then i will adopt the one that is better. i have one life to live on this earth and i want to live it with the beth values i can find. if it's not the american value system i'll take leftist or islamic put this system of in god we trust has deviced the most egalitarian society in that there's -- in that there's such fluidity between the classes or among theocracies and it has given more people more prosperity, given more people more liberty, more opportunity, than any society in the hoyt of the world. you judge an ideaolly it fruit. i like the american fruit. it's given people blessings. it gave two brothers blessings kuo who decided to then murder the people who blessed them. a little sick. but, yes, of course i believe ours is a better value system. just as you believe jesus is a

better value system. and by the way northern who believed in jesus founded this country. but they understood that the -- that it wasn't jesus alone that was necessary. that you needed small government and that you needed from many, one, which is the statement that race and nationality don't matter. >> host: dennis prager, nancy also talked about lateral reaching out. a lot of talk in washington -- >> guest: well, the reaching out, there were two separate -- the reaching out between republicans and democrats. look, that is a tactical question. on the larger question of the society, what is reaching out mean? we conservative talk show hosts have leftists on routinely. not just myself mitchell -- myself. my colleagues have leftists on

regularly. they never have us on. never. msnbc is virtually devoid of any of the ideas you just heard. npr is virtually devoid. pbs is virtually tee void of -- devoid of it. not to mention the universities. we, are very happy to debate. i have offered -- i would love to see a debate between paul cordman and the head of the cato institute, for example. i think we should try to raise $100,000 for cancer research, paul klugman debate an economist, or two or throw on each side. but they don't debate. they call us names. of you believe marriage should be between a man and am woman you are called a hater. who wants to debate haters? i wouldn't debate the klu klux klan. that's how the left feels. i you're not on the left you're

a hater. you are sexist intoll rant, racist and big gotted. howard dean, candidate for u.s. president, said that republicans that go to bed at night not caring about the welfare of children. this is typical of how we are perceived. and that's what sustains leftism. because right -- the right must be so awful i better be on the left because i have good heart. >> host: where do you grow up in. >> caller: brooklyn new york. my father, who is still with us, is 94, and will be on my radio show on his birthday as he has been every day for years. was until very recently a certified public account. i'm one of his clients and he is very, very good and his rate was great. i must say that, too. aside from everything else.

my mother, during her heyday, she ran a 300 bed nursing home. and she passed away three years ago. >> were they consecutive? >> guest: that's a very interesting question, were they conservative. i was raised -- brooklyn jew, columbia university, give me a break. you're going to be a democrat. it comes in your birth certificate. the first republican i ever voted for was reagan and i voted for jimmy carter first term. what in values i think ultimately the values i got at home were conservative. but the -- but we were democrats. that was a given. but what got me -- this is what got me. because fighting evil is the single biggest passion of my life, and i knew that communism was as genocidal0s naziism, i didn't understand how the left

could condemn anticommunism. and they did. they didn't defend communism -- some did but most didn't. but they did cop dem anticommunist. that what turned me away. if you can't say that communism is the greatest evil of our post-nazi era, then you're moral compass is broken, and indeed the leftist moral compass is broken. >> host: your parents make a cameo in "still the best hope" when you're talking about the section, why the left succeeds, talking about second hand smoke. >> guest: you really read it carefully empathetic -- hit historia is a left wing myth ol'. there was no epidemic of

heterosexual aids in america. the number of girls dying of anorexia was exaggerated by feminists by a number of a thousand. the number of homeless in the america was ay number. mick snider who made it up admitted it on abc tv and then committed suicide. the number of hysterias and second hand smoke is an example. >> next call for den anything -- dennis prager from bob in california. >> caller: how you doing. where to start here. it's hard for me to know where to pick up on any of your statements. for instance, your generalizations are rather all-come patting.

the statement the jews accommodated communist as a new religion -- >> guest: i said leftism, and -- i said leftism and i said the yiddish press was the most pro communist press in america in the 1930s. i'm very careful with me language. most jews were not communist or pro communist, and i never said they were. >> host: go ahead, bob. >> caller: what was a different statement. those are two separate statements you made at different times. you said definitely said that jews. thought communism as the new religion. >> guest: sir, sir, i'm sorry. i don't know what the routine is here. i let people who differ with me have all the time they want on my show and this is not my show but you cannot say what is not true and then pass over it. i said, when jews abandoned judaism, they've stayed religious in their desire to make a better world, and picked a whole owes of other ismss, and i said, a few communism.

that is what i said, sir. aviate all on tape. >> host: go ahead, finish your statement. >> caller: well, i was going to say there is no question about the fact he said that talking about communist, and instead of saying some jews, it was jews. the statement that you made about the reporters saying, gentleman threw some stones and he was no gentleman. you know, that's really pretty much nitpicking. i was a journalist in chicago, and back in the '50s when we covered a lot of race riots, when blacks were moving into neighborhoods and the people who were rioting were not -- were mostly the people i talked to were right-wingers. so, most of these statements that jew make are -- that you make are so general in their

makeup. i was -- >> host: all right, bob, let's get a response. dennis prager. >> guest: okay. there's nothing to respond to. he didn't say anything i said was wrong. thank you for calling. >> host: joe, posts on facebook, how problematic is the modern culture that revels in sib simple, profanity and consumerism to the project of american renewal? >> guest: there is consumerism, cynicism, and what was the do. >> host: profanity. >> guest: they all have different origins. don't have this belief that consumerism is this great evil that people say. every year i defend people who buy a christmas gift, for example. i think that it's one of the most beautiful traditions in america that people spend time thinking about what will make a relative or friend happy on christmas. itch people think that's a disgusting part of the culture

we have a different value system. is christmas made too consumerist? i just ask people who say that -- every good thing can be taken to an extreme. so, of course, you could have too much vitamin c. you can have too much water. but in general, i think that it's a credit to christianity that there is a holiday where millions of people, where the bulk of osite, things about buying people things that will bring them joy. so i don't buy the consumerist problem. the consumerism keeps people consumerism keeps people employed. it enables people to have a job. to bring food to their family. cynicism, i think we are raising a jaded -- i would use jaded more than cynical -- i think there's a lot of jadedness among you can people because they're sexualized so early. this is a real tragedy and it's

a discussion for a whole other time. why that is happening. kids who have early section toned be jaded and that is a problem. and the third was, again, simple cynicism -- >> pro fan it in. >> guest: i have a chapter on profanity. with the death of the judeo^- christian value system, the concept of the holy and the division between holy and profane is obliterated and so a lot of folks on the secular left curse publicly, and i actually document it. where cursing -- now, everybody -- most people, including myself, will use a curse word in private. i don't do it a lot but i do it. but public, that's a different thing. it's like public nudity. san francisco had a 7-6 vote outlawing public nudity but a lot of san franciscans don't see anything wrong with it. secularism has effect. the notion that we're created in

god's inning and shouldn't have our genitals exposed like an animal is a religious idea. with the death of religion nobody sees wrong with people walking around naked. >> host: your book has been sitting on the table and a lot of crowd here. people have been walking by saying, is dennis prager going to be on? yes, good. is dennis prager going to be on? yes. real 50-50 here. everybody has an opinion. >> guest: at the l.a. book fair at usc, if it's 50-50, i'm doing very well, i must say. so i'm very happy to hear it. look, i care about everything or nearly everything that folks on the left say they care about. compassion, goodness, concern for others, but i think leftism hurts those causes. so, i'm a bigger problem to them

than the guy who just shouts at them. and i come from within that world. i understand it. and i think that it's intellectually and morally unsound, and because i'm not a yeller or screamer or hater or any of that, that's why people on the left who do come on feel so comfortable coming on. i just gave you one example recently. howard zen, the biggest of all the leftist historians came on my show, and i asked him point blank, i said, professor, would the world had been better had there never been a united states of america and he says he ising a not stick on the -- agnostic on the issue. i wonder how many people who assign his book -- the most widely assigned history book in the united states by teachers. i wonder how many would agree

with that? maybe the world really would have been better had there never been a u.s. >> host: the internet tweets in this guy wants big government to outlaw marijuana. >> guest: yes, that's right, i do. i'm not an an anarchist. that's correct. this notion that you're for small government,or to no government, never bought. there are things i would like to see to continue to be -- i don't want any new bans. but i have -- had marijuana been legal for the last 50 years i would have said nothing, but to introduce it as a new innovation, it will only have a dill deleterious effect on society. awoman wrote a thoughtful letter. she loves my show. was extremely lauder to but she said she has marijuana every

night. she smokes marijuana every night. and she has two kids, a husband, you know, she is -- has all these wonderful values and i believe her. i wrote her back this. i said, you know, i smoke a cigar and a pipe. i have since high school. and i have smoked in front of my children from birth. they're very healthy, incidentally. they don't appear to be dying of second hand smoke anymore i am from my parents' second hand smoke. i said i'm curious. would you smoke your marijuana in frontoff our children like i smoke my cigar? i didn't get a response. and i'm not saying that she doesn't have one. but i didn't -- i can't give you her response. everyone knows there's a difference between marijuana and tobacco or even -- my father had his scotch on the rocks every night. but i would have been a different person if my father had a joint every night.

>> host: final comment from viewer. jillian, asks: do you ever regret not running for office? >> guest: yes. >> host: will you ever run for office? >> guest: i don't think so. but i -- look, i live in california, so it rapiders running for an office as a republican a form of kamikaze activity. but the other is i'm torn -- two quick things i want to say on this. one is i don't want power. i want influence. i want to touch people's hearts and minds. politicians have power. a talk show host with millions of listens and a writer of books that people read influences people's thinking. i'd rather do that than have power. the other is i don't have the money to run. thanks to campaign finances reform, essentially only the very wealthy can run. that's one of the ironies of campaign finances reform.

but i -- yes, i debate whether i should have often. >> host: dennis prager is most recent book, best seller, still the best hope, why the world needs american values to triumph. this i

>> today's panel deeply understand the harm's segregationist cause and hope that we find new ammunition to use and her fight to reverse the damage. our community is a passionate one. we disagree all the time but we all come back to the same cable because we are united our long-standing common goal to

expand access to all children. i am as always privileged to work with each of you, and grateful for your support as we conquer this hurdle today so that we may focus again, once again on a brighter future. and it's my real pleasure now to introduce a true leader, a parent, shavon collier who is a parent representing region three on the national board. and she's the former chair of the parent policy council here in washington. she's an exceptional advocate, just recently she and her daughter gave this amazing testimony to the budget committee, and really made some great impact of there. so please join me in welcoming shavon collier.

[applause] >> good morning. thank you for the introduction and the opportunity to join you today. it is really an honor to be here on such a historic day to talk to you all about the importance of head start and the -- as yasmina at minus shavon collier and i'm the proud mother. rhea is four years old across the country i know many of her peers are not so lucky. rhea attends the center here in washington, d.c. where i am the former chair of the parent policy council and currently sit on the national head start association board. we were able to avoid cutting

children, this year because we wanted grants from the d.c. office. the funding we would have cut due to the sequester, but this was a one time grant and i have no idea how our center will continue to avoid cutting children in classrooms. like the one rhea place in and learns and. if we continue to face future cuts. just because we were able to not cut children this year, don't think that cuts weren't still felt deeply by the staff. i think this is something that many people who don't go to the center every day don't understand. the staff have been incredible to me, and to the other parents. but you can see the extra

stresses on the faces every day. several positions afforded them eliminated to make even the staff who still have their job are often doing the work of two, three or even four different people. these are the people who passionately work to make sure rhea and to class late to learn, or healthy, and get ready for school. they should only have to stress but keeping the children safe, engaged in learning, not about their own livelihood. id really admire them, but it is clear that the sequester is impacted staff and that unfortunate rubs off on the children. as i said, rhea and i were so lucky, but i've also heard about other parents who have not been so lucky. parents like chris from kansas us to travel over an hour each way to drop off and pick up her daughter after their program closed and cut all

transportation services to nearby programs. or worst of all, kelly in maryland who had to quit her job because her son lost his base in head start and she wasn't able to find or afford quality child care. i can't tell you, i'm in the same place. it's not like there are other programs or unaffordable places for rhea to if it wasn't for head start. and i'm just talking about those parents who were lucky enough to even get a head start life to begin with. i have many friends who wish they could get their children in head start. upper middle class folks who probably don't qualify for head start, and many of the folks who probably to qualify for head start, i see they are jealous of me as they know how effective it is and have seen its work on rhea and her development. but either can't afford a program like it, or it just isn't enough room in their

community. i have to say that i never wanted or thought i would find myself in this position. for me, parents like me, finding a job, succeeding at the job in raising a young one is stressful and challenging enough but after losing a job in struggling to find another in this economy, the extra stresses were overwhelming. head start has helped me through it all. i have now found a job, and even though i have, i'm still not making enough to afford quality child care. head start has been the stability in my life, but that is quickly changing because of the uncertainty its broadest. i'm proud of what the mazique center has done but i know most of the folks across the country were not so lucky. it's clear that if the sequester continues, even we will have to cut classrooms and families like me, and nobody thinks they care or even want to talk about it.

i interest in congress and president obama have to make hard decisions, but i don't understand why they should take it out on our children. our children are our future, and we owe it to them to provide every opportunity for them to succeed. we should be doing more to help our children like rhea unlike others, but until then, i just want people to understand that the sequester hurts and it is our reality. and, over 57,000 stores out there just like mine and kelly's. thank you. [applause] >> somebody did one of our affiliates there to study of the health of people in childcare, the staff, and the

administrative, the directors came out as the most stressed. we will have a chance now to hear from ms. nita norphlet-thompson is the executive director -- ms. ouida foster toutebon. she was born and whites plan, attending north carolina before beginning her career as a teacher social worker for the passengers executive director. she's a great friend of ours and also the president of the new york head start association. please join me in welcoming ouida foster toutebon. [applause] >> good morning. i'm so happy to be here, and i think the national head start association and the center for progress for this opportunity. i would like to start off by saying, i'm going to repeat some of what yasmina also said. but like to say in new york state there has been 3847

children have lost their slot in head start. this year. this summer at head start of rockland were unable to serve 300 children for our summer program. these were four year olds who are ready for school, and we had prepared them through school readiness to be prepared for school. they are losing all that preparation that we did at head start. when we passed through the community, we see young children actually city in windows just watching the world go by. they are not attending a program and they are not having any kind of opportunity. so we know that these children are at risk. their children that have different family situations. they come from low-income families, substandard housing, a lot more, but we really need to think about what's going on.

the directors of new york wonder what's going on, what happened, why is this happening to head start and to these children and families. head start programs have cut, they eliminate positions, they laid off staff, they cut hours of staff, they cut staff benefits, transportation has been cut. the number of days of the programs have been reduced. at head start of rockland we reduce our days. we're negotiating with our vendors, asking them, could you please cut 10%, 5%, whatever they can to help us so we can make our budget work. and we're also getting classroom and program supplies. when you talk about the return on investment, we know in early childhood, if you invest 1 dollar now today, your return is seven to $9 later. these children are very vulnerable to early childhood has been proven that it reduces

the rate of crime that children go on to college, they are less likely to be on social welfare programs. so we really need to support head start and all that it does. right now, it's the 50th anniversary on the march on washington and went to think back and remember what the war on poverty was all about, and why it was created. why head start was also started. when you think about it, it's so confusing that at this time, head start is being, i say attacked and got, but we really need to think about what's going on. throughout head start, there are fears as to what's going to happen next year, what a going to be the cuts? what's going to happen to the children? what's going to happen to thed e families. some asking everybody to please support head start, and hopefully we can overcome this. thank you very much.

