believe me. this administration doesn't have that either but it's even worse because it has its head in the sand about it and it will not call it for what it is. it will not describe what it is and it's downplaying this success, the movement is having is that takes advantage of the revolutionary change sweeping through the middle east. i think it goes to the point that you cannot defeat an enemy that you cannot define and the analogy is correct. i think frankly they just want to say it's over and let's move on to something else. i don't know. i do applaud the president with respect to bin laden. i thought that was a courageous effort to go in with military forces and not just bomb the place to prove to the world that bin laden was killed. the house s committee tea classified testimony after months of hearing. general carter during the attack

testified and said to me and started to become pretty clear quickly that this was certainly a terrorist attack, not just something sporadic check. i believe leon panetta was a part of this as well. again, there's been -- the response was not that this is a al qaeda attack but some blame on some video and a protest over what do you make of that? chair. >> a couple of things. the first is that it was obviously a terrorist attack, by any generally held definition of terrorism which is its use of violence to achieve a political end or convey a political message. these are people who are attacking the u.s. consulate in benghazi. they obviously were not there just have a good time or profess they did not like that the consulate was there.

there were there to make a statement against america. classic terrorism. why there was a hesitancy to do that at the beginning, frankly even if it was as some white affected by the video which i ended up concluding that it was it was only that the terrorists saw this as a moment of opportunity to strike. still, it was terrorism. it was not as if you are affected by an awful, grotesque, anti muslim video and your response to that is to attack the u.s. consulate in benghazi and burn it down and kill the u.s. ambassador. if that's not terrorism -- the other thing i want to say karan is based on -- the recession was ending the investigation over the last few months of 2012, one of the things we concluded command i will say first for myself, some of the terrorists involved were inspired or were loosely involved.

a lot of them were indigenous and separate. part of the problem when you limit the enemy to al qaeda and affiliates and not to the broader category of violent extremists and terrace is that you miss part of the enemy and part of our conclusion, senator collins, was that we don't have adequate intelligence command least we did not get that point on non al qaeda, clearly violent islamic extremists. in the last month finally put on the foreign terrorist organization last, bragging about many things coming including, i'm sure, intelligence oversight of those groups. and i agree. you know, that distinction between court al qaeda? al qaeda kevin al qaeda affiliate's, i think they are

all. some movement, that is a common thread. we are -- this distinction with that difference to my think we need to be focused on the movement itself and not distinguish between all the different groups. they all stand for the same philosophy. i would be remiss if i did not give my colleague jane harmon heard do. >> thank you. i appreciate that. i do think there was a terror attack in benghazi. ..

i think there are a lot of brain cells on this both on these boards and in the administration and various departments. i just came from 10 hours at the defense policy board and your whole department jack is all over it this subject. sure, maybe it could be doing even better but there is a discussion on south asia that was pretty bone chilling and a lot of people wanting to do a most effective job but it does come back to something that general keane said which is whole of government is a better approach to this end kinetics only and i would just suggest with respect mr. chairman that calling all of these different groups al qaeda emboldens al qaeda. that is something we don't want to do. if we can separate them, and

have strategies that take some of them out, which we do, not just with kinetics. i support the limited use of drones but i also support other strategies, think we will give further. finally the world is extremely dangerous but viewing this set of threats is the only threats that i don't think are going to help us get to a place where the u.s. can project our power, all of our power, our smart power in the way that we need to. looking at failing states in how we can support them is a high priority. helping a transition to democratic with a small d regimes is another high priority and building modern world structures. some of the structures we deal with are pretty antiquated. that can project the whole of the world against for example the possibility of a nuclear action between india and

pakistan and those are government decisions probably although possibly could he loose nuke driven it seems to me are also priority so i just wanted to put this into context. >> just let me close by saying i think there has been a bit of a failure of leadership lovely. i think our enemies view us as weaker and they test us as a result of that and more because they do few it that way and our traditional allies quite frankly there is a lot of confusion. where do we stand? are we standing with them are not? are they going to be the next enemy of the united states that we take out and create more instability? we have seen in the middle east particularly after the so-called arab spring. with that i recognize the ranking member. >> thank you mr. chairman. i don't think anyone on this committee individually or all of

us want to do anything other than to keep americans safe. i think how we approach keeping us safe is why we hold hearings like this. and we all have different approaches to keeping us safe. and i think it's safe to assume that the collective of what i have heard today is really important. the difference of opinion is important. somewhere between those differences is the security that we are all looking for. but a lot of us are faced when we go to our districts, with an effort that has gone on for a long time. people are becoming weary, not

defeated but weary and they say why don't you do something to bring this to an end? if we had a magic wand we could do that. so, listening to some of our constituents who talk about the 6000 people who died and the enormous cost so far, and i will go because i have heard it, what would you suggest as a response to those constituents going forward as to what members of congress or the house and the senate should do to bring that to an end? and i will start with you senator. >> thanks congressman thompson. that is a really important question. i am very glad you asked it is

that is the reality and i know that is what you face and probably members of both parties face when they go home. so here's the point at which, i mean one first reaction i have which won't really convince people that it's an important one and i will tell you that every time i went to a funeral of a soldier from connecticut who was killed in iraq or afghanistan i was amazed and moved by the families saying please make sure that our son, daughter or husband, whatever, didn't die in vain. there is that element. we learned some lessons from iraq and afghanistan and if we just walk away we do risk saying to those families whose family members gave their lives, because we ordered them to go there in our defense, that they did die in vain. i don't think we ever want that to happen. the second thing, i want to go back to and in some sense i want

to make this personal about president obama. i will put it in this context. president obama ran for office in 2008 and again in 2012 with one of the basic themes in addition to all the change in dealing with domestic problems was that he was going to get us out of the wars we are in and not get us into additional wars around the world. and, you know fair enough but sometimes the world does incorporate with a presidential narrative and i think that is where we are in the countries that i have talked about. iraq ,-com,-com ma afghanistan, syria and libya which if we don't do something more than we are doing now, they are going to tip over. so i am not here just to criticize what the obama administration has done. in some sense i'm here to appeal to the obama administration

which is going to be our president for three more years and a lot could be good or bad for security that can happen. i repeat what is the lesson learned that is consistent with the message that the president and the policy of the president has adopted? we are not going to send tens of thousands of troops on the ground to any of these countries but there's something in between that and just pulling out. i think we all have different ways to argue today both militarily and in terms of aid and support, where if we don't and this is what i would say to the constituents, if you don't at least maintain a presence we don't have the freedom fighters in syria and the nonextremist anti-assad people. if we don't build up the libyan mitt military to maintain order against the militias, if we don't make the kind of agreement that supports the government in iraq, then we are going to get attacked again. then we are going to go back and

have to spread even more risk, even more american lives. it's not an easy argument, particularly in these times but the bottom line we learn from iraq and afghanistan. it's not going to be hundreds of thousands of troops but if you just turn away, we are going to suffer and therefore we need your support to help us do that. >> i can think, i can think of five things some of which i have already mentioned that i will take them off. one, honor the service of those who have followed orders and went to iraq and afghanistan. 6000 died and they left behind families. many came home and tens of thousands previously the wounded many came home in decent shape. honor their service and make sure we have in place a welcome mat that includes all the

