create jobs when you do it but the real, you know, the real economic thing comes about after they are built with increase in land values, all of the economic activity that comes about and i would argue that, and it is sad to hear the statistics now but i think one of the reasons we became the economic powerhouse we had was the vision of the eisenhower administration and congress getting the interstate system. so putting in place. so i'm committed to doing anything i can to get this thing done. . .

can you comment on that? >> i would be happy to. it's been our experience whenever federal money has come the date has stepped up to issues and made additional money available as well. in kentucky we have been able to do a lot of the major projects through that whole mechanism. but the one thing i would say about 45% on average the money that states have to work to build projects is federal funding and of that 45% it constitutes more of the larger

projects that we actually build and so it's a critical piece of where we are. the states are doing a lot and we have seen that in a number of states enacting new funding mechanisms and so forth. we applaud the state could have done that and we are certainly encouraging everyone to do what they must find th to find the mt is necessary to invest. but you're right it is a difficult advance with the state budget and so forth but we found a lot of our colleagues that are interested in spending more on transportation. >> you made a great point about the harsh winter and when it's over people can go back to an infrastructure that is more seriously affected. >> not only can they not do the work now but with this freezing it's going to be very difficult and there's going to be a tremendous amount of damage.

how long does it take for a project to get done now? is it nine, ten years? >> we did a recent average of seven years. >> now you mentioned that the bridge in china, the thing that impressed me was the situation that we had in minnesota. that was rebuilt in a year and that would have taken easily in today's climate ten years. but instead of the agencies having an adversarial gut -- gotcha attitude we were essentially able to do something that was quite extraordinary. but i do think -- and you have been a tremendous help in the limited resources that we have, you know, not to start rules and

get around them to do it but to have the agencies do things and we put stuff in the bills in this and that but really just to make the agencies where they are talking together and they are doing it together. we need to have the goal to cut that time in half or whatever we make that that is a very doable thing and with the cost increasing things like that it is saving a tremendous amount of money. so again, thank you all. we appreciate you being here. >> we believe these moments and you can see it in its entirety on the website, c-span.org. the climate change agenda at the center for american progress discussion the chair of the white house counsel and environmental quality nancy sutley is the speaker. >> -- not once but twice the

council on environmental quality nancy sutley. this is her last day in office and she has been kind to give up her time because i know from experience checking out of the white house isn't simple. we've moved every ounce of identification be shared with you and you wonder who you are by the end of it. but she also took back from california so she is going to work on things. what we are going to do is have a conversation and then open it up. there are no cards available for folks. if you have any questions please come and share those in writing and we will be happy to take them. as i mentioned on nancy's path i actually first met nancy 15 years ago, 20 years ago when she

joined the environmental protection agency serving as the administrator and came to work in my office on clean air issu issues. and it was an important time for the epa on the clean air act it has been obviously reauthorized in 1990 it was 1993 and we were sort of starting to go through all of the tools available to set important error quality pollution standards as the first-ever particle standards and then also the work we did to meet those so for example a leading sulfur in diesel and nancy was the person i talked to half a dozen times or more a

day. nancy was the person in my office who was always there to help me understand the very technical details that inform something like an air pollution standard. she went back to california where she had a distinguished career and president obama convinced her to return to washington to run the council on environmental quality where i got to work with her from my position in the white house. >> what are you the most proud of? >> let me say it's great to be here and it's an honor to have this as my last official event to help me start my environmental career. but i think the most thing i'm proud of it the progress in

dealing with some of the most long-standing and challenging environmental problems that we face in a country and as a planet. as you know from day number one, we started to attack the problem of climate change. the president and one of his first official acts directed at the department of transportation to set the fuel economy standards for the automobiles and double the distance that a car goes on a gallon of gas and a chum in this day -- and, in this day we have made steady progress and with the presidents second inaugural address in his call to action on climate change last june we really set the

roadmap for the way that we will comprehensively deal with climate change including the epa standards on power plants, which really get at the largest remaining source. >> let's talk a little bit about the epa. i think the car stuff is remarkable. the trucks are happening now. but obviously, new and existing power plants are important in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the president has laid out a schedule. are you going to make it? >> absolutely. this is a big undertaking and kicked off by something that epa did early on in this

administration to make this an danger went under the clean air act that carbon pollution and dangerous to common welfare of the united states, so this sets in motion the activities they have to undertake into the powerpoint standards, starting out with the standards for new power plants to make sure that fossil fire power plants are as clean as they can be and then they are working very hard on laying out a schedule headed the epa is working hard on a modest outreach for something they have to work closely with the states on so they are making great progress and i have every confidence they will meet the deadlines antheirdeadlines and f the standard that the liver. >> you have a state experience.

maybe you can help people understand what happens once they set the standards of this kicks back to the state. and i know it is a part of the public outreach so maybe talk a little bit about what you are hearing from the business and environmentalists. >> what happens is that epa sets up a source performance standards on the basic technology standards and the states have to make them part of their plan, so it becomes part of the regulatory plan. i think what that epa is hearing as they go around the country talking to people, i think the utilities understand that this is coming at it after they can offer thoughts about how to fix the situation and achieve the environmental goals, continued

the reliable electric power that we have in this country and sort of, you know, do it in a way that fits what those utilities need. so that dialogue with the utilities and the states are incredibly important and i think that the epa is looking for how do we incorporate it and think about how the two of these are gone and how we encourage the energy efficiency as a way to meeting the carbon pollution reduction so it's an important discussion that they are having right now and they are making good progress. there is to b be a lot of excitg stuff coming out of the epa and we will have plenty of opportunities to weigh in on.