[applause] >> thanks so much to both shavon and ouida for sharing their personal stories with us. at this time are like to invite the panel up on stage. i'll turn it over to christina samuels will introduce the panelists and moderate the discussion. >> good morning, everyone. as carmel mentioned, my name is kristina simms and i'm a staff writer with education week and a cover early education policy. this is a faceting time because early education and young children we have a great panel here to discuss some of these

important issues. i'd like to get the key panel a brief moment to introduce themselves before relaunch into questions. so you could start here to my left and introduce yourself and your background. >> [inaudible] i'm nita norphlet-thompson. on the executive director for the head start association. our office is located is -- our office is located in jackson, mississippi. i've been with head start since 1980 and am excited to be here today to share some of our concerns about sequestration. >> martha coven, associate director for education and community and labor at the office of management and budget which is part of the executive office of the president. so we on behalf of the present over to the budget for the number of federal agencies including education. the ministry for children and families at hhs where the head start progress. >> i'm the director of policy and planning at the office of head start within the department of health and human services and

the start of the early childhood career 20 years ago in head start agency in brooklyn. so i'm really happy to be here today. >> i'm sharon parrott from the center on budget and policy priorities were on the vice president's budget policy and economic opportunity. this is the second go-round for me at the center on budget and just prior to returning in november i worked for secretaries and police at the department of health and human services. >> i'm michael duncan managing director for economic policy at the center for american progress where my work focuses on the federal budget, deficits and debt. >> great. colleen, i was one if we did start from you. we heard the numbers that have been mentioned in the introduction about the over 57,000 slots that a been lost to i wonder if you might be able to drill down a little more into that because i know the offices of head start has some additional information on that, and maybe even if we know those numbers, what we might be seen if sequestration continues? i'm not sure what information we

have. >> let me struggling to a little bit in the numbers we have. 57,265 is kind of our topline numbers of children we know that lost access to head start because of these cuts. that's about 6000 infant and toddler's that otherwise would've been in early head start come and 51,000, three and four-year-olds who would've been in head start. about 60% of our pirg rams had to make these cuts in the enrollment, and then the other programs that made other choices. there was some flexible about how programs were able to implement the cuts to operate at this reduce level with the caveat that the standards we have for the quality and health and safety of a programs are nonnegotiable. that is something that programs can't minimize the quality or do anything that would not meet our general standard. but we have flexibly of things

we cannot programs do differently this year, it's a programs also make choices not only to serve fewer children which is the 57,000 number, but children are also not receiving head start and early head start for few days over the school year. so the topline number that we talk about is across the country there's 1.3 million less days of head start going to children across the country. what that really means is that programs, about 20% of our programs chose to shorten of the school year. and so 87,000 kids are receiving a shorter head start year. and on average, that's about 15 days ensure that even head start kids that are still lucky enough to be in head start are having their school year reduced by close to one month, by more than three weeks. any other big numbers that some programs chose to have a shorter day. so about 11,000 kids are having a shorter head start day, and on average programs that shortened

the days shortened it by about one hour and after a child i was getting a six-hour program is not only going to be receiving a four and a half hour program, or program that was a five hours is down to three and a half. so there's a big impact of kids not receiving it but we also know more about if you're getting less hours and less days of head start. >> so that is a great kind of national perspective. and i wonder what we actually see mississippi both with the children enrolled in head start and with the adults were employed? >> well, we are looking in mississippi about -- [inaudible] so that's 1800 children who won't have an opportunity for head start our early head start, and it's been a significant loss in jobs. we are one of the major employers in the state of mississippi. now that adversely affects not only families who won't have

access to high quality care for the children, staff who won't have jobs, and then the goods and services that we purchase and vendors were using the community, those things will be available anymore. >> you know, i want to go back to calling really quickly to ask, i don't know what we know at this point what further cuts might be humming down the line if sequestration continues. but is that something that is still to be determined? >> we don't know exact at this point exactly what programs will face in 2014. i think one thing we do know is that some of the changes that programs made in the program this year aren't sustainable. so i think as mina talked about we had a one time cutting to transportation ever used that meanwent to be able to keep more children enrolled. they won't have thatre able to u can operate at a shorter school year, we really know that kids

need to have more exposure to head start. those aren't things broke rams will have the option to do in the future. any future cuts will be compounded by the fact some of these one time fixes are available in the future. >> i wanted to try to put this in a larger context, because as everyone knows these budget concerns are going unfortunately for the beyond head start. we have debt ceiling fight perhaps coming up, the continuing resolution to fund government. i'm going if you talk about what the obama administration is proposing in early childhood, what the administration is wanting to see and maybe how they're working to get congress to take up these issues to get funding bills going at this point. >> so one thing to be very clear that the cuts in head start and sequestration injured were very much -- [inaudible] would've a much can put myself in the path

to reverse that. moreover, are planned for early education is very much one of investment. investment in head start, not only making sure that programs can keep up with the cost of inflation and i had to make those kinds of places that yasmina and others describe, but a new partnerships of some of the best things about head start can be brought to the broader childcare subsidy system and we can raise the quality of early childhood for those kind of infants and toddlers. we propose a large investment in home visiting, which is in place right now but that money is temporary. we think it's a fantastic program and 50 states that should be continued and build upon. and, finally, a large investment in preschool. for four-year-olds. we know that as many other speakers said, there's very solid evidence to show these investments are smart ones, but they generate a high return, and the president very much believed we can continue to reduce the deficit and balanced way while making these investments. that is our plan is.

fully funded research and request for these early childhood investments. that's the path that we aiming in congress would like to get on. and as yasmina it commits are defined a member approximately the early education is bad investment. the struggle is over how the enduring this cool dynamic where we can make those investments and the commitment from the federal government. we're trying to reverse this. >> the interesting thing that you talk about is the investment and how it's tied to economics, policy and economic growth. i wonder michael if you could go with that, because this is something that you just recently written a report about. >> so my roll i think, talk not so much about early childhood education, although i do have a three year old in preschool, support. but, you know, the notion that we need to be cutting anything frankly right now is really, has

really missed the boat. three years ago the deficit projections were i think legitimate -- legitimate concerns a lot of people. the president, democrats, republicans all looked at the numbers and said this is not the path. that's not the path we are on now anymore. we've got a lot of spending cuts to discretion programs like head start, infrastructure, research, lots of things have been cut. we raise a little bit of revenue and there's lot of other trends that are happening in the wider economy that are bring the deficit way done. the deficit is falling at the fastest rate in 50 years. the notion we need to be cutting anything really is i think a notion from three years ago that doesn't hold anymore. more importantly, i would say can even more importantly i would say the spending cuts were done over the last few years have been really bad for the economy, broadly. and we can see it in really

specific terms on the panel. when you cut head start futures, those are jobs right away that it can't but think about the ripple effects of that. not only are those jobs not there, but they are not spending money in their community which creates jobs in their communities. but it is even bigger than that. 's a parent loses a head start spot for their child. we heard about earlier, and they can't work anymore because they don't have childcare. that's economic opportunity lost. and very hard to go back and get on to imagine that scaled up to hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars we have cut, and you can get the sense of why the economy is running as slowly and growing as slowly as it has been the last few years. it's kind of mind-boggling we're even talking about more spending cuts right now. >> actually, you know, i the question about the federal role in this that you're alluding to. won the interesting things i've found when i was writing stories

about early childhood education is that at the state level there's not a debate at all about the work among republicans, lawmakers, democratic lawmakers. we have seen expanses of early childhood, modest perhaps in some cases but in red states and blue states. i'm wondering if you might, sharon, maybe you could talk about this and i could open this up, is sort of the federal role, why is it important for the federal role, the federal government have a role in this? could this be something that you give to the states to build on themselves, or what's important of the federal role their to kind of rent the engine i suppose? >> the federal government has his truck had a significant role in early childhood education. it gave back to the war on poverty which established the head start program and was one of the art investments the federal government made, recognizing it's a national priority that children in every

state have opportunity for solid education and economic opportunity that comes with it. now, it's certainly the case that the federal government, the states government our partners in education, and that's to in the early education world. it's true in k-12 education. it's true in other areas, but by having a partnership several things happen. first of all the opportunities n states and communities that are more disadvantaged than others. we certainly see that in head start. the federal role also cannot drive policy towards higher the quality and i think the role that head start has played in advancing quality, not just in head start programs but in the field of early education with large is a really important piece of the history of development of early education in this country. and without that federal presence and those federal

standards and those federal dollars, i think it would be -- we be at a much more lower level of education. i think going forward there's no question that early education investment will have to be a partnership between the federal and state governments by don't think it will be able to do it on its own and i think last to doing it on its own we will see much bigger disparity between states and between communities where disadvantaged communities, teeners of color, those children which have even less opportunity if we didn't have that federal investment that allows us to equalize to some degree opportunity around the country. >> absolutely. >> that's all 100% right. the other thing is, new york has interest in making sure that mississippi has a highly trained workforce. and mississippi has an interest in making sure that california has the best workers in the world. because we are one

interconnected economy. it's very important, we talked about a little bit and we should talk more about how beneficial investing in early childhood education ends up, rippling throughout the economy for generations. it's a national issue. it's not as if the mississippi, is separate from alabama or tennessee or any others. that's where the federal has to come in to say we are all pieces of the puzzle. that's when th fe government, that's like the perfect role for the federal government. >> i'm wondering what you're hearing from akers at the state when you're going to talk to them about preschool and expanding early childhood? >> one of the things you hear, there's a lot of interest a bipartisan interest in it. one of the things i think the state level policymakers will notice some of them have stagnant in their belly to invest. one of the purposes of the ministrations plan, start to jumpstart that investment

because been especially through the recession a lot of them were disinterested. the federal government, one of the things we can do is were able to be more dynamic in our investment. we don't have the same very strict budget standards. we can say this is a start investment. this will pay off. has a substantial infusion of funds for preschool, get these things up and running to make sure their high quality. >> i think the notion the federal government would come in as a partner i think it's intriguing. when we get stuck it's just on the question of financing and roles and what have you but their signals without more research is to state would be beneficial. >> is the answer and? iver does from some lawmakers that federal money might come with some strings attached that they're not necessarily interested in, and how do you address that? isn't something that you are? >> is always something that we struggle with. i think on the one hand no federal taxpayer would want the

dollars that we tend to be spent on something that isn't generate a high return. the ones -- that's her haeckel the preschool. it's a much lower return and sometimes may not even a return on low-quality preschool. it's important we spend the money wisely. that being said we're not trying to mandate a one size fits all. were not trying to -- i think i just have certain standards of in let states within those pretty broad parameters design a program that works for their state and the committee. >> just jumping off the quality peace, i know that head start is going through a process right now where it is, where it's asking some to reapply for the grants. i wonder how that will be affected by this question because that is a big undertaking that head start has done to approve come improve the quality of programs. >> we are in a period where there's been and unprecedented change in head start really sing will only be giving, removing

for anfund from those programs t would endanger their provide high court resources and we're running more and more competition to see in communities who is the best divided. that's our first big round of awarding the grants came right around the same time as the sequestration cuts and i think are programs that are really thinking that absolutely have to be provided the highest quality services both because that's what they want to be doing for the children but also because, new accountability standards are higher than it's ever been before. it's an extreme difficult time to then also figure out how you're going to midway through a year absorb and operate at reduced funding levels. at the same time they are held to the highest standards of quality and as martha said and currently import we have the standards of quality, but people that are trying to run these programs it's an incredibly difficult time.