benefits they are entitled to but also hopefully the first to build good jobs for them. the unemployment rate among returning vets is disproportionate to the unemployment rate of others. second, engage in a whole of government approach to solve this problem. i have discussed that at length and i won't go into it again. third, continue the counterterrorism mission and not just the greater middle east but around the world. the u.s. has interests in other places other than our own country but we surely don't want training grounds to develop again in pick a place and we know that some are and we need to be active there, using all the tools that we have. fourth, continue our surveillance system although i think some reforms are in order. the president will speak on friday. i was quite impressed with the report that was presented to him. it's not clear exactly what he will adopt but we need to have

an effective system that can spot the bad guys and prevent plots against us. finally, an act cybersecurity legislation so that we are protected against what is a growing threat and could in the end many project be a much more severe threat than some other form of terror threat against the homeland. >> general. >> i would first say never before in the history of the country have so few sacrificed so much for so many and have done it for so long. and the fact of the matter is the reason why it has been so long is because of the mistakes that we made and be honest about it. the fact of the matter is our strategy, military strategy and talking about, our military strategy in iraq after we moved moved -- in iraq was flawed and that led

to attracted wars and we should have that honest discussion with the american people and also with your constituents. the fact of the matter is if you know america's military, and i can say this with some knowledge, that we do get off on the wrong foot and we have throughout history with rare exceptions but it was the reflections of the american people and the american society we are intellectually flexible and adaptable. we get to the answer faster than other people would. we did figure it out eventually in iraq and we have figured it out in afghanistan as well. and the sacrifice is definitely worth it to protect the american people. i mean when you talk to the troops, that we deployed in the 90s, and we were all over the world doing things in somalia, haiti and you name the place, there were problems and we were there. not necessarily fighting to the

degree we have done post-9/11 but nevertheless some fighting. from 9/11 on and we have the 9/11 generation in the military. we have a 9/11 generation of central intelligence agency. the factor that matters when you talk to these troops is all about the american people. before was about helping others. this is about protecting the american people and they get it very at that is why they have willingly go back into four, five, six tours. we have generals that have been away from their families for eight out of 10 years. it's extraordinary that sacrifice that is willing. tell that story because they are protecting the american people and our way of life and they're willing to do something that most of the american people cannot do and that is die for them. that is really quite extraordinary. so i say be honest with them and then in terms of this troublesome area, i know intellectually we like to talk about pivoting to the east because of the emergence of china. does anybody in this room

believe in any near term we are going to go to war with china? not that we shouldn't be vigilant about them. we can't be serious about that. the fact of the matter is we have huge problems in the middle east that threaten the united states and we have to stay engaged mr. congressman. that is the word that we need to use. we partner with our allies in that region and we support people who want to overthrow dictatorial regimes like in libya and tunisia and like in syria. in libya and syria, they just want us to help them. they don't want our troops. and in iraq, where we did help them, we walked away and look at the mess we have as a result of that. that should inform us how dangerous the situation is and how important american commitment is to stay engaged, and we have to do that if we are going to protect the american people.

>> dr. jones? >> i would say three things that are worth reminding constituents and all americans that we talk to. one is, as much as we would like this war and the struggle to end, there are organizations committed to fighting americans and conducting attacks overseas that will not and. they don't have the desire to end this and the struggle on their part will continue. therefore, the struggle continues. as much as we want to end it, the terrorists that we have talked about today are committed to continuing this struggle. second, i would say is everybody here has said, the days of large numbers of american forces targeting terrorists overseas particularly conventional forces are over and i think as we have seen over the past several years they have tended to radicalize populations rather than facilitate. so what that does leave us is i would say a third , that there

is a more modest approach. i think we have learned. we are talking about smaller numbers of forces but lethal ones overseas as well as civilians. we are talking about a smaller amount of american dollars that are being spent. there is a need for direct action, some direct action. we have stopped plots targeting the u.s. homeland from overseas with some of this action. we also have an interest in building some local partnership capacity so that we don't have to do all of this, so we don't have to do all the fighting and dying and locals can do it. this is the direction we have moved on in several fronts. so i would say there has been a learning process but let me just conclude by just again reminding constituents and americans that from the al qaeda, the jihadists perspective, the work continues and in that sense we cannot retreat.

>> the chair recognizes the chairman emeritus mr. peter king from new york. >> it sounds like i'm dead. [laughter] >> thank you mr. chairman and let me thank the witnesses for being here today. senator lieberman and general keane have testified before and jane harman is still part of the committee and spent her formative years in the committee and a great work you did and general keane aren't r. and i are the only two that don't have an accent. [laughter] i agree with everything said here today especially with the tone and the rational level of debate we have had and i do agree there's a narrative which is heard in our country. i think it comes from people of both parties, people in the media from all sides really. for instance, congressman harman you mentioned the threats from domestic or homegrown terrorism. there is no more effective force

against that then i believe the law enforcement but if you have read the new york times there was an editorial denouncing the nypd accusing them of profiling and yet they did more than any element in the country. dr. jones he mentioned an essay and so did congressman harman about the importance of it. we can have an intelligent debate on what should be done or not done. i don't see that. politics are doing spying and snooping. when you look at the lettering during the tv shows its nsa scandal despite the fact that the president panel or no one has come up with -- so rather than have an intelligent conversation too many times their histrionics including both parties including my own party. somehow we want to be in a war and his general keane has said anyone who has been in the military knows the last thing we want to be in is a war and that's the way the conversation

is framed. some people relevant to the nsa spend time -- mexicans al qaeda. i want to thank you for coming here today and really i think injecting a level of common sense that is a real threat in many ways the threat is worse than was before and more dangerous than it was before and we have to deal with it in an intelligent way. probably no one has done as much or certainly not more than joe lieberman did during the time he was in the senate. congressman harman and general keane and dr. jones i'm a great consumer of all the materials you put out and thank you for the help you have given us. but let me just target one particular area and that is syria. there have been reports about how dozens of americans if not more are going to syria to take part in the fighting in syria. they are siding with the al qaeda leading elements in syria and certainly there's a thread of them coming back here.

to this country but even apart from that when you talk about western iraq and syria becoming a sanctuary for al qaeda. the four of you, do you think it's too late for us to provide aid to moderate elements in the syrian resistance or is it too much of a risk of us enabling al qaeda or al qaeda affiliates? that will be my last question i ask each of the ford beauty could respond, which we be doing in syria and is it too late to what effect will it have? >> thank you for your opening statement and i must say for chairman emeritus you are looking very good. >> not as good as you though. [laughter] >> so, what was the question? [laughter] i got so embraced and how good you look i forgot. okay, so look this has been sort

of, this has been a story that has gotten more tragic as it's gone on and from the beginning it seems to me that we had -- i went over there early on with senator mccain. we met with the opposition figures there. as much as anybody could tell visiting these were not extremists. these were genuine syrian patriots, nationalist. they were sick and tired of us as a dictatorship and frankly what jack keane said earlier democracy and patriotism. they felt that the outside game with stealing the nations wealth and they didn't have an equal opportunity to build better lives for their families. we should have supported them from the beginning. it has spun out of control but these people are not going to give up. they are still there. they are the moderate nonextremist sort of syrian patriots. since then as you have said, syria has become probably the frontline of the al qaeda violent it islamist extremist