but this is a very major undertaking and that the eta will do a great job. >> one of the things i thought you do early on and you demonstrated incredible leadership and commitment was on the individual agency. can you talk a little bit about them? how much the federal government, not the private sector but the federal agencies on the agency basis could reduce their energy. again it never got i think the attention that it deserved but it is quite significant. >> that is an area where the american people should feel good that they are government is doing a lot to reduce its environmental footprint. i think people don't realize that the government is the single largest energy consumer

in the economy. that would be the department of defense. they may be the single largest energy user in the world, just on their own or certainly in the u.s.. but the federal government has half a million buildings it owns or leases and has half a million vehicles in the fleet almost 2 million civilian employees not counting men in uniform so there's a lot the federal government can do. do. there's a lot in sort of not just in the research development and deployment, but actually in being a big -- owning buildings and owning vehicles and starting back in the clinton administration there were the goals for energy efficiency and other environmental goals. but we did two things different

and new in the 2009 it comes to sustainability in the federal government. and the federal government. the first is to require your agencies to do the stability plan to look at their operations and look at their facilities, look at their missions and find the ways to make their operations into their facilities and missions more sustainable. and we have got very good and very creative plans back. one of my favorites was the national archive. >> the buildings where they store -- connect they have to store the records of the united states in the climate control, climate control conditions and the engineers rolled up their sleeves literally and looked at

operations and made some decisions that -- [inaudible] not exactly, but looked at the facilities and the operations and the mission and found ways to meet their mission needs in a more sustainable way. for that process continues every year and agencies have to update them and they get graded by the office of management and budget which they really love. they get red, yellow, green. they don't like getting red. they have done very well in meeting the specific goals on the sustainability plan. but the second thing we did which was different was actually set the greenhouse gas reduction goals are the government as a

whole and we built it from the ground up so we ask every agency to establish -- look at their operations and come up with a greenhouse gas reduction goals. what happened was kind of interesting because we got some aggressive targets from agencies you wouldn't expect and less aggressive targets from agencies you would expect to do more and we told them that and they all wanted to revise them so we ended up setting the overall goal for the federal government to reduce the greenhouse gas by 28% by 2020 and i'm happy to report we are well on track. we are at 15% now. so we are very excited about that and i think the other thing is we think about the way that the president framed the plan to

reduce the carbon pollution and prepare the impact on climate change could lead internationally, we also started agencies looking at how their missions and facilities would be affected by climate change and is to start now to think of how to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities of their facilities into their operations and mission in light of the changing climate. >> one of the issues i know you spent a lot of time on in your career is the issue of water and today the president is traveling to california to talk the drought. the climate resiliency efforts that the leadership has underw underway. >> as you know, california is

experiencing a historic drought and the lowest winter rainfall since they started keeping records well below the levels in the previous drought. >> california council on two things. >> the snowpack is at its lowest level ever recorded. and the worst one was in 1997 and that was 15 million fewer people in california. so, the rainfall has been significantly below even that level so it is a challenge for california and for families or, you know, the agricultural.

>> is it true that 50% -- what percentage of fruits and vegetables come from -- >> is a very significant challenge and always reluctant to tie any event to climate change that they have been predicting that you would have the warm and dry winters and there would be either operation at the wind that pushes the storms in the california have been flooding i clothing in whae climate models predicted and that moisture getting hit and coming down as presentation so this is an issue that is tied to climate change and the need to be climate resilient. the president will be in fresno this afternoon and you will hear him leaving the issue about the

continued need to demonstrate the continuous need to focus on resiliency and reducing risks and vulnerabilities in light of the changing climate so we will get some budget announcements that will be coming out in the 15 budget. the other interesting thing about the california waters is that the government has a very significant role because it operates in essentially half of the system through the reservoirs that go back to the 1930s. so this is still pretty releva relevant. so it's very important that the federal government will and ensure the water gets to people. >> but we have republicans in

congress suggesting that we should forego all of our environmental concerns. >> there have been a couple of bills. there was a bill sponsored by some of the house members and i think in our view it focuses on the wrong thing and it simply hasn't ranged so there has been this kind of theme because the end danger to species act is restricting water from being moved. that's not the issue. there has been no rain. you will hear the president focusing on things we can do to solve the actual problem. >> i think if you look at

everything that you were able to do in the federal agency and the epa and the department on energy efficiency, it seems like the commitment in copenhagen you can see that that's going to happen. can you talk a little bit about what is the process inside the administration because now we are getting ready to go to the next round of meetings in paris in 2015. i know there is no answer yet but people might find interesting but the process will arrive at the u.s. position in those meetings. >> one of the positive outcomes if they didn't getting a lot of attention at the time was a focus on transparency and monitoring, just making sure the commitments the countries were making were being followed

through on and that's more detailed and defined in the subsequent un meeting. so we sort of start with something that came out in december called the climate action report that is something we submitted to the un which is detailing how it has been addressing its commitment to copenhagen in the subsequent meetings. so that is kind of the baseline that gives a snapshot of where we are, what activities we've undertaken and what the impacts have been. i think what it shows is we have made a lot of progress the greenhouse gas emissions have been going down and we know that the climate action plan will be live or on additional greenhouse gas reductions through the epa