>> you gave some information about how this is affecting you in mississippi. i wonder what you are hearing from our makers are hearing from policymakers. are people responding? >> first but what's going on in the state, are they listening? our state lawmakers kind of weighing in on that? what's the discussion you hear most? >> what we're hearing is what all the other panelists have shared, that high quality early childhood education is a good avenue. and all children deserve it. but where the rubber sword meets the road is then how do we figure out how to pay for it. and what we've been asking the federal government, well, state governments to do is why you're making very, very difficult decisions about where dollars are going to be spent, don't balance the budget on the backs of poor children and poor

families. it is incredibly important that the federal government set a standard that all citizens of the united states, and each state, have the basic right to certain sorts of action your and families cannot flourish. they cannot move forward if they don't have education for the children, and to be trained and educated. if they don't feel comfortable leaving the children in an environment where they think that they will grow. now, in mississippi, it's interesting during the last legislative session, for the first time a legislator appropriated money for pre-k and we're all cheering about that and we anticipate about 2000 enrollment opportunities for children. then we get the cuts so we lose 1800. so we're looking at maybe a net gain of 200 opportunities.

and it is heartbreaking when our office gets calls from families where parents are trying to go back to school or sometimes working two jobs and still not making a very high salary, and we have to say, we understand your situation, we understand your concerns, we just don't have the opportunity. >> who would fund of these things? it's not as if you ask the federal government is an extremely high tax -- just at the limits of what it could be doing. it's just not the case to the u.s. is a low tax country, and we've already got a lot of spending. i just, it's important understand that these are choices congress is making. this is not inevitable. this is not that we don't have the money. we are choosing not to invest money which is a completely different thing than saying we

just don't have the money. that's not the case. and if we thought about these things a little bit smarter, if we invest in head start or scientific research and we invest in infrastructure, or whatever it is, these things will pay off in future, you will be all better off down the line. it would become we don't live in a rational world, but if we did that is what we be doing right now. we wouldn't be talking about, well, we can't afford to we would be saying we can't afford not to. >> this is the reported that question to ask, and i can open it up to the whole panel, is what are the chances that we will see some movement on this? it's been talked about community, that placing from the administration, service either secretary of education out there, and talking about the importance year. you hear it reflected back. i think there aren't very many people who would argue like early childhood, not that important.

so what are we looking at -- i guess along with that, if congress for whatever reasons, are the things the magician can do on its own to perhaps most some of these issues? i'm not sure what kind of leverage our action might be able to be taken there. >> i can start and jumping to a couple things. the president has put forward a cover into plan to replace sequestration with a balanced package to reduce spending and make other reductions in our deficit. that is very achievable and that is what we're trying to be. if i were to be enacted or something like it, we would not be facing head start cuts like this in the future. we should be getting the and i think that is possible. i think growing awareness across the country is a horrible sequestration is local committees, the families, the families of all income levels are feeling -- that's where we came to pick the question is can we build off of that platform? we have a pending senate bill that has more than $2 billion in

increase investment in early education within the cap established by the budget. this is not a wild eyed spend. this is careful trade off choices within that makes because is so important. that's achievable. that's sitting in a pending senate bill. if we have the awareness that we been going in the wrong direction and think about turning it in this direction we could be a few months are now celebrating a significant, the end of these cuts in head start. at the end of the day you needed able to hire teachers. need to be able to have a classroom. you need to be up to support those children. there are dollars associate with and i think we can't kid ourselves that there's anything

that truly replaces that. the head start competition is incredibly important to raise inequality of head start services but again that dollars have to be behind those. >> i will jump in and say that i think all of washington, i don't about the rest of the country but all of washington is watching with bated breath disabled happened when congress returns in the fall. and i do think that there is as martha said with a growing awareness that sequestration cuts are ill-conceived, ill-advised, harmed the country, harming the economy. this isn't just progress is better saying it. the cbo has weighed in about the economic, the drag on economy that sequestration is producing. and there is no question given as michael said, the improved budget outlook that getting the medium and longer term deficit reductions, stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy is eminently achievable, at the same time building and

investment for these kinds of things that have high payoffs and our absolutely essential to economic opportunities that promise the american dream. so today of all days as a think about what people were marching for 50 years ago, many things, but part of it was about opportunity, opportunity to reach your full potential. it isn't the case that there is the pathway from here to there. but i will say that i do think that there are people both sides of the aisle that recognize the harm the cuts are doing. and so i do think there is a pathway for replacing sequestration with a more balanced package, and for beginning down the road of investment. and what we see in the senate labor hhs appropriations bill that does comply with caps set in the budget control act that actually has a spending cuts relative to where we were in 2010, but even in that constrained environment we could make a priority choices and invest in our kids. so i think when people say there

is no way to get there, i don't think that's right. and i think the more the people engage in the conversation, the more the people in the states come in communities are sharing their stories. i think there is a possibility of getting to a better place over the coming months. it won't happen miraculously but i think that the more the conversation is engaged, the more likely it is that we get to a better outcome. >> i think what martha and sharon said is right, and, but a think it's also important to note that while there is a growing awareness among some parts of policymakers that sequestration is bad and i think at the same time there's a sense among others that it wasn't as bad as we thought. and that they aren't hearing necessary from their constituents on a daily basis that these cuts are affecting them.

and that worries me quite a lot because i'm very worried that members of congress will decide, well, we kind of limp through 2013. yeah, it was bad but it wasn't as bad as we thought, which is very well and good for them to tell that to the families who -- we which is live pashtun we're here, sequestration is your, it's a reality. we will just live with it. that really worries me. what i think we've learned over the last three years is congress will often take the past -- the path of least resistance. we have to make sure that they understand that sequestration is not status quo. that was a one time, disaster. we should not have done it. we should not do it again. so i do think that it is very important over the next four weeks for families have been impacted by sequester to call their members, to make sure their stories are known.

>> it's also important, not only for people are making decisions to have number and data, to have faces. so parents like shavon who can stand before you and you see a real live breathing person who says, i am doing everything i can to try to make it, to try to make the american dream real. and every time the doors open, two other doors are closed. i sa said decision-makers need o see the pain of sequestration in the actual families face. you know, when there's a 17 year-old, and were not going to get into why a 17 year-old as a child, that secondly, the child is there. a 17 year-old who's trying to finish high school, and we know if you don't have at least a high school diploma what a bleak outlook employment is. and you have to say, we are

sorry, there's not an early head start enrollment opportunity. michael talked this morning about taking his three year old on a bus to school. there are places in mississippi, there's no public transportation. actually there's not a car. so even if it's there, how do you get there? these are real people, real families, real struggles, real pain, real poverty. we need to look at. i think when you think about it in terms of real people, the numbers take on a whole new different meaning. >> i can understand that something to give congress out of the inertia i think you're referring to pick you know, we can take some questions from the audience. i don't know if there are some. just wait for the microphone. and introduce yourself. >>tmanager for

ready to learn, a corporation for public broadcasting. we've been working with head start for the last few years and have a wonderful partnership, so thank you for all you've done with us. as a partner we are wondering what we can do at the local level, the state level, the national level to help support you aside from writing checks, money that we don't have either, and raising awareness which we're very happy to do. what do we do to help support you defeated the impact of these cuts while we wait for something to change at the federal level? >> well, i think one thing that is important to do, which goes along with raising that awareness, is actually dragging bodies to head start programs. because there are a lot of people who think they know about head start, and they actually don't. so when as we going to head start program, they are awestruck at all of the things that are going on. the health and wellness peace, the engagement peace. that head start is not just a

child development program. it is a family development program. once we hope to stabilize families, there will be growth and movement in commuters. of that's one thing. getting people to supervise as your mayors, governors, your local legislators to come in and actually see how the dollars are being spent and what a great investment it is. the other thing is just trying to help us leverage what resources we have left after those cuts, put income if there are teachers who can come out and help improve the quality is the opportunities for parents to have access to more resources to either improve their employment skills our access employment, just a whole community partnership investing in families and working together to improve outcomes for families. >> are there other questions?

this gentleman in front. >> hi. jolt back to with the community for education funding. my question is for martha. when the imagination really is specific data on head start cuts, helpful, got a lot of press, very concrete, reliable source. do you see similar data coming out of the impact of sequester another programs? i know that not every program works the same way and sometimes the data is harder to get, but that would be very helpful because that really does generate a lot of press which helps the grassroots raise that. >> you right. one of unique things about head start is it's a federal to local grantee and the offices of head start is something that was extreme helpful to program management as was the public awareness raising, which is to, a few months ago update the plans and six a after what theye doing so we could say how many children would be affected. that's somewhat unique. there are that many things like

that across government. we do know a lot about what's going on. we know state-by-state with the% redaction has been in unemployment benefits. talk about something that hits the family when the family is down. we know how many title i dollars have been pulled out of state and those of dollars that flow through the school districts. as we have the information in the form we feel is consistent and scrubbed enough that people will take it as serious as they should come we're happy to make evitable. i do think, i just fault the media look at for playing gotcha instead of looking at what was there. so people say we predicted 75,000 head start kids only 57,000 cut. first of all the prediction was done mechanically but it was based on dollars -- we do know how many head start sandwiches to reduce the number of hours or days or what have you. there was some flexibility, the dangers work because it's a flexibly of the cut but there was that flexibility there. and i think more that we can

get, the media can understand that this story is not in the small delta between an early prediction and the reality come and by the way, sometimes that delta goes the other way. i have seen that report as much. they said it would be this, it was actually that. i think we more -- obvious the demonization stand ready to help make sure that story is told. >> i want to jump in on this issue. to link the cuts of head start to the cuts in other education programs. because i think it's important to think about the compounding effects of cuts, particularly in poor communities. so poor communities have a larger share of the public education dollar coming from the federal government. because the federal government directs more federal education funding just to poor school districts. that helps equalize. that is a positive. but when education funding is cut, the it can make a bigger, d even bigger impact in those less advantaged are more

disadvantaged school districts. so you have poor families in poor communities losing head start and then having -- and having dollars come out of their public education k-12 system. that's just the programs i've talked about. some of the said committee are losing housing assistance. so families that are stretched in a variety of ways are now less likely to get help paying rent. and childcare assistance dollars are also being sequestered. so you can see how, for low-income families and low-income communities, there's a compounding effect. but i do think it's important for everyone to recognize we are here talk about head start this morning and particularly thing about cats target on low-income people. of course, the cuts are not just about low income programs and low-income families. there's also because of medical research that is a major driver of our economy and improving health over time. there is the ability of the weather service to keep up its allies and protect the weather accurately. the list goes on and on.

so i just, but for those lower income communities and families, there is a compounding effect. >> i almost wonder go and this is something i was wondering when the sequester was first went into place and we saw for instance, air traffic controllers and how congress ordered patch battle, and i was wondering whether head start our other programs would be patched in that way and whether that would be sort of a good sort of short-term fix or whether it would be bad because, you know, there would be no incentive to kind address in a broader perspective but i don't know whether there's been conversation about doing something like kind of going into sort of the, support head start and let the rest of sequester go but i do know whether that's something that any of you heard at all? >> it's important for people to understand, congress did not approve one dime of additional resources to solve the faa

problem. they allowed the department of transportation to shift cuts to a different part come and so they basically shifted some immediate effects, cuts that would have an immediate affect the cuts will have a long-term effect on our infrastructure. there were no additional dollars. and so ultimately if we want to make sure that we're investing in the building blocks of our economy, investing in their kids go investing in medical research that has led to breakthroughs that we all take for granted today, and improve health every day for millions of people, it's not about shifting the deck chairs but it's not about pulling money here, put more here and deepening the cut over there, it's about recognizing that right now we're underfunding. we are not a poor country that doesn't have the money to make the investment, but what we have done is the will do the right

budget priorities and be willing to support those investments. and so i think that over time, whatever funding level at the top line is, we need to make the right choices within the funding levels. but ultimately at the moment, we simply underfunding investment on the domestic side with large, and that's where we've got to fix that and then have the right priority discussion. >> and i 100% agree sharon just it. if you think about who we really impact with sequester, as we talked about low income comes, i think if you want to step back and say who are we really affecting with the question and all these cuts, it's the future. we are cutting the future. we are cutting investment in early childhood which affects our future. we are cutting health care research which affects our future, even these small things where we are, other places which are not maybe we wouldn't think

of as an investment. a lot of what they're doing with sequester is they are deferring maintenance or they're not making investments in their own infrastructure to make whatever the job is they're doing better in the future. it's all shortsighted. and credibly shortsighted. and it's mind-boggling. >> are there any other questions? >> my name is phil. you guys have spoken a lot about what a quality preschool education -- quality preschool education and why that is needed. but am curious what are the aspects of equality preschool education you would like to see in every single preschool in the country, or head start program? >> well, first of all, head start started making very significant changes far back as

the '80s -- [inaudible] in class size, in staff child ratio, in research-based curriculum and being able to track children's progress. so all of those things are important, i think what has made head start sort of -- approach to the whole child, not just the academic and school readiness side was a very important, but the health and wellness site. because we all know children aren't well, they can't learn. the families are not healthy, they can't help stabilize their families and move them for kicks i think there has to be in an inclusive program, which looks at sort of school readiness and academic preparedness for schools, but also those other things that shore up families

that help them ready to become productive citizens and their families forward. >> add to that, the same cadre six of head start in much the building blocks that we look to women look at if we were those preschool for all initiative which would be for four year olds. very much the same kind of elements are important. one that i would add is to be constantly learning. you are looking at what models are affected, what children arlington where i do not to make sure we're not just blind investing but investing smartly for the future. >> so i think that we are at the end of our time. i really have appreciated the panel taking the time to have this great conversation, and thank you all so much for joining us. [applause] >> several licensed to tell you

about today. the british house of commons debates action against say regarding allegations that the sitting government used chemical weapons against its own people. you will see that here on c-span2 at 9:30 a.m. eastern. on our companion network c-span at 1 10 eastern recovering the u.s. chamber of commerce's annual labor day briefing. focusing on economic issues facing businesses. the head of the naacp benjamin jealous will speak at the national press club today about the trayvon martin case and the so-called stand your ground law's. that's also on c-span at 1 p.m. eastern. >> now a forum on what options are available to the u.s. to respond to serious use of chemical weapons against its own people. the washington institute hosted this 90 minute event which include a look at the u.s. relationship with syrian opposition groups. >> if i may have your attention. my name is patrick clawson of the director of research at the washington institute for near

east policy, and i would like to welcome you here today. and just a with logistical note, please follow my example and turn your cell phone off. it interferes with reception, even if you put it on this done. so i am pleased to see that we got the depths of august pretty decent turnout at very nice alternative location that we at the washington institute for near east policy are using while our conference facilities are being rebuilt. i hope i will see some of you here on tuesday where we're also going to have an event. that one is about hezbollah's global reach. matt levitt of the washington institute has a book by that name that is being released on tuesday. and, today, we are holding this event in association with the studies we will be releasing shortly. it's a study about serious military opposition, how

effective jihadi or united, that's written by three authors from the washington institute, and we have advanced unproved copies of this study what you're at the registration table and you're welcome to pick one up on your way out. the study will be released, well, soon, not yet and, therefore, is not on our website debt. today, to draw upon this study and to discuss the potential for he is military actions, we have three speakers, two of the study's authors are jeffrey white and andrew tabler, and jeff will speak first, longtime dia official and he will analyze the military opposition as a military force. so focus of his presentation is

indeed about the opposition itself, that is also the focus of andrew tabler's presentation. andrew will talk about the military opposition as an opposition force. that is to say, as a political force. then following their remarks, we will have our very own michael eizenstat talking about the u.s. military response options in light of the chemical weapons allegations and with syrian response opposition to u.s. actions might be. so let us get started with jeff white. >> well, thanks everyone for coming to this. events in the region couldn't be more dramatic or more significant. in that context the discussion

of the syrian armed oppositions i think is a little less dramatic but maybe for the long-term it's more important. for the outcome of the war. >> okay. can everybody hear me? okay. so, you know, to start with, the first thing i would say is this is not your father's insurgency, right? this is a different kind of animal i think altogether, and when we talk about traditional insurgency situations. there's no central political direction, like we've seen with many other classical insurgencies. there's no central military command. you know, there's no central, or no national nationwide military strategy being deployed by the rebels. i've used the historical analogies in the past, and like all historical analogies, it's flawed, right? but this is somewhat like the

french resistance early in world war ii and without de gaulle and without churchill. they hammered them into she. it's a very different kind of thing where we're looking at here. the armed resistance, the whole resistance is without a complex phenomenon in the traditional sense of complexity theory, right? lots of different actors deeply connected, many different processes underway and so one. it's also a self organizing phenomenon. there's been no overarching plan our concept for building the armed opposition in syria. in many ways it's just happen as a result of there is events, events on the ground. and it's also easy and evolved and adapted phenomenon. it keeps change but it's not what it was in march of 2011, and six months from now it's going to look different than it does today, so it's a thing in motion. ..