today because they are all pouring in and they are links now with what is happening in iraq. but in answer to your question in my opinion chairman king, it's not too late. if we sit back frankly it can only get worse. there were two bad results here. one is that assad winds which is a win for iran incidentally and the other is that the al qaeda groups win, so we still have what i would call still believe it or not a pro-american element there, a group that we can work with. they are angry with us and disappointed in us but they still need our help. if it wasn't for the saudi's pouring money in their this moderate group would have been out already. it's not too late. we have a lot on the line if we don't act. syria will become a base for future acts against the american

homeland. >> congressman king, i have lots of positive things to say about the nypd in addition to the fact that they keep my kids and grandkids safe and i think ray kelly's service was impressive. as you know now, the new chief is built bratton who came from new york but then he went to los angeles where his skills improved as head of the lapd. so now we have sent him back. the sleeker better version of rotten and you will love him. on syria, it's a humanitarian catastrophe. this could be worse in the end then rwanda and certainly is a humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century is as john kerry said. i think we should have at it years ago. joe lieberman and i agree, we didn't do it. i think there is still is room to act but we have to be quite careful about what we give to whom. wouldn't it be terrible if they

anpad surfaced and were used against israelis by hezbollah or someone of that nature and because again of the way that these terror groups morph and unmarked and disburse there is that risk. the intelligence committee here and the senate looked at this. we are pretty cool to giving the military weapons. that said however, i think the fact that bashar has surrendered his chemical weapons should not be a permission slip for him to continue as head of the country. and i do think we need, and they think we are doing this big john kerry to focus on geneva ii, to getting the opposition there including some of the more scary elements. al-nusra is part of the opposition that is not isi s. and i think the goal has to be to provide humanitarian assistance may be in some way find a way to build humanitarian

corridors so that they -- so that assistance can get to people who have been without food or any kind of sustenance for a long time but then to shore up the opposition so that it can be a transition to a stable government without bashar in it. >> yes, we certainly squandered a huge opportunity to be able to assist them. the fact of the matter is even in the central intelligence agency when i was having discussions with general petraeus they were pushing back early on that the rebels were unreliable and too much risk associated with arming them but then by the summer of 2012 actually the institute for study on war had some impact on this agency because we had some real evidence that the groups could be vetted top early and the cia did that. as a result of that the central

intelligence agency then led by general petraeus gave briefings in washington obviously classified at the time, that the rebels could the armed and they could set them and secretary clinton agreed with that. in that briefing went to the white house in the summer of 2012 and the president said no. that i think was a strategic lender on our part. as a result of that, the rebels organization and syria and free army while still receiving weapons from saudi arabia, the fact of the matter is they know as a result of the last initiative dealing with chemical disarmament they're probably not going to get help on the united states in that group is less homogeneous than it was. a lot of the moderate islamists that were associated with the syrian free army have broken free of them because they don't think they are going to get the weapons. the fact of the matter is there is still opportunity there and

it's overstated about weapons falling into the al qaeda's hands. the saudi's have given these guys weapons now for two plus years. some of them antiaircraft weapons and to the best of my knowledge and we stay pretty close on top of this, none of those weapons have found their way into the al qaeda and abetting the cia have done and the leaders they have vetted are still there. so i do think there's opportunity that we certainly did squander a huge opportunity a couple of years ago to truly make a difference. >> this is a fundamental question. you have had multiple hearings with congressman king on top of this issue so thank you for continuing to bring it up. in my view it's not too late. we should have acted earlier. it's not too late. i would actually argue if we wait, if we continue waiting on this one the trends are going to continue to get worse. i think there is an incentive to do a couple of moderate things and i will note i was in europe

in brussels both visiting our european partners central intelligence agencies on the syrian threat and i've never seen the amount of concern among the european common number number of europeans would have gone to syria to fight, well over 1000. if they don't get them on watch lists we will have esa waivers to the united states and the numbers into the around 100 or so americans that have gone to either fight or otherwise participate in syria. the control of the territory that groups like al-nusra have had have grown and i think the more we wait, the bigger problem we have. what i would argue is, and there are two i think useful trends. one is the amount of support for the jihadists ideology in syria is very small. as we have already seen recently

with pushback against isi al or isis depending on which acronym you use the al qaeda affiliate of the west, there is an active fighting against them because they have been involved in brutal killings. they have been involved in harsh reprimands against the local population so i do think there's an opportunity at the very least to provide equipment intelligence and information could be useful for these organizations in their military and civilian strategies, blankets. there are whole range of things including refugees -- for the refugees. i think again the longer we wait to at the bigger this problem will become. >> i guess i have 10 seconds at the end. and the answer to the question of why the sacrifice is worth continuing and every american death is tragic and profound but keep in mind and september 11 we lost --

again why these sacrifices are made and the consequences to letting our guard down. i yield back my time. >> one quick comment and that is with respect to syria i feel this is a culmination of the sunni-shia conflict and is becoming one of the largest terrorist training grounds globally. everyday jihadists are pouring into syria. i agree general that we squandered an opportunity to years ago and these forces were more moderate and i'm concerned about the rowing infiltration of the rebel forces by more extreme groups. and the blowback that could present to the homeland. without with that i want to say given the time and the number of members left the chair is going to set sticks strictly to the five-minute rule. the chair recognizes the gentlelady from texas. >> let me thank the witnesses

for their presentation today at a hearing that i hope at its conclusion will emphasize that there is no partisanship in the issue of domestic and national security. i want to thank the witnesses for the thoughtful presentation and in particular to thank senator lieberman congresswoman harman and congressman -- general keane for their service to the nation. i think it's important to note that i hope in the course of the discussions about the issues of national and domestic security that we will quickly have before us the newly sworn in secretary of homeland security, which is a crucial issue and that we will, like my ranking member has indicated, pursue the question of how you balance privacy and security with the question of the gathering of the megadata. as a member of the house judiciary committee that was not

the intent of congress but i is a member of this committee truly believe there should be a balance. my questions will be along those lines of balancing and i thank you very much for your presentation. let me also say that i know commissioner kelly as well and certainly now commissioner bratton. you can have security in new york and frankly we know the challenges because we are the epicenter of energy that we can balance challenges with not having racial profiling. i want to made sure i put that on the record because that was very important to us. it's important also to note that president bush had a series of homeland security strategies that he offered in the 2000's when president obama came in. he integrated national security and domestic security and i

frankly think that was a very smart approach, because national securities interwoven meaning the security beyond the borders, making sure this country defends itself from foreign enemies is the same i think is having domestic security. and that kind of structure is what i think we should be looking at. i have never conceded the point that al qaeda was there and i use the term rather than decentralizing dis- franchising. franchising was the shoe bomber. franchising was the christmas day bomber. certainly in meetings that we have had we know that al-shabaab although they have a pointed issue, they are also wrecked us the scissor blades to americans as well. what goes on outside of our border impacts inside of our border and frankly this committee has worked hard in particular on h.r. 1417 of

border security bill that has allowed us to work together. let me ask this question to everyone. in the chairman's comments from peter bergen about the idea of an immediate threat at home. peter states that al qaeda controlled much of the outer world and therefore what is its impact here? my question is understanding adjusting her approach to fighting terrorism and a broad perspective can anyone identify areas of immediate need for the u.s. homeland is most vulnerable let me start with general keane and if i can ask senator lieberman and my other question is there any evidence that suggest scaling back u.s. involvement and presence in countries such as afghanistan and iraq may reverse the efforts of the last decade to eliminate terrorist groups and matt also say that we wanted to stay in iraq but they had to protect our soldiers and they refuse to do it.