standards and energy efficient standards looking also at things like the agencies and methane and opportunities to reduce carbon pollution. and of course the process that's underway right now that will culminate in paris in 2015 is how do we sit as close to the 2020 international target, so we start with what we are doing now and we get a sense of where we are and how those -- >> these are building blocks that will continue to deliberate the emissions reductions in the post-2020 period and will affect vehicles in the votes for decades to come. so we start with database line

and then go from there. and there's the secretary-general that has talked about a meeting when the un general assembly have been since september and a preview discussion on the road to paris. so the work is underway in the administration to see where we are and where we need to be. >> when you and i were in the old days and the eta, we never once thought about natural gas in a major electric power fuel. it's changing everything. and i think there are issues that ultimately the federal government is trying to grapple

with. but do you see the gas for the lack of a better word revelation with us for a long time and do you think -- this is a tough one, that states are up to the task of making sure the extraction is done as safely as possible? >> of the revolution in the natural gas has been good for our economy and it's really provided part of a transition to a clean energy economy that we didn't think as you said that we have seven or eight years ago when i was working in the city of los angeles we owned the utility and power plants and

remember we spent a lot of time worrying about the high natural gas prices and the ability and what that would do to them overall and now it's the complete opposite. so it is giving us a kind of better glidepath in the transition to a clean energy economy. but as the president said many times, the natural gas has been very good for our economy but has to be in a responsible manner. so frankly that is a work in progress that it bears some things the government can do, whether it's research, working on a congressionally mandated study about how to impact water

technology research and at the department of energy is doing for example regulations the department of interior is doing on the fracking public land. but there is an area in the state jurisdiction and the challenge brinkley has been not the natural gas is being produced in states that haven't traditionally had a big energy production sector so they are having to learn a little bit as they go. but there are basic things about the chemicals, some of the technique is that it gives the

wells more integrity and the basic steps -- -- that authority was stripped and from my perspective having been both a state regulator and then run the epa there is something they can do better and

that is what we need to sort through. not every state can hire the best fracking engineer because there is a limit to how many there are but they certainly have a history and the states can take advantage of it. >> this is going to be a significant part and so getting it right with me ask a question do you think we have good information on what's really happening? i was in a meeting yesterday where some very thoughtful people who, seriously thoughtful people were suggesting that we don't yet have a kind of quality information that we need to make informed decisions. >> is associated with the extraction and also as it moves through the system. >> that is an open question. there's questions about whether the information that we have.

so, in the climate action plan, the president called on this group of agencies to make recommendations about what a strategy would look like with it as a greenhouse gas and i think part of that is this question of do we know enough and have good data to design effective strategies that is still an open question being looked at. >> this is true for democrats and republicans and clinton and obama there is a series of meetings that are at the day which are relatively small senior advisers and people that have the facilities running in the agency and then it moves

into a slightly different group of people. at least in my experience it wasn't thoughtful for a person who was in the meeting but not necessarily informed on the entire amount per say to have read the paper at 4:00 in the morning and said can you believe what this department and that the department is up to come and inevitably that is all you could do to save whole bomblets get this back. i think you did an unbelievably good job and i saw that on more than one occasion of stepping up and saying it's not that the reporter got it wrong but that isn't quite what is happening here. maybe a favorite one of those without disclosing names because they just have a lot on their plate. but the facts helped inform the

conversations. >> i think sometimes what would happen is exactly what you said somebody would read something and an agency was doing something the first time they heard about it. i think that one of my favorites was an issue that we are still dealing with and that is the asian carp moving up the mississippi and the concerns in the midwest that don't get into the great lakes and the way that they would get between the mississippi and great lake's in the chicago area system.

the former chiefs of staff now in the large city in illinois took a great interest in how we were addressing that and so in this room full of people -- >> and there would be standing room. 99% of people wouldn't have any idea what he's talking about but we have had an interesting number of colloquies sue for a while i was known as the asian carp lady. and when he left, gold speed who was the counsel o council of thn on economic advisers as his parting gift he had a carp

flowing in and presented this at the meeting. >> i think we suggested that was contraband. >> right. >> how he got it through, we don't know. >> so it continues. >> i think this is one of these inside washington situations where it isn't easily seen but it's important what you did on an everyday basis. look what i read in the paper today or on the news, but what i appreciated his humor steady about it and every now and then there was a gang up going on and you would say let's get the facts and have a conversation and get the right people in the room because the agency cannot be in the room every day because

they have operations running. >> of the naturthe nature of the environmental challenges that we face is that when you and i were at the epa a lot of the activity in the environment is with the epa and it still is that these challenges cut across many agencies and many things that the federal government does. so for example, early on -- and i know that you saw this will bt the epa when you are there to the idea that you get the department of transportation and the department of housing and urban development to work with a community on the sustainability and community how you think about transportation and housing and jobs in a more sustainable way and the secretary came

together and said that institutionalize a way of working with communities so they started the partnership for communities which they travel around the country and meet with mayors and people are excited about it. they had all the agencies at the table that they could make informed choices in their communities with these agencies and it was determined this success is the sixth tremendous success and the challenge is really required this across-the-board. so so it isn't just about while what is the eta of two now come its what are we doing at the federal government. >> one of the things nancy and i