>> it has major challenges in and of itself. there are multiple, many multiples of diverse sources ranging from good, reliable to totally unreliable, interested in sources that are trying to push the situation in one way, in one direction or another.

there are also, i think, some dangers involved in the analysis of this, and i'm as subject to these dangers as think about. there's a danger of getting too close, up close and personal with the resistance. you know, many of the leaders and people involved in the resistance, individual resistance leaders and so on, are highly attractive characters. they're definitely interesting. they're doing real stuff. some of them are even romantic figures, right? in the 19th century sense of romantic figure. and that's troublesome many, right? because that puts an impression on the analysis, you know, of the rebel forces, i think, or can put it on. a second danger is being swept up in the tides of battle, right? and this is something that, you know, i try and fight against not always successfully. but, you know, events in syria

move, you know, rapidly, and they often move in contradictory directions. so when people lay down, including me, lay down and say this is what's happening, and this is the way it's going, you know, you have to say, okay, but, you know, maybe not, right? so you have to be very careful about saying that the situation is definitely helded in one direction. it -- headed in one direction. it will change. we have seen multiple changes in the course of the war over time. we're probably going to see more changes, you know, regardless of what the united states does. and related to that, there's a big problem, i think, with instant analysis. when something major happens in the course of the war, there's a flocking to that event and a lot of emphasis, you know, put on a single event drives analysis, you know, for some time. this is, you know, when i did current intelligence at the pentagon, we used to see this

amongst ourselves all the time that, you know, the present looms large, right? in trying to put these events into perspective, you know, put them into context, it's hard. sources, you know, i use for the paper basically all open sources. i had some discussions with government people and so on, but this is an open source project. on opposition and activist reporting, the regime and reporting of its allies, so lots of social media stuff, youtube, you know, hively involved -- heavily involved in what i do, conventional media. contacts with journalists, field work, all those kinds of things underlie, basically, my conclusions. another important piece of the story here is in a sense on this you always need to do net assessment, right? you can never confer the rebels in isolation. you always have to think about

them in terms of what kind of a challenge the regime forces are posing to them. and we see, i think, a very serious regime challenge. the regime is not, you know, a great military force. it doesn't have great military forces. the syrian army is not a great army. its irregular forces are not great forces. but in this war they've proved good enough to keep the regime in power for over two years. so in this war the regime forces aren't too bad. they have certain advantages, i think, over the rebels, persisting advantages, not just transient ones. the fundamental one, i think, is the continuing firepower that regime forces have, right? firepower, artillery, missiles, air and now, you know, we see chemical. the regime has the ability to deploy forces and coordinate their firepower.

the regime is pretty effective and actually getting better at it in massing forces where they really think it's important and operating them in an effective fashion. in probably i think the singlemost important thing the regime has done in the war was to raise, organize, train and deploy large numbers of their regular forces. this is, this aspect of the regime's behavior has basically kept the regime in the war. this is the popular committees, the local militias, volunteers and so on. regime has been successful in generating large numbers, tens of thousands, of these type people and getting them to fight better over time. again, not perfectly, but not too bad. more recently, we've seen the entry into the war of significant allied forces on the side of the regime. be the key aspect or one of two

key aspects, let's say, are the battle in june was the entry into the battle by large number of hezbollah forces, okay? they also weren't world beaters. they had tear own problem -- their own problems and issues. hezbollah troops didn't prove to be elite soldiers either. but they were a lot better than anything the regime had. what they provided was reliable light infantry that would execute their orders and die in trying to do that. this is something that regime regulars don't always show the willingness to do. so the injection of hezbollah forces gave the regime the ability to fight effectively on the ground. they took a lot of losses. and finally, amongst these important regime challenges i'd say is the will to win. you know, in war will counts for a lot, right? and the regime definitely has the will to win. they have, they are united in

that, they are determined to persevere through the war, they're determined to do whatever it takes as we've seen, again, to win this war. not just to sort of force it to a stalemate, not to go to yes ga ii with an improved diplomatic position, but to win on the battlefield. what's the current military situation? i think the basic, you know, factors in it we see are the increasingly sectarian may natuf the war. that's been talked about a great deal. the increasing and increasingly important foreign involvement on both sides actually, use by both sides of heavy weapons, increasing use by -- excuse me -- of heavy weapons by the rebels. the ability of both sides to sustain relatively high levels of combat.

it's pretty impressive that the regime and the rebels have been able to do, to fight the way they have over the amount of time they have. increasing combat casualties on both sides, and i'll talk about this in a little more. both sides are losing lots of people in the fighting. you know, many more combat targets, fighters are being killed than civilians in the war. civilians are being killed in significant numbers, but military casualties are higher. andanother major characteristic of the conflict that we see is there's still a lack of anything that remotely looks like decisive operations. the war is, essentially, a regional war. it's not a war of sweeping, you know, maneuvers, it's not a war that's conducted on a national basis. okay. so when i look at the, you know, when i tried to say, okay, how to analytically, you know, look at this an hall, you sort of

have -- this animal, you sort of have to have a framework of analysis. and there are lots of pieces to the rebel forces, and i came up with ten things we ought to think about, right? that's not a small number, but it's more than a couple. a lot of the discussion you hear about the rebels either focuses on what kind of weapons they've got on whether they're salafists or moderates, right? and probably 80% of the discussion of the armed opposition focuses on those kinds of things. maybe that's a generalization, but anyway -- the first thing about the rebel forces is, you know, what's their nature of them, you know, what's kind of the sociology and ideology of these rebel forces. and we see very broad spectrum here. the rebels come from all elements of syrian society, right? they represent a huge spectrum ideologically, you know, from

moderates which are actually relatively hard to find all the way to jihadist salafists. the order of battle is the second, you know, factor i looked at. rebel forces fall into the category of irregulars or guerrillas. you're not, you know, a standard, well-formed, organized force, and the actual order of battle for the rebels, i think, remains a mystery. it's a mystery we have some inkling about and some, you know, we can see some pieces of an order battle, but we really can't, you know, discern the exact structure, organization, lay down of the rebel forces. it's for sure the rebel combat units number in the hundreds, right in and if you believe some reports, it could be in the thousands. but there are just massive rebel units. and they range in size from, you

know, maybe a handful of people or a couple of handfuls of people to a few thousand seem or maybe even somewhat larger. so you have the this, you know, very great spread of units. rebel command and control is another very difficult, you know, thing to figure out. what we see is multiple command-type structures. and in the paper i put command kind of in quotes because there are at least nine different command-type structures that have been identified, and these vary from highly formistic and -- formalistic and broad that may have actual little influence on the battlefield to very ad hoc and local type command structures, controlling, you know, just a relatively small number of forces. so you have this very great variation in how the rebels are actually, you know, operated. the main point i think here, and

i alluded to this at the beginning s that there is no overall command structure, right? there is no group where, including in the supreme military council, that actually commands the forces that are doing the fighting inside syria. there are a bunch of local and regional groups that command forces, but there is no national command. the weapons the rebels have are, you know, significant now. there's been a notion, i think, and i think this is dying out now, but there's been a notion for a long time that the rebels are these lightly-armed guys with general purpose machine guns and some rpgs and are taking on, you know, this goliath in the syrian army. well, you know, the little davids out there or mohameds, you know, they're getting hey weapons and a lot of them -- heavy weapons and a lot of them. they operate tanks, they operate

field artillery. they have operated bmps. it now looks like they have lots of antitank guided missiles. the number of those things seems to be growing. so much of what they've taken or are using they've taken from government stocks. the antitank guided missiles, looks like more of those are coming in from the outside, but much of the weaponry of the rebels that has contributed to their effectiveness on the battlefield has come from the syrian army. and you see this all they captue significant numbers of biceps. logistics for the rebellings remains a -- rebels remains a problem. the rebels still have significant problems with ammunition supply, keeping weapons in the field and so on. basically, logistics for the rebels are negotiated, you know? operations are also negotiated. and there isn't a system that

pushes ammunition or whatever to units on any kind of rationed or planned basis. the units that have the ammunition are the units that have money, external support and are successful on the battlefield other units that don't have those things have much less ammunition. there's a number of videos out there showing rebel commanders distributing handfuls of bullets to their troops. that's for sure not every unit, but you still see these problems where some rebel units simply don't have ammunition, and we still get reports of the rebels basically being defeated or having to withdraw from combat because they run out of ammunition. even units that you would think, you know, that shouldn't happen. you know, one of the most important things in, you know, assessing any kind of military organization is the combat qualities of the forces, right? their discipline, cohesion,

willingness to fight, leadership, those kinds of things, i mean, sometimes these are called the unquantifiables. and what we see, i think, with rebel forces is a great variation in this. you have some rebel forces that are amateurs, they don't know how to use their weapons and so on. so there's a, you know, a significant issue here with the rebels of a very great or significant variation in the abilities of units or combat qualities of units, and what this does is it makes for very uneven performance on the battlefield. some rebel units -- unfortunately, these are mostly, you know, on the islamist side of the equation -- seem to have high combat quality. they fight hard. they fight, you know, even in very difficult circumstances and so on. the strategy for the rebels

simply doesn't exist, rht? there's some broad notions of, you know, bringing down the regime and having democracy and all that, but in terms of military strategy, you know, in normal situations let's say you have political goals that are set by the political leadership, and you have a military strategy that implements that. but because of the chaotic state of the political leadership, there is no real strategy, no political goals that can be communicated to forces and that they will then go out andou havs sort of, you know, every man does what he wants kind of situation. i think it's important, i'm getting the hook here to get off, but another major thing we see here is attrition, and i talked about this a little bit. as of the end of july, the last time i really crunched the data,

the rebels were losing about 32 killed in action per day, okay? i'm sorry, the regime was losing about 32. the rebels were losing about 52 killed in action today, 32 from regime, regular forces, right? what we're seeing now, though, is increasing numbers of what's called the national defense forces. these are the regime irregulars. increasing numbers of those seem are being killed in combat which is a logical extension of their increasing role. the regime's lost, according to the rebels, claimed loss of about 120 aircraft. that's, you know, i think certainly an exaggeration, but they continue to suffer attrition amongst the air force units, and in particular they've lost a lot of helicopters. the regime's helicopter fleet has been significantly degraded. and in terms of armored vehicles, we see continued attrition of the regime's armored vehicle fleet. now, i want had a huge armored

vehicle fleet because they prepared for war with israel. but they are continuing, they are continuously losing armored vehicles, especially tanks and bmps, systems that they haley rely on -- heavily rely on. and i took a look at this as well as i could between march and july, between 600 tanks and bmps were claimed to be destroyed, damaged in the combat or at least hit. that's not a small number. some vehicles can be put back into action be you're able to recover them, but that's a significant number. so just in closing, i'd say that the big challenge here for the rebels and to some extent they've met it over time is they have to keep pace with the regime or actually get ahead of it. they can't fall behind the regime in a military sense. it looked, in june, like they were definitely doimore recentle

they've studied themselves and are coming back with. but i would say, though, that the single greatest weakness of the rebels is the disaster at the political echelon and the failure to have any kind of effective overall military command that could execute any kind of real national military strategy. these are weaknesses that cannot be cured by giving them more weapons. these are weaknesses that have to be cured either by the arrival of a de gaulle-like figure that can hammer them together or by somebody from the outside imposing, you know, some order and sense on the levels of rebel organizations. with that, i'll conclude. >> andrew. >> thanks for that, jeff. and thanks for all, thanks to

all of you for coming out today for lunch. i'm going to deal a little bit with the opposition politically and sort of pick up where jeff left off in his presentation. i've been dealing with the syrian opposition now for about 13 years in one way, shape or form be, and it's changed a lot other time. there are a lot of theories out there. the one thing you always hear about the syrian opposition is that it's disorganized, and it's unable to come up with a coherent, linear leadership, and it's unable to plan. all of these things true, but that doesn't mean that they're not worth investigating, and i think they're very much a force under formation. everyone also has different theories about why this is. some folks here in town have argued, well, it's because the countries and the saudis and the turks and everyone else, they fund different groups, and they

have different climates inside of the country and, therefore, that's causing the division cans. others say it's the sectarian divisions in the country. there might be something teorie. i have my own. it goes back to my original dealings with the syrian opposition and the older opposition, as i call them, inside of syria when i lived there. i think that it's, that there's a certain psychological aspect to it that's often overlooked, and i write about this in a little bit, and i introduce my piece, my segment of this work with it. when you have people who emerge from living under a city ran call system -- a city ran call system like the assad regime where power so arbitrary, during the time that they're under the boot, so to speak, they're terribly depressed and smoke a lot of cigarettes, in fact, at least of half an inch around my midsection is directly due to very long interviews with people pontificating about why they

wanted a free syria. i enjoyed listening to them, i have the recordings of most all of them, but the fact of the matter is that when oftentimes we noticed this back even before the uprising began, when they began to see the light, when they began to emerge from that malaise, when they began to actually stand up for themselves, unfortunately, depression gives way almost immediately to grandiosity. and i think that's what really drives a lot of members within the syrian opposition. oftentimes when you meet with them at conferences, they'll talk more about them and their individual aspirations than their collective body or their party or the syrian opposition as a whole. and it's an unfortunate characteristic of a number of the members of the opposition coming out of syria then and coming out of sur ya today. and i -- i think what happens ia lot of people in the region, different sponsors and so on, then take advantage of it.