general keane. >> yes, will certainly the engagement we have currently with senior al qaeda leadership in pakistan is critical to american security. to continue to be successful to things have to happen. one is we have to continue our involvement with the pakistani military and assisting them to conduct counterinsurgency. in other words unconventional operations against that force as well as the thing that they are most interested in, the taliban threatening their regime. so our presence in that and the stand as stated by my colleagues here is very important to us to be able to continue to have the intelligence we need and also the means to be able to execute operations against them. that is crucial. secondly, in my view the developing situation in syria and iran will become the largest al qaeda sanctuary and it will

threaten the region to be sure. we have to start now dealing with the harsh reality of that. the sooner we get on top of it in terms of intelligence, the better we are going to be with dealing with this reality. this is what al qaeda wants. they seize territory in gaining control of the people so they can become predatory in nature in that area and also they have never given up on their desire to cause more harm to the united states. so i think that is a major area and i disagree with you congresswoman on iraq. the fact of the matter is it was not a serious issue. it was a false issue presented by maliki as face-saving because the united states envoy came in after the military had recommended 24,000 soldiers to stay in iraq. the president's envoy put 10,000 on the table and maliki knew

that was not a serious proposal and eventually got down to nothing. the issue product at the end was more face-saving for him inside of iraq than anything else. the fact of the matter is that is a significant strategic blunder not leaving forces there. much as we did post world war ii, not for security reasons but for influence. we lost this influence over maliki and even further than that it is more than the troops. we disengaged geopolitically with iraq. in terms of partnering with they much so. they force the strategic framework agreement on us. we wanted to have the status of forces discussion on our troops and they said no. maliki said we are not doing that until we agree to have a strategic partnership that will last for 20 years. that was their idea. we walked away from that as well and now we have this debacle on

her hands. that is the second most critical area i think we have to pay attention to and without getting into the details of that what is taking place in northeastern africa also is potentially threatening to us. in my judgment you can't let sanctuaries take hold and we should be partnering with other countries to deal with those sanctions. i'm not talking about bringing u.s. troops to bear that i'm talking about in some cases helping people with training assistance so they know how to deal with the problem and they may actually help them with equipment and intelligence to deal with it to be sure that we cannot let these sanctuaries take hold and faster because they will be predatory in nature on their neighbors and eventually potentially dangerous to the american people. >> just briefly congresswoman to answer your very good question which is there any evidence that are pulling out of countries creates a threat to our homeland

and i'm paraphrasing but i think that is what you asked. i looked back first at afghanistan during the 90s when as i said earlier the general feeling in this country than was that was someone else's civil war. the taliban and al qaeda nested there and of course that led to the 9/11 attacks against us. iraq today is another example of that. we pulled out all the reasons that have been given here and now al qaeda is back in and they will use that against us. i will summarize this way. my reading of the last 15 years tells me that the reason that, and the reason that we so diminished and degraded al qaeda in the mountains between pakistan and afghanistan is not because of a whole of government approach because we use the u.s. military. i believe in a hole government approach but that has sudanese

cases include the u.s. military because al qaeda is not a social organization. it has an ideological motivation to it but it is a brutal military organization. we are only going to stop it by helping the heroes in each of these countries who don't want al qaeda or the taliban to control their lives and want to fight for something better. they need our help and they want our help. if we give it to them it will protect our homeland. >> let me just say that i respect the testimony of the very fine witnesses. many of us would disagree but agree that we have issues in both of those places, iraq and afghanistan that need to collaboratively come together. i know the american people wanted out of the iraq war as they want out of afghanistan but they also want this country to remain strong, to collaborate with them and to use resources

as well to have a strong national security policy that protects the homeland as well. i think this is very important hearing. without mr. chairman i think you and i you bet. >> the chair nauert is the chairman of the cybersecurity subcommittee from pennsylvania. >> i thank you mr. chairman and want to thank this very distinguished panel not just for your presence here today but across the panel, your tremendous work on these issues on behalf of our nation and somebody different capacities. congressman harman it's indeed a pleasure to once again have the capacity to share a moment with you. you will be pleased to know, and i thank you for raising the issue of cybersecurity cuss it remains a remarkable focus and in the aftermath of the incident which just occurred with target. that is one kind of the

cyberincident, criminal enterprise wholly separate from the state-sponsored cyber activity that may take lace. so i want you to know we have made great progress and we will be marking up this afternoon a cyber bill but i'm worried as well about the concerns that we may have in this nation as we deal with the narrative in this moment that appropriately reflects the aftermath of the nsa revelations of these kinds of things. we have a better understanunderstan ding that there is a narrative that may be taking place, which is privacy versus security and it's so easy for us to move so quickly away from attention to the security. so i'm going to ask if you would give me your sense of where we are in the form of the cyber preparation to deal with this issue of paying attention to

protection and privacy but not surrendering in some kind of the major effort our responsibility to protect americans in so many different capacities. >> well, thank you congressman meehan. it's very good to see you too. as i think about privacy and security i often say they are not a zero-sum game. you don't get more of one and less of the other. they are reinforcing values and things that we have worked on together in congress like the intelligence reform law of 2004, senators lieberman and senator collins and senator huckster and i were the so-called big four on that one. not only to find ways to reorganize our intelligence community so we leverage the strains of the agencies but also to set up the privacy and civil liberties ordered which was supposed to be stood up then and

unfortunately hasn't, just finally was stood up last year. at any rate the point of that was to have both the front end of policymaking a group of people who worried about the privacy of americans. we can do both. this needs to be a positive-sum game. it applies obviously to cybersecurity and people are generally worried now that they see that there was a theft of i guess 70 million pieces of crucial information on individuals. that is a large number. but they also need to be worried it seems to me about this purchase of exploits by bad guys which are very inexpensive. these are back doors into our grids, our infrastructure in this country and so it's not just personal information. it is pick one. something very serious that could generate a life-and-death

problem for our community. so how to think about this? i think this community -- this committee has an opportunity to talk to the private sector which controls most of the cybercapacity. and persuade them to come on in a cyberbill and senator lieberman knows this better than i do, has to grant immunity to those who come to play and it has to respect the fact that personal information about companies is being shared and so on and so forth and to make sure that again it's a win-win. i think this is the climate to do it in and i would just add on surveillance because that is, too, the same issue. here's not a a zero-sum game here. there should he tweet's mind you to the laws that we have. i think the public debate is healthy and the sweet smack should assure an anxious public that the privacy is protected