were able to do at the white house, this is partly from our experience being at the epa over those years, we got a green cabinet and to put all of these department head and members of the secretary interior etc. in a room and say where it can be we -- we be more coordinated. it's great that you mentioned this but when we started i think you have maybe five and then people started saying i want to be. there are nothere are a lot of e government where they end up working together and that is one of the hallmarks where they did try to find these areas to genuinely work together but that they were working together not

doing anything that you deserve a lot of credit for seeing where those intersections are. >> it is a great example of that where if you look at the first part of reducing the pollution there are a lot of age and have a role in addition to the important role that each day would play and looking at the role for example in mitigating carbon pollution and not driven necessarily by the environmental issues but this is after hurricane sandy the president announced shaun donnovan on the task force, and we got a very strong focus on not just recovery and rebuilding for

today or tomorrow and that put the issue on recently in the end risk involvement associated with the impact of climate change in a very sharp focus and we had agencies come together and put out a neat little tool without looking at the impact that the sea level rise on what is on the floodplain in new york and new jersey. so to take the flood map and put them together and give them a very powerful visual tool to see if you look at 2050 or 2100 what's the coast of new york and

new jersey will look like and it helps guide how the agency had money for rebuilding as well as the state conditioning the cdbg, which was sort of the major way they get assistance to the communities after a disaster conditioning that on using these projections when you are rebuilding. >> that treatment plant in a place that we know is going to be although it is proving to be difficult. let me ask about renewables. the president made a couple of important commitments on growing the renewable portfolio.

are you seeing progress on that and what happened given the politics of the credit how do you see that in the industry dealing with that? >> for those of you that don't follow, the renewables count on getting a tax credit and one of the things we were able to do is turn it into a grant. there was no market to monetize to sell the tax credit and so we were able to turn it into a grant so they could get the benefit of the cash that they needed to make the projects financially viable. that is expired. some ask you look at -- i think it is a positive story but it is hard to understand what comes next. >> there's a few things. the tax credits have been important to provide a level of certainty about the financing and the cash flow and

investments, and as the president said we have subsidized for a hundred years so why are we complaining about a relatively short-term subsidy for these important technologies that will help us move to a clean energy economy and reduce carbon pollution. but we can't rely on tax credits alone. so a few things the administration has been doing that has been successful one is on the technology side and our colleagues at the department of energy have been really very creative about using their research and development dollars to push to get technology not just to come up with new technologies, but to make the

renewable technology cost curve going in the direction we need so you might remember the sun shot initiative which was the goal was to get solar pv, basically a price 30 with other sources of energy and its working for those investments and the deployment of the solar pv is really pushing the technology, the cost of the technology down. so that's one thing the government should do and has done and as you mentioned the taking the model that the defense department uses to drive technologies. the technology set up the arpae to do that sort of basic rnd gee

whiz stuff. but the other side of the renewable energy story i think is around encouraging the development of renewable energy on public land where appropria appropriate. but especially in the west where you have abundant sunshine and wind blowing and lots of room to make a push in the department of interior which controls much of the public land in a real effort to permit and lease the land for the renewable energy developme development. they also do it for conventional energy development and they've

always done by conventional energy development but never before have they really been hoping for business in a sense for renewable energy and that's been a big success story for thousands of renewable energy projects permitted on the public land. they were flipping the switch in california on one of those projects, and the department of the interior has been doing presales offshore blog just for audio and gasp the wind develop so that again if the public land was open for business into the conventional energy development and there is the renewable resources we should take advantage of that and we have. >> when the government looks at its mission, does it account for

the emissions associated with extraction from the federal land conventional fossil fuels? >> that's an interesting question and that gets to all agencies and federal actions. so, for example if bom is leasing for the coal developme development, the need to consider that greenhouse gas impact of that. and there's questions about the significant scope and a lot of technical stuff that -- >> and this is under the guidance. do you have guidance on the natural gas? are you in the process of that? >> we have put out draft guidance on the greenhouse gas, so i think agencies by and large

are following that draft guidance and i hope that my successor is close to having some additional guidance out on that. but that intensity is very case specific what you have to analyze, but they do. they definitely do have to consider those. >> another issue i thought you did incredibly good work and it didn't get a lot of attention but it's hugely important and has a drop rule out on the isolated wetland issue in terms of the supreme court's decision and a sort of interpreting that in a way that doesn't eliminate all protections for certain parts of the country this is a pretty important environmental protection. >> this is a fundamental issue

under the clean water act which regulates what's referred to as waters to the united states. the supreme court in the '90s weighed in a couple times. it's important to remember who was arguing. >> on trying to more precisely define whether certain types of walker's work should be considered in the united states and the reason it's important is if they are committing the entire act. if they are not, none of the water act applies. so this question about the isolated wetlands and other kinds of waters that are not --

>> so it goes up and down and what happens are the tributaries as you start to move further the question becomes where does the government have the ability to protect those waters because they are an integral part of the navigable water and that's what it's about. they don't look like they are can did when you were just visually observing them but in fact we have all kinds of connections. so the supreme court sort of limited in a couple of cases limited were prescribed as word of more limited approach and frankly the bush administration said it is the narrow or the more restricted reading of the supreme court cases so you have

a very strange circumstance when i was in los angeles of the army corps of engineers declaring that the los angeles river was no longer a traditionally navigable water and therefore in its tributaries were not of the united states to be protected by the state. >> and they reversed that finding. i think deliberately or not these cases didn't clear things up they made them more confusing. and so, the epa working with the army corps of engineers because they share the jurisdiction around a number of cents related to put out and hopefully there

was activity in the congress to try to more precisely find and reinstate some of the traditional definitions and therefore the protections of walker's and it got as far to the committee and that was kind of the end of that so the epa put out guidance on the court and recently submitted a regulation to try to better define that and some hopefully that will come out soon to look at a comment and i think that once we are all put in place a sensible regulatory regime within the bounds of the supreme court.