but for as problematic as that is, such divisions have actually created exactly the kind of headless opposition that syrian president bashar al assad cannot decapitate, and they've just really, while they've proven the achilles heel of the opposition, they also make it, it's one of its survival strategies. and over time i think as many of you have watched this over the course of the development of the uprising in syria, the regime has quite unsuccessfully played a nasty game of whack-a-mole where they try and wipe out an opposition division or a fighting force only for it to pop up somewhere else. it does wear the regime down considerably. unfortunately, though, with considerable iranian assistance, russian assistance and political cover, it's continued -- the regime has been able to continue doing this. and it's led to over 100,000 killed in the country and no end in sight. and, unfortunately, the use of chemical weapons inside of the

country. my piece then talks a little bit about looking back. i spent a lot of time alongside opposition members from the beginning of the uprising going forward. it wasn't just in the western capitals or in istanbul or some of the arab capitals. i spent a tremendous amount of time in border regions both with the civilian opposition as well as the armed very early stage and watched their development. my piece talks a little bit about the development of the syrian national council which is now a part of what's called sock, is syrian opposition coalition, and its development and its own problems both with personalities as well as coming up with a common platform and being able to really, unable to overcome not only personal differences, but the differences between the three currents that are within, that were within the snc and continue today into the soc. one of the liberals, the other

are the muslim brothers and the third are the salafists. over time, unfortunately, the snc -- especially early on -- did not spend enough time in border regions. they lost their traction inside of the country both with, first, the peaceful syria and then, ov, with the armed groups who began firing back at the assad regime's attempts to put down the uprising in the fall of 2011 and forward. i was also, i did -- this piece also deals considerably with the attempt by the international community last autumn to assemble the snc and to get it to reform. and by reform, the goals of the regional powers as well as the united states was to get the snc to branch out inside of the country and and to, essentially, pack the soc with from inside of the country than those in the snc who were

primarily in exile. that attempt happened in doha, qatar, and in november of last year. it was a mixed success or a mixed failure, however you want to look at it. representation from inside the country did increase. the snc's participation in the side of the organization was maintained at about 40%. but unfortunately, many of those that were included from inside of the cou not based on any kind of selective process from within their individual districts but, instead, hand picked by many of the same currents that were inside of the snc. and the overall effectiveness of soc inside of the country expanded but didn't expand enough, and as per the outlines and the intentions of a number of those not only within thesyro see the body come together, but also some of their western and arab patrons.

now, a little known story that happened alongside this meeting in november of 2012, there was a pa doha of the different provincial military council leaders. and they sort of had a parallel meeting in order to try to organize the different groups, fighting groups inside of syria into something coherent. that was followed, that meeting was followed by an official meeting on december 7th in turkey to form what was called the supreme military council or what's today known as the smc which is, of course, headed by general adriz. there were a couple of early signs that there was a lot of outside fingerprints on the smc. for example, all the 230 members who were present that day agreed

suddenly by consensus to the 30-member leadership body that currently heads the smc. that is nothing short of a miracle. but actually, i think one of the main reasons why the smc was formed so quickly was because of the presence and the involvement of western and arab intelligence agencies. and there were a lot of reasons for that. i don't say that they're not justified. there were a lot of concerns at that time that the number of, that the weapons going into syria were indiscriminate, that they were going to extremists within the opposition and that some sort of organized structure that by channeling all of the weapons via one source would hopefully bring the armed units together inside of the country. the smc today as it stands is actually a blend of two regional models. one is the qatari-based military provincial council model, and

the other was the saudi-backed five fronts model. and if you look at the diagram which you'll find inside of -- it's an excellent diagram put out by the syria support group near washington, it outlines all the different fronts and also its membership. if you look at at first glance if you look at the membership of the smc, it seems like any government's dream of a linear opposition structure that would be needed to arm an insurgency against the assad regime and, hopefully, take it down. it's organized into be intelligence branches, supply, equipment, administration, finance, even transitional justice of all things. i encourage you to look at them. politically, however, and what you can look in terms of the individuals who are listed on here, all of them have quite different political orientations. this structure was actually originally formed in discussions in the summer of 2012 that were happening behind closed doors between members of the syrian

opposition and western and arab intelligence agencies. at that time in the syrian-armed opposition, salafists and ore extreme -- other extremists were not prevalent among the armed opposition. so the structure we see here today, you'll see in the diagram s is a collection of nationalist whattal ons that are, could be secular or mildlyt are primarily focused on syria. but they are hixed together -- mixed together -- correction, salafist orientation. so one of the sort of giant pink elephants or whatever you want to call it in the room on the smc is the role of salafists. now originally, this wasn't seen as a bad idea because there was an attempt -- and i think it was quite thoughtful -- that the or not thing was to co-opt some of the moderate fists who only -- salafists into this structure so that they then over time could be moderated and dealt with and

incorporated into an overall resistance against the assad regime. and i think that probably would have had a better chance of happening had this structure been armed and financed at the time that it was originally constructed. and i think i can point you to the deliberations and some of the stories about the deliberations inside of the american administration, specifically hillary clinton's and others' backing of the arming of this structure in general. but this, that alt was not taken -- path was not taken. and over time the syrian op to decision continued to fight against the assad regime and actually did a very good job. but in order to carry that out, it had to rely on patrons from the arab gulf, north africa and beyond to sustain it with financing and with weaponry. and unfortunately, a lot of that financing and weaponry went to salafists and ore extremist group withs within the milieu. these are outside of, primarily, the smc, however. but in any case, theyr

stature and in overall firepower. so the situation has changed considerably since then, and now there's a real question in looking at the smc about what to do with it. president obama and ben rhodes have announced that originally in terms of enforcing the red line on syria's chemical weapons use in syria -- and this, of course, the the most recent incident was not the first -- wd increase its support, military support for the supreme military council specifically. so we're not arming or supporting the free syrian army as a whole, but actually the supreme military council. but as you've seen in the press, that has gone with ebbs and flows, and it's come out in a trickle, and there's been a lot of complaints about late delivery of those weapons. there are several reasons for that. one is arguments over, well, how effective can this really be, because the fight in syria has ended up in the division of the country, some call it a stalemate, and whatever we

provide to them would not lead to the toppling of the assad regime, but only sustaining the fight. but the other, more enduring argument has been that, actually, supplyin smc wholesale could and will likely lead to those weapons falling into the hands of salafists and extremists. i argue in this piece that as the smc's currently constructed, that that is a distinct possibility. however, i'm not rejti smc as a vehicle for supporting the opposition. bute ta about this in the paper and i think this is also partially borne out by the findings of my colleague -- what we instead need going forward and i think is the wisest choice, and i think it's actually the one slowly being adopted by the administration and accounts for the trickle out of assistance, is the discrimination support and arming -- discriminate support and arming of different members within the smc with whom

we have existing relations and more of a secular nationalist orientation and are not against interests not only in syria, but the region as a whole. it's very difficult stuff. it's a political game using military means, but it's one that we're going to have to play ever so carefully if we are going to win the overall battle inside of syria. and by winning the overall battle, what i mean by that is eventually getting president assad to leaf the scene -- to leave the scene and hopefully having at the end of in this negotiations between three different parts of syria, its current -- and i have a piece in "foreign affairs" that outlines into canton, sunni canton and a kurdish canton to come back together. but that's a very medium or long-term goal at this point. so i talk a little bit in the

piece about a couple of the examples of what's happened so far concerning the, concerning the smc. there has been an attempt using croatian arms financed by saudi arabia to finance a number of the more moderate elements within inside of syria. and it's called the croatian arms episode or incident in which those weapons were provided, and within a very short time, some of those weapons ended up in the hands of extremists. now, just to be clear here, the weapons were not given to the smc as a whole, but some of the groups within the smc were armed. sost -- it's not a hard test, it's a soft one. never the less, a number of weapons that were supplied according to evidence that was taken by the internet and explained by myself and by aaron, those weapons ended up in the hands of al-nusra, the al-qaeda affiliate inside of

syria. so what we, what i argue in the end is a cautious middle way forward. and i realize that this in the context of the overall enforcement of the red line seems a bit getting ahead of ourselves. but whatever happens in the next 48 hours oro, syria's going to go on. it's going to go on for a very long period of time. and in de facto sense from a policy angle, we've gone from having a syria that was a u.s. state sponsor or terrorism into be three syrias now in which u.s.-designated terrorist organizations are not only are n dent. and that strategy, rather, thate written recently in "the new york times" and otherwise of having each faction just kind of fight it out and actually work against each other eninstead of the united states, that only really works if that doesn't spill over the borders of syria

and destabilize syria's neighbor, almost all of whom and all of which are u.s. allies. unfortunately, that spillover is already occurring whether it's in the record number of refugees fighting across the border, the spike in sectarian tensions throughout syria and around yr of us at the institute have said, isn't vegas. what happe to stay there. and i think you can see in president obama's most recent statements, he's talked about the impact of a syria crisis overall on our regional allies. and i expect that with, while i realize that the strikes appear they will be coming to enforce the chemical weapons red line on the regime, and i support that, i've supported that from even before the president outlined this, whatever happens out of that, the president is going to, obviously, be talking about the punitive measures involved, and i think mike's going to be talking about that, but overall i think that the president is going to have to address -- and the government's going to have

to address -- about the strategic threats that are coming out of the syria crisis. ladies and gentlemen, this, this meltdown of this country is not going to end anytime soon. and if i could tell you which way it's going, i would, but i can't. none of us can. but what you can see is as this meltdown continues, the level of threats to the united states and its allies are going through the roof. therefore, more assertive u.s. action whether it's in enforcing the red line on discriminately arming the smc as a vehicle to supporting the overall armed opposition seems the best road ahead. it's going to be a careful and difficult effort, but i think it's one that we're up for, and i think being more assertive now instead of waiting for others in the region, our adversaries to take our place would be the best way forward. thank you very much. >> and michael.

>> andrew, jeff, great monograph. aaron zellen cobb be here today -- couldn't be here today, so i'm kind of standing in for him as a poor man to aaron zellen. i have been asked to talk about the implications of potential american military operations against syria, and when undertaking these kinds of exercises, i always find it very useful to refer to the quote by the famous theorist of warfare, the prussian theorist of warfare -- [inaudible] who said the first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgments that the statesmen and commander have to make is to establish a kind of war on which they are embarking. which basically, i think, leads us to ask if the united states does act militarily in response to syria's escalated use of

chemical weapons, what are our likely goals, how are we likely to go about achieving these goals, what are the prospects for success, and how is syria and its allies likely to respond? now, in considering american policy objectives if it does resort to the use of force, there are a number of these that one could, you know, kind of spell out potentially. fist, simply -- first, simply making a statement. and secretary of state kerry has talked about the need for accountability and in its own way, therefore, action would be simply kind of, you know, would stand on its own as kind of america responding as white house spokesman jay carney says, america responding to an act that needs a response. we could also try to restore u.s. credibility and deter

future chemical use. that's a second objective. third is to alter the balance of forces between the regime and opposition forces to set conditions for either a diplomatic settlement or opposition, or finally, decapitation and regime change although white house spokesman jay carney said that's off the table, we're not seeking regime change. and i think even trying to alter the balance of forces is something which is, the administration is not likely to pursue. so i think other than making a statement, i think the likely minimal goal of any kind of military action would be restore credibility and deter future chemical weapons use. so achievement anding this? i think the first thing that's important to say is at least based on the newspaper descriptions of the kind of strike we can expect, and they're talking about the four class destroyers in the eastern mediterranean as being the likely source of a strike, each

of them carries probably a couple of dozen tomahawk land attack missiles, they're probably accompanied by one or two attack sub ma reeks. -- submarines. some of them can carry up to 150 tomahawks. so your talking perhaps a strike of 100-200 tomahawk missiles. when you think about it in terms of the size of the warheads on the missiles and the types, you're talking about something that really equates to a single sorority of between 35 and 50 strike aircraft which is what a single aircraft carrier, you know, car rays -- carries. so you're not talking about a very big strike here, first of all. and as a result, you're not likely to significantly degrade syrian military capabilities and, therefore, i would argue if this is the kind of strike the administration feels comfortable with, they should focus not really on degrading capabilities, but altering the regime's risk calculus and achieving mainly a psychological

effect. and i think the only way to really accomplish this or maybe it's not the only way, but i think the most desirable way of accomplishing in this is by targeting key regime units. now, syria, the syrian army is a 12-plus division army, but, in fact, in prosecuting their fight against the opposition they've only really used more or less three divisions, the fourth armored division, the republican guard division and some special forces units. these units are key to the survival of the regime, defending the regime against coups and stuff like that, they're key to prosecuting the war against the opposition, and at least the fourth armored division and republican guard have been deeply implicated in the use of chemical weapons against the syrian people. so you can hit headquarters of these units, those are fixed sites conceivably. it would be desirable, although tomahawks are really not the best way to do in this or even

not a good way to do this, it would be desirable also to be able to destroy a large number of their tanks and artillery. more importantly, it's to kill, it's to kill the senior leadership of these units or senior members of these units. the problem is even the if you destroy large numbers of tanks and around artillery of these units, like i said, only three divisions of the 12 divisions in the military are really committed to combat. so you conceivably have a large stockpile of tanks and artillery pieces that belong to other units that are not being used. and while maybe a lot of them have not been maintained and are rusty and are not functional, they could cannibalize these other units. what is critical, what they really are short of is low ideal soldiers -- loyal soldiers and, therefore, it's much more important to kill, you know, experienced, committed troops, the more senior the better because the more senior people are probably related by blood and marriage to senior officials

in the regime. but the problem is also now since we telegraphed our preparations to strike, they are probably not going to be in their headquarters or by their tanks. we know this from our experience in iraq where time and again we hit empty headquarters, and even when we tried to bomb chemical weapons facilities, the chemical weapons were out in the field rather than in the bunkers. so the problem is because of the lack of -- because of advanced warning, i think we have a limited ability to accomplish this objective at this point in addition, i'm not sure that the administration would go for this, but in order to do it effectively, again, you have to rely on combat aircraft. tomahawks are not the optimal tool to do a lot of this. so that, that creates a problem in terms of the efficacy of this kind of strike. i think it's also in considering how we fashion the strike if we

are to go down this path, that we not respond in an asymmetric fashion to syrian provocations, because that enables the regime to calibrate risk, and this is something that we consistently fell into this trap with the iraqis in the '90s, that they would challenge us in the no-fly zones, and we would hit the surface-to-air missile sites that challenged us. ..