that we should never compromise on basic parts of the system that lead us to find bad guys before they attack us. >> i thank you for that answer. i am pleased to see that we have made remarkable progress in the form of bringing together not just the private sector but are governmental entities and the kind of a framework that would be effective but the one place we haven't been able to touch and you put your finger on it, is the kind of thing that will incentivize that sharing between the private and public sector which give some kind of security really in the form of liability protection to those entities which are touched first. no better example than target to find out weeks ahead of time that they are being impacted. we need to encourage that sharing. i thank you for your focus on this very important issue and i look over to working with the

entire panel as we move through these issues in the future. thank you mr. sharon and i yield back. >> i think the gentlemen for your leadership on this issue, your dedication to get to not only the private sector support of your legislation but also the privacy groups. it's not an easy task and it's an uphill battle and you were able to accomplish that. i just want to thank you for that. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new york mr. hit things. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. i just want to play a little bit more on this zero-sum game context. the one thing you know of a zero-sum game is that this sum will always be zero but in game theory there is a variable sum game where there can be multiple winners. there can only be multiple winners in a pluralistic society when the rights of minorities are protect it. there was a debate here last year, or in the last couple of

months about military intervention in syria. we certainly did not support the assad regime. the justification for authorizing the administration to use force was that assad had murdered or chemical weapons 100,000 people in syria. the rebel fighters were beheading people and in that part of the world and in that conflict i think the concern is not that you are supporting assad, but as a minority you are afraid that all nonsunnis will be murdered. marlin -- just released a book called the second ever weakening and in it he lists a pluralistic region of sunni shia kurds christians and a lot of tribes. he also says 500,000 american troops in iraq and a trillion

dollars couldn't implant lasting pluralism or peace in iraq and therefore no outsider can. you know, what is going on in the middle east today is, the chairman said there was the culmination of sunni-shia conflict. it's really the continuation of it and what's going on is shia and sunni are continuing to litigate a conflict that goes back to the seventh century as to who the rightful successor of the prophet mohammad is. this is not about peace. this is not about democracy. this is about control. so long as you don't have as fareed zakaria would say in his book, the future of freedom, a constitution that protects minority rights you are always going to have these complex. in northern iraq george mitchell was sent over there for five

years. the last iteration was 22 months. he didn't think that peace was possible in northern ireland. he said in his book making peace that the great intangible of solving conflict is exhaustion. not only at the negotiating table but also on the battlefield. the warring factions have to realize that their commitment to the fight, their commitment to the cultural violence has not produced any kind of lasting peace and therefore they need to move in a different direction. so what the two sides in northern ireland required to do the catholics and extremist? they were required to denounce violence and participate in the destruction of their arms so that the culture of physical force to achieve political ends was over. both sides had to give something in order to achieve that. now you may say how can you

compare northern ireland with the middle east? will guess what? when george mitchell was finished negotiating the accord he was dispatched where? to the middle east because the conflict is very similar. so i just think that you know american president certainly can do more to keep leaders in those countries from going to extremes but there's only so much that we can do. our american military has been extraordinary, extraordinary. tamping down violence in iraq. tamping down violence in afghanistan. to what and? we can impose a political solution. we can only provide a context, a breathing space within which the warring factions can do that. i'm afraid in that part of the world there are no good allies of the united states in that part of the world. not with maliki in iraq not karzai in afghanistan. we had to bribe his brother to help promote lasting peace in afghanistan. we don't have good allies there. what we can do i think is that

we have ready down and i think we are limited. sorry i went on a little bit too long but i was interested to hear your thoughts about that. >> congressman higgins i don't know if i should go first but i would put the offer to cut. i think we have allies in the region one of which is israel which is a pluralist democracy and under threat. i strongly favor the peace process. i think it's in the palestinian people's interests. that is one. i think there is also another good new story and that is tunisia where an islamist party won the first election and has now in a peace deal with other parties surrendered power to a coalition and just maybe that can show some success. i think what you have said is very true but i think there are ways and our vigilance and focus will be necessary, that progress

can be made. >> i will just briefly say, thanks for your statement. it was a thought-provoking statement. in my opinion, we do have friends in the countries throughout the middle east who essentially share our goals and what is happening and we won't have any friends if we just pull back. and i would ask his general keane said for the military on the ground. they are asking for help and what is happening now after the so-called arab spring is really a remarkable historical development in the arab world, which is an uprising against dictators, autocrats by the people. they want freedom and they want a better opportunity to make some more money for their families. and in almost every case these revolutions have been led by the

under or unemployed children of the middle class who are well-educated, who understood how much better things could be and what is happening now in some of these countries and the conflicts that the revolutions have unleashed is not dissimilar to what has happened before when autocrats or totalitarian regimes are overthrown. they unleash this kind of conflict in the happened in eastern and central europe and in some sense that is what happened and bosnia and slovenia but if we stand back it's only going to get worse. i know the conflict has been going on for a millennium plus but i also know there's a lot of mixing between sunnis and shiites throughout the middle east and as you said it's not a zero-sum game. we have to be able to work out a system and tunisia is the hopeful example where everybody can feel that there's a way for

them to win and frankly as we said earlier over and over it's in our interest to see that happen not only because it reflects our best national values but also reflects what is best for our security. >> if i could just very briefly follow up with two points. one is i would just on your northern ireland example i think one of the useful lessons the u.s. is now in is a shift the british had in mindset shifting from a heavy military footprint target to the i.r.a. to one that was much lighter focus on am i-5 in the constabulary that allowed of peace process to even be possible in part because the i.r.a. was weakened by that point. anything i would say to reiterate as is we do have allies. we don't have common interests across-the-board with all of them. we do have allies on hate and extremism and if you look at the progress that has been made in

somalia tossing out shabaab for mogadishu, tossing out extremists from other areas, we do have allies and we do have allies and local populations in mali that hate extremism. so i think in that sense we have to gravitate towards those kinds of organizations. >> you now i think it is a thoughtful question and one that has been asked before and i think it's just too simplistic to categorize the entire middle east as a conflict between sunnis and shia. i'm not minimizing the fact that it exists, but i think you have to understand that it does exist what is happening there is, there are authoritarian regimes come every single one of them except for israel and the drivers of instability as a result of these authoritarian

regimes are the lack of political and social justice and a lack of economic opportunity. and as a result of that, the radical islamists use that and leverage that to gain support for what they are attempting to do. so, we have to look at the region and see what has taken place and at region and how this very ambitious lyrical movement that is trying to drive us out of the region so they can have their way and that is what 9/11 was all about. it was about driving us out of the region. it was one of their major strategic objectives, and for us to make certain that region doesn't explode with this radical islamic movement, which would not only threaten the region but the world at large, and they are a world domination object of organization.

it's hard for us to get our head around that intellectually i think that nonetheless that is their idea, not ours. the only answer here is to work this i think comprehensively what are you trying to achieve here is what i would love the administration to articulate and then individually, work with hardness in the region to deal with the realities that they have. some of these realities are dealing with our allies mr. congressman, who are authoritarian regimes who are repressive in dealing with their people. the lack of social justice that exists in these regions and yet we have harmonious relationships with them. they are financially rewarding and the fact of the matter is we should be leveraging these regimes to move in a different direction. that is why i'm saying it's not just kinetic. what is our strategy and what we are trying to do? i'm not suggesting we in force democracy on everybody but i am suggesting that if you focus on

what the drivers of instability are and justice to people a lack of opportunity you can start to make some progress in the region and certainly staying engaged is the answer as opposed to just the sense of futility and hopelessness that we get. the culture is dramatically different from the united states. the geography is harsh. everything about it is hard and it's easy to say no, let's just walk away from it. that would be a tragedy and it would result in harm to the american people. >> the chair now recognizes the chairman of the oversight subcommittee. >> thank you mr. chairman. thanks for having this very insightful hearing today and first off i want to add my voice to the thanks to senator lieberman and congresswoman harman for your service to our country in general for your service in the 101st airborne,