>> when you look at california and i'm from florida originally. when we look at the fresh what are supplied and the idea that we are not thinking about the system and i think if the u.s. has a terse diction that is navigable and that's what it is, but to protect that -- >> that's in its entirety. >> we hear this all around the country in ft. collins colorado on tuesday we met with the mayors and the city int and the region and they were talking about drought, flood and wildfire with its impacts increasing frequency and intensity on the climate change and they were very focused on the health of the watershed. they were not thinking about the

rivers that flooded last september or the destructive wildfires in isolation. they were looking at it as this is our walk or shed you need to protect it. the fact they can live there and prosper and grow is having a healthy watershed. so picking apart the protection is troublesome that we have tried in addition on the regulatory work to look at the one or shed where there is a big iconic ecosystem for the everglades or the watershed that is supplied in ft. collins and its neighboring cities that we have to take a more holistic

approach in light of the changing climate. >> so, you served in two different decades, two different presidents. not how are the president's different, but in terms of politics what is the biggest change you see? >> one of them is very positive and one of them is very negati negative. when you and i were at the epa and there were questions about the environment, they were all about eta regulations and the important work they did then and continue to do. but i will tell you that the biggest surprise coming back to washington is that every agency believes the environment is part of the mission and i would start with the department of defense. i can recall a few times during

my time in the '90s that we get along so well into the sort of natural security versus the environment. and it is a complete and total shift where the national security and the environment are linked with climate changes and national security issues that the saving energy is good not just because it lowers the department of defense energy bills, but it saves the lives of the men and women on your uniform so that it's just i think the important thing that's happened and it's not just in the federal government it's across the board and you see that companies like coca-cola and wal-mart.

it is now a bottom-line business imperative for the last un meeting and we did a number of panels where we had businesses and they wanted to do it. they wanted to tell their story and they wanted the world to know why they were taking the sustainability. so that is a very positive development, and i think as we continue to make progress to deal with the carbon pollution into the climate change that shift is going to be very important. the negative side is just the breakdown of the bipartisan environment and could have a

lockdown about how to achieve the environmental goal but not if it is worth doing or not. and that's total breakdown of that failure in the congress to seriously consider important policy issues around the environmental protection is a very unfortunate thing that's happened. >> when i had my hearing with the administrator that would have been 1992 in rhode island, great environmentalist and republican leader. they said to me i hope i never hear you use the word balance because your job is not to balance your job. you don't hear that a lot these days. >> what will you miss the most?

>> those early morning meetings. the people and that sense of mission and i feel tremendously honored to have worked for a great president who is forceful on these issues to have worked with an incredible team of people, you and our other colleagues around not just the white house, that the administration and my colleagues who work day and night to make the country a better place. ..

you did it in such a way that it was great. mike good step in as the acting. you have really laid a template and with parsing progress because of that and i think we will see more progress. so thank you for what you've done. we wish you well. in what you do, and enjoy your last day. >> thanks. [applause] >> thank you all.

[inaudible conversations] >> a quick reminder if you missed any of this program you can watch it in our video library. go to c-span.org. as mentioned in this discussion, president obama will meet with members of the farming community offering drought assistance. president obama will pledge on

friday to speed federal assistance to help california recover from it crippling drought. a visit to fresno, california. the president will promise to make available up to $100 billion in aid to help california farmers who lost livestock due to drought conditions. this assistance was contained in a $956 billion farm bill that congress passed and he signed last week. that is a by the president just one stop on a busy day that will have been crisscrossing the country. the president spoke to house democrats who are holding the meetings in cambridge, maryland. later the president will travel to california and meet with community leaders and later will have a visit with king abdullah of jordan. at 12:30 p.m. eastern we will go to the wilson center to hear from rajiv shah. he will discuss ways government

and corporate america can form partnerships in developing countries for infrastructure investment and create new markets for american goods and services. >> and on c-span the institute for corean-american studies will hold a symposium on u.s. national security concerns, and about and around the korean peninsula. white house national study council director for korea is one of the participants and that will be live at 1:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> one of the things that we worry about, there's a cyberattacks but physical dangers and what i always think is what teeth me up at night when a think about what could happen next -- what keeps me up at night. and it would which are greatest fear is astrophysical thank you in our country. general? >> i just would answer it by really two things. on the cyber site i think an attack against our critical

infrastructure that would have potential damaging effects on our transportation, health care, clearly financial is an airy we have to take very, very close attention to your energy sector. on the kinetic site, there's a range of things that keep me up at night. when you see like these mumbai style attacks, what happened in the mall in nairobi, what happened during the boston marathon, those are the kinds of things that we have to continue to work together to make sure that we are working as seamlessly as possible to sure everything we have, not only with the defense side, the national selector but also on the federal, state, local and tribal level. i think those are really an important aspect of what we are trying to do in the intelligence community which is to work on integration. >> this weekend on c-span the senate armed services committee looks at worldwide cyber threats, terrorism and weapons