>> and i think it would be desirable if we could do it, that whatever we do this not a parting shot but it's an opening salvo. in other words, there is more to come. the problem is against the administration has perhaps i think for good reason been so reluctant to get directly involved, it's telegraphed its reluctance and any kind of military action will be seen as likely a one off event, release the administration's preference would be a one off event. and, therefore, i think psychologically the regime in damascus will field its a divided out and they'll be free to continue with their actions after that the so if there is a way to intimate that more yet to come, that would be desirable. one way is part of any strike you try to degrade their air defenses so you can set the conditions for future strikes, if you use manned aircraft in the future, that they will be operating in a less hostile air

defense department. i think it's also important come in terms of changing the psychology of the regime to have supporting diplomatic military action. all these things the saudis are doing to try to pull away the russians, i think, you know, good luck. i'm very skeptical they will work but i think these kinds of efforts are desirable to the degree they may be -- and the mind of the series about the reliability of the russians because in kosovo one of the things that cause slobodan milosevic to eventually cave was the loss of russian support. so the russians are allies and anything that's sold out in the mind about the reliability's importance. iran, i think that's a harder target to i think we are less likely to be able to steal them away but i will note i think we have a great information opportunity here in that one of the deep wounds in iranian

society is the fact that they were victims of chemical warfare, that the international community was silent. this is one of their most powerful talking point in terms of domestic opinion and world opinion. and i think we should relentlessly make the point that they're supporting a regime that is using chemical weapons against civilians. i wonder if they're getting advice from their iranian allies about how to most effectively use them. to this is i think a great talking point i think we should be present. i'm not sure in the long run it has an effect on a rainy policy but it is something we should work on. let me make a couple points insurance from lessons of the past we should also keep in mind. if we go down the military route. first of all coercive structure almost never one off deals. i think of either important for the deals in damascus to try to prove that they are about and that they will try to once again violate the red line, perhaps by

once again resuming the use of chemical weapons, though maybe only low level which would put the u.s. administration under a dilemma. do you strike again in response to a very small use, local use of chemicaof the chemical weapot killed maybe only 10 or 15 people? and they will be able to make the point that without your best shot and it didn't affect our conduct. we know this from our experience in dealing with iraqis in the '90s that it was a constant struggle, kind of a cat and mouse game, and the israelis have had a similar issues with dealing with rocket fire from gaza and hasbro after they withdrew from lebanon in 2000. and it wasn't only until the israelis reached far-reaching military operations that they were successful at least india with a threat from hezbollah and

have had mixed results in dealing with hamas but i don't think the u.s. engaging in those kinds of very far-reaching military operations at this point. the second lesson from the past is get it right from the start and don't try to deter or manage the problem on the cheap. again, this is one of the lessons from iraq in the '90s. i think the operation that we did that i think finally put together all of the elements of a successful policy was operation desert fox in 1990. that was intended as a parting shot. we've given up on the inspections at that time, and i see it as really a face saving ever to hit the iraqis hard as we were walking away, to try to provide political cover for it and administration decision to give up on weapons inspections. it would've been better if those kinds of operations, if we to get those operations at the beginning of our course of

diplomacy in the early 90s with the iraqis, because maybe the decade, we would've had an issue time with u.n. weapons inspectors if we'd started with those kinds of operations. just a few points about the nature of the challenges we are likely to face, and then type of syrian response is rare likely to see before i wrap up your. before i mentioned, key personnel are not likely to be in the headquarters. that may be targeted if we were to target senior headquarters. by relying exclusively on cruise missiles that are limits to what you can accomplish. center because even though our most advanced cruise missiles the ability to be updated in flight in terms of its target it's going to hit, the intelligence that it is based on his very often several hours old. where a pilot overflying a target looking through a targeting body can in real-time determine what's on the ground that is going to be. so there are limits to which it can accomplish if the enemy is

moving things around on a frequent basis, which again i think the serious budget. also the limited strike we are planning would preclude the u.s. meeting assets that the syrians barber live for retaliation such as antiship cruise missiles or chemical weapons stockpiles. although the newspaper indicates the u.s. is not likely to the chemical weapons stockpiles for fear of collateral damage, that might be disinformation or that might be the true. we might find out in the next few days. but clearly based on that experience, in dealing with chemical, targeting wmd type targets, we know from our experience that accurate and timely intelligence is absolutely vital and our track record in this regard is very uneven. we also have to consider the fact that although courts have said that in recent months the transfer of been consolidating their chemical weapons arsenal moving them around in order to prevent the opposition from

gaining encompasses even if we had perfect pitch at the start of the conflict where they were, once these are moving around it would make it much were difficult and even if we knew which faces the consolidated them on come we don't miss this or know which buildings there in. so that could also complicate targeting. and then given the events and telegraphing of the possibility the u.s. will strike, possible they've also been dispersed -- dispersed not as the iraqis did. in terms of syrian response is, my feeling is what the last thing serious needs in the second front. they still of the and faulty with opposition and, therefore, think the response will be very limited at best. i would something note that israel a taxi in 2007 when they bombed its reactor and four times vision without an overt response from see. city and official have been restraint in the statement in terms of what they're going to do if the u.s. bombs of them except for statements that they will defend themselves but there's no kind of provocative statements they will set the

region on fire. the potential for proxy terrorism is much more limited than it was in the past, today. and our ability to stop the second these is much better since 9/11. as i said before, therefore, repeated intermittent and limited use of chemical weapons is there most likely response to bombing in order to can just make the case that you bombed us, and so we're doing it and are you going to bomb us again for 10, 20 people killed by chemical weapons? and begin putting the administration in the horns of dilemma. i leav leave hezbollah and iranm the q&a but i want to wrap it up now, but again i think the race reasons i don't see them acting in a big way in response to a u.s. strike but in conclusion, as four, you know, the possibly of the u.s. military strike, my recommendation would be either do it right or don't do it at all. that probably means doing it right means probably more expensive strike and is being considered by the administrati

administration. secondly, if you do it don't expect us to be one of two because it would be very important for us had to show that he's unbowed and undefeated and he will continue to test our red line. and then finally kinetic action of the type administration is considering i think it only modest at best reduce the potential threats of chemical weapons to the opposition. to really change the balance of course in a positive way requires that we finally take seriously the possibly of arming the opposition. and i think this would in the long run be the kind of response that potentially really matters. thank you. >> thank you. the one privilege of sharing an event like this is i get to ask the first question. so let me ask our panelists. i listen to you, i hear about a very decentralized if not

disorganized opposition. i hear about a regime which is increasingly relying on a regular forces. i hear about the limited actions they are likely to take. and what was running through my mind was, well, ma are you saying the united states can't make much of a difference in this conflict? and really the united states yet do very much to influence the? and only the united states won't be very much to influence it but that really nothing short of very dramatic use actions would have much of an impact? >> can you all hemi? i take that -- can you all can be? i take that as a yes. i think the limits of u.s. power are exaggerated. i think we can do a lot.

even a limited strike, provided is not just our rap on the knuckles or symbolic, hocking of a couple of places in damascus. even that i think can have some important effects on the situation. starting with what would be coming into, what's the necessary and should been done for a long time israel military assistance to the rebels. this requires the vetting business and all that, running some risk as andrew outlined, might migrate in the hands of the people we don't like and don't like us. but you have to think about the importance of the objectives here, and if you assume that getting assad out of power and defeating the iranians in syria are important objectives, then certainly those kinds of risks are worth taking. we could do a lot to help the rebels beyond just giving them

somsome and aircraft and anti-te a guided missile. there's lots of things we can do in a way of training, advice on how to operate, helping them perform will commence interest in real command structures, providing them with logistics for their forces, and so on, that we could do. in the future, which had been doing for some time. that is not going to guarantee the democratic future society in syria that everybody wants, but it would at least help influence in that direction, and did the u.s. some ability influence the situation on the ground post-assad. the other thing is we could do of course a lot more in terms of direct military intervention. and this is something also that should've been contemplated and probably undertaken long before where we are now. but we can still do that. as outlined in my comments, the regime relies on firepower. significantly.

we can reduce that firepower. we can stop the syrian air force and killing civilians on a daily basis. we can destroy the steering system, surface missile force. we can degrade the command control. we can take away a lot of the advantages they enjoy, vis-à-vis the rebels, with direct military action. so to say that the united states doesn't have the ability to influence the situation in syria is wrong. we can expedite the removal of regime significantly expedited. but can we fix serious? can we assure the democratic future, whatever? no, we can't. but we can do, we can certainly do some important things there. >> just briefly, to echo jeff's comments, i think that really any and it's a situation where the u.s. could be a lot more,

but again, it's not just through either direct or indirect intervention, although i agree with what jeff said that. i think it's just in terms of understanding what power is. i mean, the problem that i see is that we are, particularly with syria, we are used to dealing with syria through its regime. and we had a very close, not political relationship with syria, but our intelligence services knew each other very well, and that was very clear, you know, watching the operations at the u.s. embassy in damascus over the years when i was there. we knew them quite well. we cooperated with them in a certain sense. that structure, the one where every family with, and those that go around it, that system became destabilized. and again, he gets back to the demographics of the change in the country. if you look at all the videos that come out of the fighting units you find very, very few gray hairs among those that are

taking shots against the assad regime. there are all of those were born and those horrific 10 years after the massacre of 1982 when syria was among the top 20 fastest growing populations on the planet. just the numbers have radically changed. and so when you meet with these groups inside of syria, or on the syrian border region, it's a whole new set of elite. the people inside of syria now matter. the question is, what do we do with them? do we ignore them and pretend that the current streaming through the opposition are not there and just let them fester and grow? or do we try and influence that environment? and i don't think that's just a part of u.s. policy in syria, are a part of the syria policy during this crisis. i think it's going to be part of our u.s. middle east policy in general. however, going to do with people. people are a factor in this country. economics matters.

social aspects matter. it's not just going to be state to state anymore, but i think a much more assertive role for the united states, smarter role, combined with some of the options just as outlined would be the right move going ahead. >> yeah, all i would just add, i agree with comments of my colleagues here, is that all the things, you know, based on what's in the media, apparently based on background and not for attribution briefing by senior officials, what the administration seems to be considering is not likely, to achieve a desired objective. so i was just have a saying, you know, if we want to accomplish our objectives, defined minimally tested during debian to use, we probably have to think about a giveaway of going

about doing it. but that said i think we can do more to shape the environment, but ultimately we can hopefully try to set conditions for the success of the opposition but in the end it's up to them. away think that an important role to play in helping them get there. >> thank you. do we have any questions? right there. >> diane meier. my question for mr. eisenstadt. keeping in mind that propaganda for is a violation of the you a chart and potential war crime, what evidence yet to support your claim that the syrian government has used chemical weapons? >> yeah, first of all, i'm waiting to see what the u.n. inspectors say, and am looking to see what the u.s. government has to say on this regard. and i think that's why the administration actually has said is that of innocent administration has said that

they are waiting come that they are not waiting for the u.n. report because they feel that they have very detailed intelligence. and can be revealed later this week. eyed, again, i don't recall, i don't never exactly how you senator i would say alleged, if i said that, i was allegations. and ugly to see what the report says personally. i don't recall exactly what he said in my presentation, but i would like to see exactly what the evidence, the u.s. government is. has to put on the table. but to be honest with you, given that this administration was elected in part due to their criticism of the preceding administration for going to war without adequate, you know, intelligence related to wmd, i would hope that they would cross all their t.'s and dot all the eyes when it comes to doing the vetting of intelligence related to syria, and, therefore, if the secretary of state says that

there's no doubt and the vice president says there's no doubt that syria's chemical weapons, i would probably invest a high degree of confidence in that but again i would want to see what kind of reports they cannot with in the coming days. >> can i weigh in? the united states government has long had the perspective with regard to nuclear weapons. we call loose nukes problem, which is easy of a nuclear weapon is used we will blame the person to produce the nuclear weapon was not it was in the control at the time are not because every government that produces nuclear weapons has a responsibility under international law to keep those weapons under the control. and if the syrian government has lost control of chemical weapons and those chemical weapons are used by the rebels, that's the fault of the syrian government. the syrian government has a responsibility, in other words, to give control over chemical weapons that it produces and is

in its territory. if they lost control of chemical weapons they need to bring it to the attention of the international committee, which i suspect would be prepared to assist them in control of those nuclear weapons. so i think the more important question should ask about what happens in syria last week is were chemical weapons used? if the answer is chemical weapons were used, that's the responsibly of assuring government. >> you know, i would say that we don't have the 100% forensic evidence yet of regime complicity or regime decision, whatever, to use cw. but we have everything but that, right? you know, we don't have in cis damascus to go in there and do these things, and simply have to wait for the u.n. people to come back with a report. up with the u.n. people are we going to say is chemical weapons were used and it looks like it may be in this type of agent. we kind of know that. the issue is resolving, to some

degree of certainty or high probability that the regime did it or somebody else did it, right? look at the regime, right, means, you know, they have a very formidable chemical warfare capabilities, right? you know, methods. you know, they have the units, the concepts, the training to conduct chemical, you know, warfare attacks. the opportunity was there, and they also had at least, you know, a reasonable military rationale for striking. they're having trouble in the damascus area with rebel forces. they have been trying to clear the very areas that were struck for months and have not been successful. in that fighting for have lost troops. they lost tanks and other armored vehicles. they have lost personnel from their allies, right, without any significant progress. some progress, but without any

significant progress. and rebels were having their own successes in those areas. so there's plenty of, you know, stuff the points to the regime having done it, steel, all kinds of things. so it takes a leap of faith to believe it wasn't the regime. more than a leap of faith. it takes kind of fantasy to believe it wasn't the regime. but we will see, right. it's not 100%, plus we have a lot of reporting of actual intelligence evidence, imagery and so on that definitely points the regime is. >> just remind the audience, from the beginning, the u.n. team is not allowed to actually buy its current mandate, this was negotiated over five months, it took five months to negotiate with the syrian government over the site would be inspected. it is not allowed to assess blame for who used the weapons but it's a very important point.