1st brigade. the chairman and i were able to visit with the third brigade combat team in afghanistan on november 2011 and the memories that i have of the men and women serving in harm's way go a long way. i just want to thank everyone that is serving to counter the elements we are talking about today around the globe whether it's in the southern philippines or afghanistan or wherever it may be. ..

so i want to ask each of you in your opinion how does border security specifically the southern border in this instance, we can't thriment to the southern border. we have a long northern board we are huge port of entry. we have ocean and seaport, airports that are all playing in to that border security element. so how does national border security play in to your thoughts with regard to national security countering al qaeda elements, countering any other threats. but also the false narrative of an operational control element. >> let me begin the discussion. i've been out for about a year. i don't know the latest. but part of the challenge post 9/11 was not just the security privacy tension, but how do we

maintain security in a country that has historically been as open as ours. it includes the geographic caliphate of america. we are surrounded by two oceans. we have a historically friendly allies to the north and south. we have enormous borders, and you're never going really maintain full security unless you do your best on those borders. i think we've come a long way since 9/11 toward achieving that. we probably are doing better at airport and airline security than we are at some other places. we've improved, i think, our ability at port of open try on the north and south borders to stop people who ought to do us harm from coming in. the southern boarder is obviously a unique problem because of the enormous flows of people across that border including, oivelt, illegal immigrants.

so bottom line; if you're talking about homeland security, you have to -- the post 9/11 age, protect your borders. all of them, air, sea, land, and we've got a lot better, but there is one of those journeys that doesn't have an end point. we're going it keep having to do better and better. >> all right. and let me -- before i go to congresswoman hair month. let me just remind everyone that hezbollah has exploded our southern board per. >> that is correct. >> so miss harmon. >> thank you. i think it's an important question, and this committee should take a victory lap for its authorship of the safe port act about five years ago. the bipartisan law that passed the house and senate, sign bid, i think, president bush. i think it predates president obama, but what we did is push our borders out. we thought about how important it is to inspect cargo, for example, at the point of em bar

indication on ships. and then to lock down the ships and then, of course, to have security at the actual port of entry. we called it layered security. that layered security approach is the approach we take at our airport as well in a variety of ways. so there really should be an appreciation of that. on the physical land borders, -- canada and the southern border, i point out that as far as i know, and again, i may be a little stale, more terrorists have tried to enter our country through the canadian border than the southern board per that. doesn't mean the sown border doesn't matter. task does. one of the early bad guys that we a customs official was -- trying to cross the canadian board we are a rental car full

of explosives. looking at all the borders have you described. should remain a high require -- priority. it how many grown terrorists who are already here, many of them legally are getting radicalized on the internet but also by live people in their neighborhoods. and we have to keep a focus on that. >> absolutely. general, can you give a military perspective on that? >> real quick. >> from our perspective, i think what our intelligence agencies have done to fought terrorism is notable since 9/11 and the cooperation that the agencies have. i'm convinced in my own mind that no amount of fencing in of itself is going stop a determined terrorist from getting to this country. what we have to do is stay focused on them. we are to be in to their phone

conversations. we have to be in to their internet. we have to know what they're thinking is. and we have to stop those kind of activities before they start. our intelligence services yes the national security agency. the extraordinary work they've been able to do is critical to stopping this. do we need a secure border in the southern part of the united states given all the problems associate the with it? some think we do. but the focus and as congresswoman mentioned, the focus we have taken in the layered approach where it begins overseas is really critical for us, and we've had a lot of successes as a result of it. so the resources that are necessary for that kind of work is something that you are all doing and i applaud you for it. >> i think one of the more interesting discussions on this came from the bin laden documents from the compound. where senior al qaeda leaders

noted two things, i would highlight on the subject. one is frustration at the closed borders and the progress the united states had made in making it more difficult for them to get inside. actually hearing from senior leaders themselves. but also the commitment of finding and exploiting ways to get inside the homeland. whether it was individuals as bin laden had said at one point, trying to get somebody with a mexican visa they could smuggle through the southern border or elsewhere. look, we've had people leave the united states and go to train with militant groups overseas. we had people come back and been back and not discovered. >> boston bombers.

>> exactly. this will remain a problem. i think the issue with our border security has to be one of the as expect is this is where syria comes back to the picture. we're only as good as people's names we have access to and we can pass to folks on the border security. one concern i've had in talking to folks that we have working in and around syria is we don't know all the people over there. we know many but not all. if they don't get on lists they can come in and or out without being stopped. i would then fuse those two issues of border security and intelligence as being crucial and potentially vulnerable if we don't have access to the information. >> thank you for your time. i want to the point the committee in at weeklystand. know your enemy. i would like to enter this for the record. >> without objection. so ordered.

i'm no app gist for the administration's national security strategy. and i have some significant concerns with it. lack focus or vigor in the prosecution of the war on terror are not among them. it you look at the unprecedented level of both domestic and international surveillance that have come to light recently, the drone strikes against terrorist targets who present a direct throat this country, and also targets who are the enemies of our allies that don't present a direct throat this country. the surge of forces in afghanistan in the first term of this administration to successfully prosecute the war

on terror in this administration. and to general keane's point, to use his phrase that the mess in iraq is the as a result of again of the bungling of the administration's negotiators in iraq i reach a different conclusion. the mess word in as a result of innovation of the country in the first place. the black of critical questions to the assumptions we have made friar that innovation. and the inability to think through the cons consequenceses of that innovation. so i hear a lot of military solutions to the very complex terrorism problems and threats that our country faces in the middle east. i would love to hear general keane, senator lieberman, congresswoman harmon, dr. jones tbb there's time. i would like to hear you reflect

on some of the perhaps unintended consequences of military action. innovations of military presence in the middle east of drone strike balance those activities do to perhaps increase the threat or complicate the threat we have over there. and again, to use general keane's, i think, excellent idea of what that might mean to a comprehensive strategy beyond a military presence or remain of forces in afghanistan and iraq. >> thank you. thank you, congressman. i would say that the positive aspect of the obama administration's record in the counterterrorism you stated, i agree with. but when what i'm saying here, i'll go back to what i said earlier, is that in many other ways, what the administration is doing is not working. in other words, if you're not

helping the moderates nonextremists in sir yab with -- syria, if we're sitting back as iraq becomes the sanctuary for al qaeda. if we're doing the same essentialfully libya, if we're going let afghanistan basically got way that iraq did, and not have an agreement to leave any troops there by the end of this year, we're inviting the whirl wind. what i'm saying not to criticize the positive things. essentially to say, mr. president, this three more years in which we're going to be our commander in chief a lot of which are now doing in my respectful opinion is simply not working to protect our security. i factualed to people in asia. i was just in asia about a month ago, and the world small. when they see us pulling back