of mass destruction saturday morning at 10 eastern, and on booktv, watch live a long coach of the savanna book festival starting saturday morning at nine on c-span2. on american history tv on c-span3, tore portraits of power, the american presidents and the national portrait gallery monday night at eight. >> colonel scott benedict is the command of the special purpose marine air ground task force for crisis response. he spoke to an audience of military officials at the atlantic council monday to discuss how his team would respond to crisis situations in the middle east and north africa and the progress of training exercises with alloy parts from spain and france. colonel benedict led the evacuation of personnel from south sudan and has taken part in emergency response situations in haiti, bosnia and iraq. following his remarks he took questions from the audience.

>> good afternoon. welcome to the atlantic council. i am lieutenant colonel, combatant of the marine corps' here at the atlantic council. today we have the pleasure of hosting colonel scott benedict, u.s. marine corps and the most recent event of a special-purpose marine air ground task force crisis response. our moderator is stephen grundman who, after serving in the us army and the foreign service, this scenic corporation to secretary of defense, global consultancy firm, and is now the inmate and fell for emerging defense jobs here at the atlantic council and the brent scowcroft council and international security. following the 2012 attack on the consulate in benghazi, we registered requirement for self deployable, self command and control, crisis response force capable of protecting u.s.

citizens and interests and designate personal from the area of responsibility. the marine corps' and was a special-purpose, marine air ground task force crisis response amy taylor force about 500 marines of the air, ground and logistics discipline, along with the combat, command element and supported by six ospreys and to casey 130. during his tour of the crisis response evacuated u.s. personnel from the u.s. embassy in sudan, deployed around the mediterranean africa, or contingency response engage in bilateral training exercises with french legionnaires, the single these military, spanish legionnaires at the 13th brigade. colonel benedict as a copilot by training and i spent time with the infantry serving with those for summertime reconnaissance units. in addition to committing special-purpose mac at the command a marine light attack

helicopter squadron and is presently commanding officer of the 24th marine expeditionary unit. he is a graduate the u.s. naval academy, they will command staff college and the marine corps war college. please join me in welcoming colonel scott benedict to the atlantic council. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you here today about this crisis response. as was mentioned in the introduction, 2014 expeditionary unit commanding officer at the command of that unit in march and about three or four months later deployed for about six and a half months over into the european and african areas responsibility. the core element to that command element came from our staff on the 24th marine expeditionary unit. we just return in january, head

of the force over to another commander from the eighth marine regiment. so i'm going to do today is just talking about the capabilities some of the issues that we ran into while we were overseas, some the things we think makes this force unique and answer any questions if you have at the end. next slide. i guess i've got my own. okay. i'm just going to start off with a little bit of marine corps for 101 on how we organize our forces. in spmagtf-cr, special purpose marine air ground task force, the way the mccourt organizes each one of its air ground task forces is with four elements. it is comprised of a command element which is on the top box in the upper left side of that slide and we have an air combat element, a ground combat him and

a logistics combat element and we think this is one of the things that makes us unique is what you get is a task force that is capable, edible of operating across whatever the nation's it's odd that the been assigned to that force. the marine corps has three standing spmagtf, or types of spmagtf started on the far right marine expeditionary force, there are three marine expeditionary forces inside the marine corps and encompasses the operating forces, one in okinawa, one in california as well as one in camp lejeune. this is the bulk of the marines that deployed or commodity forces. this type of force is really used for major combat operations and its a core size force but i would like to see made a march up to baghdad in 2003. next to that yet the meeting -- a marine expeditionary brigade.

up to 15,000 this can range from even a command element which could be a joint task force headquarters all the way up to aggregating multiple forces in support of major combat operations. and then you got the two on the left which are what we would consider our forward deployed forces or forces that we project forward and we would anticipate would be operating in theater all the time. not just when there's a crisis. the one that we traditionally deployed forward as a marine expeditionary unit. it's about 2500 marines, associate within with amphibious shipping. that's what you mostly see on the news is those marines operate off the ships. we've got two of those that are on the water at all times, one in the pacific and one generally in the european, african and central command regions. very capable force, really runs the gamut from working security cooperation type issues all the way up to having the capability

of executing forcible entry or having to play inside a major theater operation. and then the last one on the left is a special-purpose magtf. they don't have a size, they don't have a number. is associated with them. really they can be created in order to meet whatever that mission requirement is but in this particular case, our special-purpose magtf, 60, 22 k. c-130s, based around an infantry company size force and then the command element which was taken largely from the 24th. normally designed for a specific evolution, or a specific mission, ours being crisis response to a get into the details on that in a moment. next slide. this was our mission.