they can only assess if they are present in the site. so no matter what the u.n. says in a couple of days, that body, that team is not going to say who used the weapons. >> larry, hudson advisory group. and my question is generally for the speakers. in thinking about the stratification of assuring opposition movement, i more reflective on the stratification i think of the syrian government. now, the reason i say that is bashir assad as i understand was basically a pinch-hitter. his father was grooming his eldest son, basal. but she was -- bashir was

brought back. i would like to comment, is he truly in charge, does he rule or does the rain? that is to say, either get that sense is a if the military political leaders who came up and made the reputations under his father, and that he basically is united's symbol it will answer as opposed to action ruling the country? that is to say, if speech i think we got the question. andrew? >> spent i wrote a book about this. only is it deals with this. and i spent a little over seven years inside of syria during the time that you're talking about in bashar's reign. one of the early explanations, there's often some sort of question about how do we explain

bashar al-assad the dual nature what is a mild-mannered ophthalmologist who stood for a time in london, who announces in his inaugural address when he took power from his father as you mentioned, that syrians should respect the views of others, but yet when have i went out and began don't discussions along respecting those views and to try to organize this, it was a massive crackdown inside the country. one of the early expeditions was bashar was held back by the old guard, by some of the carryovers from his father's regime. well, that you about letting bashar although in terms of responsibly for the actions inside one of those centrally organized political systems in the world held until about 2005, and the conflict, and most of those figures were retired from his father's reign. and it was just a new figures. and then escorted the crisis in lebanon and many people said how

could bashar have decided to kill. there were lots of questions and they thought there were other groups of people behind the scene. one of whom was the president's brother-in-law who is married to bashar's sister. and tha i went along for a whil. and then, of course, there's always been this ministry, why didn't bashar continue to be this nice guy in interviews and then turn around and was so unbelievably unpredictable? wanting peace with israel by supplying scud missiles to hezbollah and lebanon. it's not only, doesn't sure you want peace, it's also strategically stupid. you get strategic weapons to a nonstate actor. the only reason why syria would be important is it can hold back those weapons. then, of course, this went along and the uprising began, and the regime continued to fire on its own people, and they continued

and then there was a lot of was a lot of talk those hard-liners behind the regime. one of them was -- he was killed in july of 2012 and a massive explosion. the firing continued. i think what the easy answer to this is, after 13 years of bashar al-assad, us being in power, but this is just who he is. i think based on my knowledge and we just released a study at the institute about the current structure of the regime, it is completely centralized in the assad's family has. whatever delivered a process goes on behind the scenes is what the founding members. i think that means whatever happens regarding the regime in syria, ashore al-assad, particularly his brother, are conflicted. >> thanks. this question, you talk about use of combat aircraft a

possibly undesirable option. what is your take on the state of syrian air defense? some people seem to suggest it's rather formidable or -- do think it really would be formidable in terms of somewhat degraded capability? >> yeah, it's really hard to know. on paper, clue they have very extensive air defenses. very dense along the west side of the country which is a popular part of the country around damascus, aleppo and the coastline. so it's a very dense air defense but what people call legacy systems from the soviet systems that are rather dated. there are some newer ones that are there that could pose a significant risk. i think the main question that i would ask is, given that we know that the ground forces have suffered significant desertions

and absenteeism, and as result they really can only rely on three divisions out of the 12 in the army, are the air defense is suffering from the same problem? and again, we just don't know. they did successfully shoot down a turkish phantom that was apparent on a reconnaissance flight sometime ago. they are viable, but in terms of how effective, ma it's just really unknown. but again, i think the main systems, almost all the systems, our older systems we're familiar with and that i think we're pretty good capability to deal with. but in the past with lost aircraft in very small numbers to some of these older systems. as a result they remain potential threat, but i think it's probably not as great as sometimes portrayed, but still something that we have to take very seriously. >> if you're a u.s. air force or

navy planner, you have to account for those systems and deal with them. but we do know that the system overall have suffered a lot of degradation since the war, and the rebels have overrun at least two facilities, which is kind of the main strategic system. they have overrun a number of batteries and san support facilities but we also know that many of the air defense units, the sand units are involved in a ground war. they serve a strong point over the regime control areas. many of the lighter and aircraft systems, mobile and aircraft, antiaircraft guns systems have been committed to combat in support of the syrian army. so this is a system that whatever it its state was at the beginning of the war in march 2011, it is less, maybe a lot less than it was then. plus there's the things that mike pointed out. these are all systems we have basically gone against,

successfully gone against with the exception of maybe one particular system. so again as i said at the beginning, you can't wish away. it has to be a counter in any kind of prudent planning process. >> the israelis have conducted multiple operations over syria or perhaps, you know, added -- at its margins, sorting within the range of band of many other systems, and successfully. >> you did mention just now, michael, the israelis going in and was also mentioned earlier that they had made strikes and there was no retaliation, just rhetorical. yet the stories of the structure coming out of washington, not out of syria, not out of israel. you beat in the israeli media that they are very best ideas for leaking stories about their operations. what's going on with that?

>> well, you know, who knows? some speculation is that people at the state department are upset that we want us to have a more forward leaning policy and, therefore, leaking this stuff nonoted kind of shame the administration and action. others, you know, nader people were concerned that israeli action will lead to escalation of the conflict and, therefore, they want to dete deter the isrs of acting or i do know. and maybe it's all of the above. or maybe it's none of the above. maybe it's just people who can't keep their mouth closed. so who knows? i don't know. >> first of all, congratulations on an amazing study and for the staff can answer quickly. a follow up on your offer to

answer the question of iranian and hezbollah retaliation. seems to imply at least one statement it was a limited strike it would respond but if it was something that seemed to him that really undermining the regime, that they would. wondering about your take? >> i've always been, with regard to hezbollah, you'r you are thee who should actually answering this question, but, you know, hezbollah has, is like syria, i mentioned before that syria doesn't need to open a second front at this point. they have their hands full and, therefore, as result i think their response would likely be very restrained. and i think the same goes for hezbollah. first of all as we know from some of your own work, hezbollah and israel are already involved in a shadow war and hezbollah has been tried for so leaders to avenge the killing of a man and for other reasons come to conduct attacks against the israelis.

they already engage in these kind of activities so it's possible that, you know, does an israeli strike cause them to wrap up these efforts? these efforts are still have not been successful except for the one attack in bulgaria last year. i'm not so sure that they would be willing to incur significant additional risks on behalf of their syrian allies. although like you said, to the degree that they see the survival of the regime and damascus as critical for their own viability, that might make a difference. so if it is an attack that is geared towards regime change, maybe that does change the calculus. but i think all the telegraphing we are seeing indicate to be very limited strike and, therefore, it's probably not worth the risk for them to put themselves out on the end of a lamb for the regime in damascus, when they're not threatened right now with imminent overthrow.

>> let me see. looking around here. >> i was just wondering, actually foreign policy this morning released some information i guess that part of the intelligence that they had is that there was some cables or something between senior assad officials over chemical weapons. so that's part of the evidence. but more to the point, i guess i was wondering that, michael, i think you'd mentioned maybe we could have some sort of dialogue with iran. iran will strike israel if we strike street executives i was wondering, if you could just expand on kind of what effect a strike that we do could have on our neighbors?

and also do you think that it's politically or operationally even that it looks like it might very well be the west versus going in kind of unilaterally? >> with regard to iran, first of all i would note that i think is about three days before the israeli strike in syria, the report is really strike in syria in january against the seven teams that were getting can be ready for transfer to hezbollah. the supreme leaders foreign policy, with his foreign policy advisors is a form of foreign mr. said in the iranian press that iran of course his advice was not necessary the most authoritative spokesmen but he said an israeli attack on syria would be taken as an israeli attack on iran. israelis launched the strike several days on. the convoy and iran to do anything and there's been several strikes since then. so i think in the event that the united states does decide to strike on syria, i'm not sure,

given all the things going on now with the nuclear negotiations and like come that the arenas necessarily want to act at this point. -- the iranians want to act at this point. they reached bond by doubling down in a way they've already done. they often, their approach is generally to avoid direct conflicts with the united states or with other neighborhood countries and to act either through proxies or indirectly. so i think, you know, like after the 2006 war between israel and hezbollah, they didn't let all these people are trying to falter to go over to fight with hezbollah during the war but they rearmed hezbollah after the war. i think the response you would be to double down with the assad regime as a statement of defiance. >> the question about anti-american rant, that's what

they get support for the united states to get the broadest possible coalition of the willing. if we can't get a u.n. security come to resolution, it's important the broadest number of countries supporting this effort and participated in and that's why also support from key arab and muslim countries is very important. >> paula from the american islamic conference to my question is for all three of you. speaking of the kind of opportunity that american missile strikes might provide to the opposition, first, is there an opportunity? if so, who is in the best position to benefit, those in the military and political opposition, recognize their certain entities that might benefit more than others? if you could comment on that. >> groups that will benefit from within the opposition as a

whole, i mean, the united states already extends about $1 billion or over a billion dollars to the syrian opposition. what i mean by that is a combination of humanitarian aid and other kinds of assistance that's channeled already into syria. and the reasons for that is not just because of our support for their syrian opposition, particularly for the string opposition coalition, but there are other reasons for that. a lot of western aid and international aid is provided to syria and there's a lot of billions of dollars of a new. they assad regime is to the sovereign power in syria. so, therefore, the u.n. and the icrc still have to deal through the regime in order to provide assistance in syria. so in losses as with the opposite is prevalent and the regime is not, it's almost impossible to get assistance in without a. so the u.s. over the last year has changed course and the started moving assistance inside of the country.

so politically, we provide assistance to a number of those local councils and revolution councils and other individuals on the ground. in terms of the overall, in terms of the armed groups, the primary reset the it, any kind of assistance in our primary area for opportunity would be with members of the supreme military council. and as i argue, that are not -- it's not so much the issue of ideology, but a lot of the groups over time in syria, given political situation have lurched to the right and are closer to some of the extreme groups which are u.s. organist terry stations. it's hard to find opportunity in the current context with them rather than the mainline national scripts but i think those are the primary ones that we'll be dealing with in the short run because we already deal with them. we already provide nonlethal

assistance via these channels. the graphics and the syrian support groups to i think initial opportunity can be with them and then overtime rolled out and increased in line with that on the increase in our assistance but also that the government of these individual leaders and their groups over time. >> i would just add to the, another criteria besides they love us or like us or at least don't hate us is that they need to be militarily effective. it's not so easy to find highly military effective units that are of an islamist strive. we believe there are some that are fighting in the dollar area and some in the dark province and some are around damascus that are not to islamist our to salafis or whatever. but it's hard to really put your hand on it and say this is the

unit that is moderate and pro-western or u.s. or whatever, or you are not against us, it's also effective. that's what u.s. intelligence community and other intelligence communities would have to do their homework to say this is a group that's ideologically okay, but also it's an effective combat you know, or could be made to be one. >> well, i think you will agree with me that our speakers they were both moderate and effective. and i would like to thank them for their efforts, and thank you for coming. >> [inaudible conversations] ..