from country in this case think are our close allies in the middle east. they read it personally. can i rely on the united states? they think they can't. so i join you, as i said in my opening statement appreciationing what the obama administration has done, including particularly at home in supporting the homeland security department and the various elements of national security that we're adopted post 9/11. there are large parts simply not working, and -- >> excuse me. with respectfully. >> go ahead. >> i guess to one of the points i was attempting to make, do you acknowledge that there is another side to the more aggressive robust presence that you and general keane have been arguing for that -- and ak nojting it doesn't mean

you dispute the total or net value. the presence serves al qaeda's interest in being able to recruit additional people drone strikes help in their -- >> yeah. again not to argue against them. but to say a more complex picture and that more aggression or a greater or more robust presence doesn't necessarily mean there aren't complications. >> the bottom line is, and general keane was right it's going go on for a large part of this century. we're facing a group of people, violent islamist extreme pips they represent a disticket minority in the islamic world. yet, they are fearless. they're a killing machine. yes, a lot of things we have done will have a counter reaction.

if we do nothing, the result will be worse. i think we have have all said it today. none of us are calling for hundreds of thousand of troops back in syria, iraq, afghanistan, but, you know, you can overlearn the lessons of the last war, and one of them would be to pull out i don't think anybody is saying cut and run. it that's the area we are talking about. there are different nuances to what each of us is saying. here is what i'm saying. i'm saying we need to continue a robust counterterrorism presence

in the middle east. tbhaw does not mean that we have to have troops everywhere. we can have a over the horizon force in some places, which we can stage in to areas if we need to to protect u.s. interest. that's one. i'm saying we need a robust set of laws that allow us to do what we're talking about comp is to learn the plans and intentions of bad guys and prevent and disrupt them from attacking us. that's another thing that we need to do. but just take iraq. president obama, as everybody knows, ran on a platform that he would disengage us militarily from iraq. many people in america support this. there is a dplikly elected leader of iraq who is supposed to representative the whole population not just the shia population. that's an issue.

i think the it's important the countries exercise leadership as we try to help them. my final point is, at least speak for me. we should never disengage from that region. the history of every major religion is there, many of our allies are there, and it is important to keep brain cell on the problem. it is also important to continually revise the strategies that we use. and i applaud spes -- especially secretary kerry for trying to do that. thank you. >> that's excellent commentary.

when you take a look at iraq and afghanistan and look at troop presence and what happened there, the fact of the matter is, until we got the right strategy in iraq, i'm not going reargue should we or should not have gone to iraq. i have views on that as well. the fact of the matter is, we were there, and we finally applied a counter counterinsurgency strategy which design the protect the people. once the people saw that we were willing to die and die we did protecting them. something we had not done up until that point. the iraqis didn't have the capability to do it. it turned to our favor.

something they aid logically or fundamentally opposed to. their message is so harsh and the means are so brutal that the sewnies themselves rejected them. even though they were supporting them for three years. we were never have had the success we with the surge with the increase of forces applied differently if we did not have the so-called awakening that took place with the sewny triable leaders who were rejecting the al qaeda brutality of seven century talibannism they enforced upon them. so we to understand that. that there's this message they bring to muslims is the very harsh, strident message. we can leverage against that the

people themselves. when you free the people from the driving life to the gutter. once we do that, the people are very supportive of us. and so my point to you is? cancer is out there, and we have the means to deal with some of it, most of it has to be dealt with those countries. if term of the government and improving the government and the needs for the people. if you want to be an ally of the united states, then, you know, these are some of the conditions that we want to see and also

certainly we can go a long way with helping -- we have learned an awful lot, congressman, about how to deal with the militarily. it's learning the lessons we have learned from the mistakes we have made and applying those lessons and participanter inning and staying engageed whether we pull tobacco the enemy moves forward. that is what has happened right before our eyes.

that is small for us assist it. the payoff is enormous. are we doing that? no. that's tragic, in my view. thank you. we have to think about the cost benefits of how we intervene. there are costs. i would say big picture, my concern is that the rebalancing we've heard it earlier, the rebalancing to asia in my view the underfunding support to u.s.-africa command that has a big problem on its hand do cause some risk.

i think we have demonstrated there are number of forces that can radicalize populations. i think some of the strikes that we have seen overseas when they have killed civilians especially excessively have tended to be more harmful than helpful. t an descrument. it's not the solution in of i.t. when you look at this. you have it to also see some of the benefits to intervention. i think we're at the position really we're talking about much lighter presence overseas limited one that include not just military but treasury,

state department and other officials. one that increasingly works with allies in doing this with us, in some cases, for us. that's intervention, in my view, that is worth the cost. >> thawrk. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm sure you are all happy to see me show up. i can assure i was watching the hearing from office. i had a cum other things and got a little bit of a cold here. i want to start with dr. jones. in your opening statement you alluded to and maybe you need to clarify increased or continued monitoring of all americans to make sure we catch or keep track of the al qaeda folks. i guess from my viewpoint, it seems to me it would be -- and in time of limited resources and in a place where the constitution gawrn ties our liberty. the best thing do is target.

specifically individuals whatever "the matrix" and the metrics are, who travel to these places who core respond with these folks who live in communities that have a proclivity toward radicalization. i want to get your thoughts on that. because to me, that seems like the better approach. if could clarify, maybe your thoughts on why we're doing the opposite. why we're looking at every single american for the sake of a few who would be bad actors. is it from a standpoint of political correctness or why do we refuse to face the enemy head on and target the energies and resources. >> sure. just to be clear, i did not support monitoring all americans. i don't believe i said that either. i did support having a capacity

to be able to monitor extremists. here is the challenge. this is not why it's not a black and white issue. we can't know and won't know everybody that has access on the internet and radicalizes. we won't know everybody that go overseas. there's a range of individuals radicalize inside the u.s. stay here. as far as i know we have no proof of anyone haven't used -- have you ever been radicalized in the united solely on their own. they had contact with through one means or another the internet or what have you. if the nsa has the capability and ability, i think they do, to monitor everything duo, we can and should know that. he was looking at website were known corp. spoanding with bad

actors. we're spending all the money watching all the americans. i guarantee the only time i traveled to places that are unsavory were not because i wanted to take my family on a vacation or myself to afghanistan. where there's a civil war going on. people that go to the places, i think they would probably not object to being suspect for their motives. i think that is where we should be focusing our efforts. >> i'm sorry. >> i agree. i will point out that you don't have to travel overseas anymore to get the kind of what we're talking about. >> they have never traveled to the country and don't correspondent with people engage

in these things. spending resources on them is a waste of time, energy, and resources. senator, would you -- >> thank you. the chinese and the russians don't have a law like this. we try to create a process where there was due process involved. if you -- as you know, i think the met data which is looking at millions and millions of phone calls and e-mails, it's not the content it's the connections. and that's the way they get to target. when they see the connections, then they have to go the court gate court order. think about how crazy that would seem to somebody in china or russia or somebody --

tort members of al qaeda. or iran. >> well, i agree with you, senator. at the same time, we were doing this; right. we didn't pick up. we didn't pick up the boston bombers who were sponding and making connections. we didn't pick -- >> no system is perfect. the american government has stopped a lot of terrorist plots against us because of these methods of surveillance. every time on the internet i'm giving up more information than thes in as has gotten from the phone calls and e-mails. i read an article there's a service being sold to stores

that tells them where people have been based on their cell phones. before they don't stories. we know that when i start to google something, or different internet sites. i'm getting advertising that is based on previous sites i've been at. the private sector knows more about almost every american than the nsa than you have a they raises suspicious then they have go to court. i think it's important for the congress to be careful. and the president announced a program tomorrow before upsetting this system. which i think is protected our security. >> if i could just add. i deplore what edward snowden did. i don't think he was a whistle-blower. i think in respects comprised very important security interests.