we were one of those four crisis response as was mentioned that was established started last year around the april time frame. just one of many options that the marine corps has along with the augmentation of security forces, fleet antiterrorism security teams, and a special-purpose magtf africa which was established and operates that is a separate force that does a lot of theater security cooperation on the continent. it's different, it's not the same. it doesn't have the same capabilities, sorting out the systemic, the combat power that a mu brings to the fight. what the box on the right, but that embedded slide is alluding to is what we see as a continuum

of crisis response. i know that's probably a little hard to see a lot of the words there but if you could imagine a start moving up that slope towards a bang, there's a lot of things that happened, particularly when you're talking about support to embassies, supported diplomatic facilities and u.s. government facilities overseas. a lot of indications and warnings. the crisis starts to bubble up. what we like to see is to get a force like spmagtf-cr in early in order to deal with the situation and hopefully defuse e the situation either by its presence or even by action that might be taken such as reinforcing. we are one of the red boxes on the bottom, one of the many options as i mentioned that our forward deployed, but not the only option that's available. key missions that we train to come embassy reinforcements, site security, doctor recovery of aircraft and personnel as

well as noncombatant evacuation operations and support to that. we are also capable of being a lead for a follow one force if a mu were followed on as i indicated in an earlier slide on the way we could scale up. we were unique in the theater, based on ability to self command and control, self deployed and the mobility that we brought as part of the task force. and really that came from the combination of the b-22 and task organize ground combat element. what they did was allow us to be able to project this force a very long way. even though we are based in spain for the majority of the time we were deployed, we were able to rapidly project the force. and once we got to where we were going, where we were tasked to become we were everything we

needed that was necessary in order to operate. that is what we believe is a value as marines of the marine air ground task force. it all comes as one consolidated package that now is scalable with insider that she built to bring pieces apart if that's necessary. but also be able to uniquely be organized in order to publish the mission without a lot of external support. i've already mentioned that it does not replace a mu. there was always some questions about whether we were there in love. we don't think so. -- in louisville. because lack of mu present in the midrange and african region, spmagtf-cr filled that gap. we felt it was complementary. this is a little bit about the operating area and the time and space for the problem framing.

we self deployed this force from camp lejeune to moron spain. that distance is about the same as the distance on those red arrows as it is from a moron spain down to the gulf of guinea. pretty significant but as you can see there, that's the scale. map of the united states or an outline of the united states, about 3.7 times the united states can fit inside the continent of africa. it's a bit of a trick cartographers when they build maps. it always looks like the united states is pretty good size, even the -- russia pretty good size compared to africa. but africa is huge. when you start operating in there, you would run into some significant time space problems or issues. we also move the force from a moron, spain, to the camp in

djibouti. and then further on you and debbie. that distance from moron, spain, down to djibouti is about 3400 nautical miles. were the distance from anchorage, alaska, miami, florida. and then another 800 miles into entebbe to support operations in south sudan. we also repeatedly moved from moron, spain, down in our to support potential operations in the north african region. that distance as well is the distance from new york to new orleans. so even a routine movement which we did several times from moron, spain, is not routine based on this distance. and as i showed in the previous slide, the combination of the b-22 in the kc 130-j enabled that to happen. so for the period that we operated with the last six and a

half months, started on the left hand side of the screen. we did a lot of your security cooperation and partnering with our host nation, spain as well as the government of france. and the french foreign legion units that are in the southern portion of france. this is how we trained. in order to team up with partner nation, in this case the spanish army as a spanish marines, and also the french foreign legion which allowed access for us into ranges, areas for us to operate with the b-22 and xc2 a full mission profiles were we able to put the worst together and tie together our ground combat element, put them in the back and do air refueling and insert them into a range, and long a distance away that it was able for us to replicate this scale what it would be like to project the forced into some of the areas that were -- that we were responsible for.

we also took a kc 130 in support of the organization i mentioned earlier i was doing security theater operation. when they're doing an operation in training down in senegal, we supported them with an b-22's and casey 130, approximately 1600 nautical mile's out of moron down to senegal. pretty significant movement. we felt at the time and first time they were introduced in the western part of africa. we were also able to do multiple engagements with embassies and country teams throughout the west and north africa. on the upper right hand side of the slide, what you see as the three times we postured in support of operations in north africa in the may time frame as well as in september and october. were also able to take marines that were in theater, black sea

rotational force, another marine force that operates allocated to european command. special-purpose magtf africa, which is the one that does tse. although their missions are not primary crisis response, all marines have the capability to do crisis response and train to those nations its. we brought those two forces together along with ours, aggregate demand said the european theater as well as operating with the antiterrorist support team. brought all of those forces together and basically did a mock embassy reinforcements followed by a reinforcement with the spmagtf-cr, practiced, ran mock evacuation exercises we are able to readers with all the marine forces in the theater. the type commission says that we thought we might have to employ. pretty important point to bear. just to say that the way we are

organized as marines allows us to be very flexible and scalable. so bring these different forces together along with other joint forces is very easy based on the way that we organize and command and control the force. this was a good opportunity first time that this had been done inside the european and african theater. and then on the bottom right is the movement that we made down to djibouti a note to support operations in south sudan which ultimately led to support in the equation of american citizens from the embassy in cuba. -- juba. i hope that everyone here has at least a little bit about new normal of the new normal environment. moving out into the future. if you haven't heard about it, just kind of a cup cocoa points on it here new normal is a way

to describe what is sort of macro stability and not being a major wars. and at the same time though a lot of potential crises rapidly moving crises that can occur all because of different reasons, whether they be religion, whether they be politics, you know, social issues, demographics, things like the arab spring that started in one place and rapidly moved to another. as part of that the whole of government approach, both the state department and department of defense, working through this problem set. as i showed you earlier on that continuum slide, the state department has made discussions and a pledge to try to look early to see where we could get dod support if it was necessary to provide security early in the process rather than later. and dod as well agreed that it

would pay more attention earlier and plan for support of u.s. government facilities and personnel overseas, prior to crisis. what we saw with lessons learned in south sudan we believe was the first execution of one of these new normal type missions. where we used a new normal force, spmagtf-cr, deployed in support of the u.s. embassy, the army as well projected a new norm force, new response force into the indices so you have both the marines and the army come together under this construct underneath a joint commander. and executed this mission. what i've done there is just put up a couple different thoughts on things that we might need to think about as we move forward executing these types of missions.