had met him before. it is unbelievable how much he knew, he had been to so many district over the years as one of the republican leaders of the house but basically was asking us how bad is this? we were saying it is pretty bad. that is fun when you do that or talked to various caucuses on both sides and get a glimpse of the inside of the players. >> with 30 years as a political

analyst charlie cook has uncovered trends while tracking every congressional race in 1984. see the rest of this interview sunday night at 8:00 on c-span. in our original series' first lady's's influence and image we look at the public and private lives of women who served as first lady during the nation's first 1 twelve years and as we move into the modern era what features the first ladies in their own words. >> building human-rights would be one of the foundation's on which we would build in the world and atmosphere in which peace could grow. >> i don't think the white house can completely belong to one person. it belongs to the people of america and the first lady should preserve the traditions and enhance it and mean something. >> season 2 features 20, first

ladies from the beginning of the 20th century to the present including your calls, facebook comments and tweets beginning at 9:00 eastern on c-span. in a moment we go live to the british house of commons for debate on syria following the reports of chemical weapons being used in that country, prime minister david cameron has recalled parliament from their summer break. some members would have a chance to debate the u.k.'s response to the situation in syria. earlier this week prime minister cameron said there would be a government motion and vote on the response to chemical weapons attacks. yesterday he stated a vote on u.k. military action in syria should wait until the u.n. inspectors's report is released. members will debate the situation for several hours today. v m p is being asked to agree in principle military action may be justified. prime minister cameron will begin a general debate followed by remarks from the opposition

leader. prior to the debate on syria members could be debating other business. we will join love come -- live coverage in a moment on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> order! order! we begin with the business of the house motion, motion no. one, as from the order paper, the leader of the house to move the motion makes a move forward. the question is the business of the house motion as on the order papers, all in favor say aye. the eyes have it. we come to the motion in the name of the prime minister relating to syria and the use of

chemical weapons. the text of the motion submitted yesterday as it appears on the order paper was incorrect. a few words were omitted from line 16. as these are purely factual i am content the motion should be moved in a corrected form. a copy of the motion in its corrected form is available in the vote office. i can informs the house that i have selected manuscript amendment be submitted this morning in the name of the leader of the opposition, a text of the manuscript amendment is also available from the vote office. i should also inform the house that i have set a five minute limit on the feature of the debate. to move the motion i call the prime minister. >> thank you, mr. speaker and i move the motion standing on the order paper in my name and those

of my right hon. friends. i thank you, mr. speaker, for agreeing to request recall the house of commons for this important debate. the question before the house today is how to respond to one of the most abhorrence uses of chemical weapons in history, slaughtering innocent men, women and children in syria. is not about taking sides in the syrian conflict. is not about invading. is not about regime change or even working more closely with the opposition. it is about the large-scale use of chemical weapons and our response to a war crime, nothing else. in reaching our conclusions let me say what the house says in front of it today is a summary of the government's legal position making explicit military action would have a clear legal basis. we have the key independent judgments of the joint intelligence committee making clear their view of what happened and who is responsible

and a motion from the government that sets out a careful path of steps that need to be taken before britain could participate in any direct military action. these include the weapons inspectors reporting, further action at the united nations and another vote in this house of commons and the motion also makes clear that even if all these steps are taken, anything we do would have to be legal, proportionate and specifically focused on deterring and preventing further use of chemical weapons. >> i am grateful to the prime minister for giving away, tell the house why he refused to publish the full attorney-general advice? why is he instead just publishing and have side summary of it with legal experts saying without explicit un secretary council reinforcement is simply not legal under the law? >> longstanding convention

backed by attorney-general all parties and all--not to publish any legal advice and all. this gentleman has changed that and with the libya conflict we published a summary of the legal advice and with this is to publish the clear summary of the legal advice and i urge all hon. land right hon. members to read it. i am deeply mindful of the lessons of the conflict. i will make some progress and take a huge number of interventions. i am mindful of lessons of previous conflicts in particular deep concerns in the country caused by what went wrong with the iraq conflict in 2003 but this is not like iraq and. what we are seeing in syria is fundamentally different. we are not invading a country, we are not searching for chemical or biological weapons. the case will ultimately and i say ultimately because there has to be another vote in the house, ultimately supporting action is not based on a specific piece or pieces of intelligence. the fact the syrian government

has and has used chemical weapons is beyond doubt. the fact the most recent attack took place is not seriously doubted. the syrian government said it took place. the iranian president said it took place in the evidence the syrian regime use these weapons in the early hours of the 20 first of august is right in front of our eyes. we have multiple eyewitness accounts of chemicals build rockets being used against opposition controlled areas. we have thousands of social social media reports that these terrific videos documenting the evidence. the differences in 2003 the situation with iraq, europe was divided over what should be done and europe is united in the view we should not let chemical weapons use stand. nato was divided. nato made a clear statement that those who are responsible should be held accountable. in 2003 the arab league was opposed to action. now a are calling for it.

day issue statements holding that syrian regime responsible and asking the international community to overcome internal disagreements and take action against those who committed this crime. i give way to my right hon. friend. >> a couple days ago i was expecting to oppose the government tonight but my right hon. friend is determined to go down the right of the united nations, his willingness to overturn in this house will be extremely helpful in making up my mind tonight. >> i say to my right hon. friend, i want to unite as much of the country and as much of this house as possible. i think it is right on these vital issues of national and international importance to seek the greatest possible consensus, that is the right thing for the government to do and we will continue to do that. let me make some more progress. the president of the united

states, barack obama, is a man who opposed the action iraq. no one could in any way describe him as a president who wants to involve america in more wars in the middle east but he profoundly believes an important red line has been crossed in an appalling way which is why he supports action in this case. when i spoke to president obama last weekend i said we shared his view about the despicable nature of this use of chemical weapons and we must not stand aside but i also explained to him that because of the damage done to public confidence by iraq we would have to follow a serious -- series of incremental steps including the united nations to build public confidence and to ensure maximum possible legitimacy for any action. these steps are all set out in the motion before the house today and let me say, mr. speaker, i remember in 2003 i was sitting there two rose from the back of the opposition benches, it was just after -- i

was determined to be here. i wanted to listen to the man standing right here and believe everything that he told me. we are not here to debate those issues today but one thing is indisputable. the bulk of public opinion was poisoned by the iraq episode. we need to understand and give way to the right hon. lady. >> i am most grateful to the prime minister for giving way. my meeting of his motion tells me that everything within it could have been debated on monday. this house has been recalled and i believe it was recalled in order to give cover for possible military action. had the prime minister made it clear president obama that in no way does this country support any attack that could come before the u.n. inspectors have done their job. >> i recall debating these vital

national and international issues but i will answer that question very directly. it is this house that will decide what steps we next take if you agree to the motion i sat down, no action can be taken until we have heard from the un weapons inspectors, until there has been further action at the united nations and another vote in the house. those are the conditions we, the british parliament is sending and is absolutely right that we do so. let me make a little more progress and i will take interventions from across the house. this deep public cynicism imposes particular responsibilities on me as prime minister to carry people in the country and this house with me. i feel that very deeply. that is why i wanted parliament recalled and to bring the country together and not divide it. that is why i included in my motion and government motion all the issues raised with me by the leader of the opposition and

indeed by many colleagues on all sides of the house and the liberal democrat party and conservative party on other sides of the house because i want us to try to have the greatest possible unity on this issue. i read the opposition motion carefully and it has much to commend it. the need for the u.n. investigative report, quite right. the importance of the process of the united nations and commitment to another vote in the house before british participation in direct action. that is in our motion too but i believe the opposition motion, important we make this point, is sufficient in two final respects. first refers to the 20 first of august, did not in any way referred to the fact that they were caused by chemical weapons. this fact is accepted by almost everyone across the world and for the house to ignore it would send a bad message to the world's. second, i will make the point, in no way does the opposition motion even begin to point the

finger of blame at president assad. that is at odds with what has been said by nato, president obama and every european and regional leader i have spoken to by the government of australia, canada, turkey and india to name a few cans by the hole of the arab league, at odds with the judgment of the independent joint intelligence committee and the opposition amendment would be the wrong message for this house to send to the world and for that reason recommending hon. friend--i give way to my hon. friend. >> mr. speaker, i am grateful to my hon. friend for giving way. in welcoming his decision to go through the u.n. process c he confirm to the house that where we to find during that process overwhelming opposition in the general assembly and majority against it in the security council we wouldn't motor on. >> it would be unthinkable to proceed if there was overwhelming opposition in the security council.

let me set out why this is so important. the very best route to follow is to have a chapter vii resolution, take it to the u.n. security council, had it passed and about taking action. that is the path we followed. this -- this is very important. it cannot be the case that that is the only way to have a legal basis for action and we should consider for a moment what the consequences would be if that were the case. you could have a situation in a country where the government was literally annihilating half the people in that country but because of one veto on the security council you would be hampered from taking any action. i can't think of any member in any party that wants to sign up for that and that is why it is important we do have a humanitarian intervention set out in the attorney general's excellent legal lead vice. let me give way to my hon. friend. >> i am grateful to my right hon. friend and extremely grateful to him for taking the

time to listen to the concerns of various residents about further british military intervention in the middle east. however, could i ask him why is it that our allies in the middle east like kuwait and others cannot take military action? why does it fall on us yet again? >> my hon. friend makes a good point. no decision about military action has been taken. it would require another vote of this house but if we wanted to see action that was purely about the tearing and degrading future chemical weapons used by syria and the only basis on which i would support any action you need countries that have the capabilities to do that for which the united states and the united kingdom are too. my hon. friend here and the gentleman there. >> on the matter of international law, world leaders and the un in 2005, signed off to the doctrine of

responsibility to protect which means if countries default in their responsibility to defend their own citizens the international community has an opportunity to defend those citizens. syria has the fall to the on its responsibility to protect its own citizens. the international community has a responsibility to undertake what we agreed to do as recently as 2005. >> an important as it relates to what happened in kosovo and elsewhere but let me be clear what we are talking about today. it is that doctrine but also about chemical weapons. the tree to hold world agreed to a hundred years ago after the horrors of the first world war. >> the issues of iraq and the impact they have on the decisions of today, the

perception in my opinion of his own preparedness to get involved in this conflict long before the current incident shortly has an impact on the decisions of today. >> the case i am making is the house of commons needs to consider purely and simply this issue of a massive chemical weapons use by this regime. i am not arguing we should get more involved in this conflict, i am not arguing with are the rebels. i am not making any of those arguments. the question before us is as a world, the 1925 agreement posed the first world war these weapons are reprehensible when do we want to try to maintain that law? put simply is it in britain's national interest to maintain an international taboo about the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield? my argument is yes it is.

britain was part of drying up that vital protocol which incidentally syria itself signed and i think we have an interest in maintaining it. that we take an intervention from the democratic unionist party. >> many people in this house do not believe this is a prelude to a statement to syria. can you explain to us as the breeding says today, 14 instances of use of chemical weapons, 1,000 people dead, 1.2 million people deceased, why is it only now that the prime minister thinks this is the time for greater intervention? >> the point for considering this tougher approach is we know there are the 14 uses of chemical weapons on a smaller scale. and this does seem to me and

president obama -- you can down when it accused me of rushing into something and on the other hand say why have you waited? let me make a little progress. in my speech i want to do three things. explain what we know, sat down the path we will follow and try to answer all the difficult questions that have been put to me. i promise i will take intervention as i go along. let me set out what we now all happened. in three hours on the morning of the 20 first of august three hospitals in the damascus area received 3,600 patients with symptoms consistent with chemical weapons attacks. at least 350 of those innocent people died. the video footage illustrates the most sickening human suffering imaginable. expert video analysis confined no way this wide array of footage could have been fabricated particularly the

behavior of small children in those shocking videos. area pictures of bodies with symptoms consistent with nerve patient exposure including muscle spasms and foaming of the nose and mouth. anyone in the chamber who has not seen these videos should force themselves to watch them. you can never forget the sight of children's body stored in nice, young men and women gasping for air suffering the most agonizing deaths and all inflicted by weapons that have been outlawed for nearly a century. the syrian regime has publicly admitted they were conducting a major military operation in the carry at that time. the regime resisted calls for unrestricted access for u.n. inspectors while artillery and rocket fire in the area reached a level round four times higher than the preceding ten days and intelligence that syrian regime forces took precautions normally associated with chemical weapons use. examining all this evidence with the available intelligence the

joint intelligence committee has made its judgment and has done so in line with reforms put in place after the iraq war by sir robin butler which publishing these key judgments and a letter from the chair of the joint intelligence committee the letter states to take some intervention that there is little serious dispute that chemical attacks causing mass casualties on a larger scale took place on the twenty-first of august. on syria opposition the letter states there is no credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate the claims or the possession of chemical weapons by the opposition. the joint intelligence committee concludes it is not possible for the opposition to have carried out a chemical weapons attack on this scale. it says this. the regime has used chemical weapons on a smaller scale on 14 occasions in the past. there is some intelligence to suggest regime culpability in this attack and these factors make it highly likely the syrian

regime was responsible and crucially the chairman in his letter to me makes this point absolutely clear. he says this, quote, there are no plausible alternative scenarios to regime responsibility. i am not standing here and saying some pieces of intelligence i have seen that the world won't see that convinces me i am right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. i am saying this is a judgment. we all have to reach a judgment about what happened and who was responsible but i would put it to you that from all the evidence we have the fact that opposition don't have chemical weapons and the regime do, the fact that they used it and were attacking at the time and intelligence i have reported, that is enough to conclude the regime is responsible and should be held accountable. let me take the right hon. lady and the right honorable gentleman. >> what has convinced him, where is the evidence that an action by the international community would cease the use of chemical weapons within syria, a country

where they have accepted 100,000 dead, millions of refugees and a continuing action which is destroying totally that country? where is the evidence that convinces him the external world can prevent this? >> that is an extremely serious point. in the end there is no 100% certainty about who is responsible, you have to make a judgment. there's also no 100% certainty about what action might succeed or fail but let me say this to the hon. lady. we can be as certain as possible what we have a regime that use chemical weapons on 14 occasions and likely responsible for this large scale attack that if nothing is done it will conclude that it can use these weapons again and again and on a larger scale and with impunity. let's talk about escalation. the biggest danger of escalation is if the world community, not just britain but america and others stand back and do nothing

because i think assad will draw a very clear conclusion from that. >> a very powerful and heartfelt speech. could he explain to the house why he thinks president assad did this? there seems to be no logic to this and that is worrying some people. >> it is a very good question. if you read the conclusion this is where they find the greatest difficulty of ascribing motives. lots of motives have ascribed. from my part the most likely possibility is that he has been testing 14 uses and response and he wants to know whether the world will respond to the use of these weapons which i suspect tragically and repulse >> guest: are proving quite a effective on the battlefield but in the end weekend know the mind of this brutal dictator. all we can do is make a judgment about whether it is better to act or not to act and make a judgment whether he is

responsible or not responsible. in an end these are all issues of judgment and as members of parliament we have to make them. i take a question from the scottish national party. >> any signs of military action before syria? >> i obviously can't discuss the details of potential action in detail in front of this house but i can tell the house the american president and i have been discussions reported in the newspaper about potential military action. we have had those discussions and the american president would like to have allies alongside the united states with the capability and the partnership that britain and america has but we have set out very clearly what britain would need to see to happen for us to take part in that. more action at the u.n. report by the u.n. inspectors and further vote in this house. actions won't be determined by my good friend and ally the

american president. they will be cited by this government and the house of commons. >> i agree with the prime minister the horror of chemical weapons but the vast majority of the 100,000 killed so far in this civil war in syria was the result of conventional weapons. can you convince the house that military action by our country would shorten the civil war, how to herald in the postwar government that could create stability? >> good question. i can't make any of those assurances. we have not made that decision but were we to make a decision to join the americans in military action it would have to be action in my view that was solely about deterring and degrading the future use of chemical weapons by the syrian regime. full stop, an end of story and if we were aware of large-scale use of chemical weapons by the opposition i would be making the same argument and the same recommendations. ..