i applaud the public debate. when you're coming from is where a lot of americans are coming from. i think you probably understand this better than they do. again, meta data stay is a list of phone number. t not names and certainly not content. but i was here when we -- all of these systems came in to effect, and initially the administration -- the bush administration in the first term went around congress and ignored the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which when i discovered was unhappy about. congress amended fisa to set up -- to reset this system of checks and balance. and there have not been any abuses. the president's advisory committee recommended changing section 215 and stopping the storing of this phone meta data by the federal government. one recommendation is to create an independent agency. a second to put out and have a

phone company store the data. the president, according to reports, is not -- probably not going do either. because the phone companies have pushed back. they don't want to store the data. but just this one person disoarving the debate in the country. would be acceptable to me if we took that recommendation. and pushed dat in to the private sector. and tried to engage, adopt some of the recommendations that will make the american public more comfortable. we need a strong surveillance system. but it needs, also, to give dofort american that the privacy is being respected. and i think this debate should lead to changes and i hope that president will be forward leading on friday when he proposes changes. >> i appreciate my time is long since expired. as you know. i appreciate the chairman's indulgence. i guess my point is i want our policy, our security policy to be targeted on those who would

do us harm and do as much as it can to secure our god-given freedom and constitutional freedoms as so enumerated. i appreciate your thoughts and opinions and your testimony today. thank you. >> thank you. let me say for the record, when i was a federal prosecutor we went to the private folk here. it was not amast under the warehouse under thes nsa. i think that gives the american people some pause. frankly, but i think it has been effective. it is a legal system. i just want -- and i know -- but as chairmt i wanted to exercise my prerogative to throw one last question. we had such expertise on the panel. and i want to thank you for being here today. if has to do with afghanistan. i'm very concerned, general gene, as you mentioned the status force agreement that we have a failure to negotiate that in iraq. now we're looking at al qaeda

and iraq. -- taking over a large portion of the country. we're faced with the same i did limb ma now with afghanistan. i think carr city's playing a lot of politics with us, and lack of a better word, he's jerking the chain a little bit. trying to play to his local base, if you will. his local politics. and there's been some talk of what is called a zero option. which would result in a complete 1900% withdrawal from the reason. can you tell me what impact if exercise would have on the security to the homeland, and in our fight against al qaeda? certainly. listen, karzai as we know is the material figure, and he frustrate us for the entire time he's been there.

the election around april. fringe a policy perspective we should not react emotionally to him a lot i understand why people would. look beyond him. there a new leader in afghanistan and if we have to sign this with the new leader, so be it. sign it we must. and certainly we need to keep residual forces there. the current situation the grasp of the security situation. the surge forces were applied in the south. it's relatively stable there as a result of that. we if not get all the force we wanted. we got 55% of 30 versus 40 we had to sequentially apply the forces in the north. the problem was the president pulled the forces at before we could apply them.

that situation is relatively stable and the afghans are holding their own. the problem we have in the east. not able to generate the power we have there in the south. as a result of that, we are leaving the afghans with a bit of a problem. and we know that. the fact of the matter is, we also conduct an aggressive counterterrorism program out of afghanistan bases using the central intelligence agency to do that. using special operations forces to do that again high volume targets. both of those we need to keep. both would be at risk if we pull the forces out. it's nard me to operation the operations -- the operation being able to as robust as it is be conduct there

had without any of our security forces and intelligence we're providing to them. the situation in afghanistan is residual forces is two other issues. one, is we're providing enablers for the afghan forces. we need to continue to provide some enablers. not for ten years but a few more years after 2014 until the they are able to have the capacity themselves logistics, intelligence, some communication. that's probably about 15 to 20,000 troops we need to do

that. we full away, all the folks go down two. the terrorist operation in pakistan, which directly relates to the security of our american people is at risk. and the gains we have made in afghanistan to date would also be tragically at risk on the forces. >> i couldn't agree with you. senator lieberman is a zero option that option? >> i hope not. to me, the zero option for afghanistan is the worst option for the united states of america. it does dishonor the men and women of the american military fought there, wound there had, died there. it creates all the danger for the u.s. general keane has talked about. we've got have some patience here. i know, we said the deadline for making a decision on this is december of 2014, but as general keane has said, there's going an election coming up. president karzai has taken this

position incidentally let's not forget just a short while ago he summoned the people's meets. leaders from around the country on this subject. what did they do? they voted to urge him to quickly enter the security or status of forces agreement the afghan people know the terrible fate that awaits them if we pull out. so it'll be terrible for us not only in term of it becoming a sanctuary for terrorists who will strike us, again, but that's a critically important part of the world. to have the american presence there for some time to come. so zero option for afghanistan is the worst option for

america. >> excellent point. midst harmon? >> we can't leave a force there without a status of forces agreement that comprise their security. i think it will be signed this year either by carr -- karzai or his successor. i think the administration will decide to leave a force of some size there. it doesn't fix the problem of afghanistan. the government of afghanistan has to show more responsibility for the whole country, and the government of pakistan some impressive has to show responsibility there close neighbor of afghanistan for doing more to quell the existence of terror cells inside terror organizations inside pakistan. similarly in iraq. he has to govern all of iraq. and other governments have to step up.

my bottom line is we have a responsibility to project our value and be helpful in the middle east. i don't think we should retreat. i think our narrative is not where it needs to be. we also have a responsibility to be -- to use all of our government power, soft, smart, and hard against terror cells there. which might have the capability to attack our interests or homeland. and this committee has done a good job of say staying focused on it. i'm pleased you asked me to participate an the panel. i would urge one more time that on a broip basis you attacked these problems. and show the rest of the house that bipartisanship can thrive especially when the critical interest of the u.s. are at stake. >> we thank you for being here today as well. doctor jones is. >> i was recently in afghanistan, my views are formed at least in part by that recent

visit and my service there and my time since 2001 there. we visited several of the countries in the region their leadership from india. that view is shared by all of afghanistan's neighbors. i think the kinds of discussions we've had here about a lighter footprint training are exactly what we're talking about and exactly what we need for afghanistan. ability to keep prifns like kandahar to the center of gravity. that's in largely in the control at least much of it afghan and

ally forces. most people both sides of the aisle agree with the assessment on this issue. and i know the administration is working hard toward that. let me close by saying thank you to all the witnesses. this has been very insightful and distinguished.

as you know there will be additional questions in writing for members. we asked you respond to those. the record will be held open for ten days. without objection, the committee stands adjourned.