what those in states are, what other types of resources we should put against them, how long would relieve those insource is in place and who would make those decisions inside of our government when we do those, these types of operations. pretty difficult problem set, particularly when you look at the size of the forces that we have available in dvd, and the size and scope if you think back to the slide i put up a few minutes ago that showed the slides and the scope of africa and just that time, space, and force issues that are associated with projecting force across the continent to the many high-risk type indices or facilities that may be at risk. and that's just one theater that we operate in. you could imagine you could expand that out or expound on that throughout the globe in a number of places that we would consider hot spots. and with that i will turn it

over to the moderator. >> we will start a conversation. thanks very much. that was great. [applause] >> i'm going to exercise the privilege of the moderator to get a small handful of questions and myself before turning the attention over to questions from the audience. and one of them, i daresay, is probably by the very last slide. that list of questions. so as a commander of the special-purpose magtf another mu, i assume those are not rhetorical question. are the answers to those questions what is an absence of answers to them, is that work to be done? >> i think that work needs to be done every time, when we execute these types of missions. and i think it's work that is

being done as well. i guess the point in me putting those up there, when i get a mission for a force like this, my mission is pretty clear. i don't have a question about what that mission is edited now the question about that mission in south sudan. but as i look across the scope of potential areas that are having problems, i think we need to be asking those types of questions each time we deployed a force like this. because when we deployed a force like this one was one of providing coverage in a lot of others. >> i also wanted to be the guy here who helps take come and put some context to a lot of which is set for, perhaps a less than fully expert audience, which i doubt is in the room but maybe watching elsewhere. for example, tell us about the b-22. b-22. again, because of this room knows about b-22 but it sounds

to me like at least the way you are configured in a mission that was his idea might not not actually be possible without that system. >> again, besides -- >> go right to the redmond. what is the in the 22? >> what the in the 22 does is it takes the qualities of a helicopter which could land vertically and it combines them with a transport aircraft like the kc 130 with a large trouble aircraft and push those two together. to get quite a bit of the range and speed of a turbo prop aircraft but when it gets to the point where it needs to set down directly taken sat down like helicopter. so what you've really done, particularly at a place like africa is you have greatly expanded the area in the envelope that you can operate in. i would agree that when we are on a land-based force like spmagtf-cr is, had the

capability of v-22 combined with the kc-130j gives you -- >> the refueling aircraft? >> refueling aircraft. the two of those together give you that reached at what did you into the continent. amphibious shipping off the coast provides a much more direct path to that. but without that being shore-based and southern european region, and aircraft like the v-22 guesses that capability. >> just to again make even more palpable what we're talking about, when you fly from miami to anchorage, that is two, three, four refueling is? >> right. it's more than that. it ends up being -- for example, it's about three regional links to get from moron to sicken a lot which was the first piece of the leg, new york from new orleans. we were talking earlier today a

little bit about this. the number of refueling is, it doesn't have to be done by the same aircraft that's leaving forward. another aircraft and, and meeting at a point and you can plug into the aircraft, get gas and keep going. the v-22's widgets limited by that of gas that can be provided. and then at some point you start running into the number of hours that the pilots are flying. but that range capability is greatly extended with the v-22 spent the other thing i wanted to again just to the end of getting all the rudiments out on the table is asked if he could talk a little bit more, maybe the way i would ask it is, set some expectations. so i think it would be correct to say, and correct me if i'm wrong that the impetus for the formation of this force was the attack on benghazi. i wonder if you could talk about setting expectations of what are the actual capabilities of once they get there, 50000 marines

around a huge area of operation in terms of lead time and other things that you would need to have an effect on the ground. >> right. i guess, i think this force was formed in response to situations in the new normal. which i would suggest in gaza was one of those types of action. -- benghazi. we like to say that we are responsible for limited crisis response. clearly, if you have a situation where you have to force your way into an environment more secure a large area, you would need a large force than this. but tailored as it is primary for the missions that i flash up on the screen, which would be in missouri enforcement, site security, this is a very capable

force. in order to be up to congress those types of missions. >> not designed so for forcible entry, for example,. >> right. >> and then finally and then it will turn to those of you in the audience, i want to draw on really your more than 20 year career in the marine corps and other assignments, and ask if you could somehow put into context, i suppose the new normal relative to other deployments in the past that you, i would understand them have been involved in. bosnia, haiti. setting aside afghanistan and iraq, but other of the new normal like deployments that you've been involved with now for more than 15 years. what's the point of this question? i suppose it's at least are getting better at this? are we still learning the new normal after 15 years? what is your sense of it having been first and involved in the sphinx? >> to me this is all a bit of

back to the future. because i think this is what marines have always done. this was just the type of thing i did at the beginning of my career. you mentioned haiti. i think i got to first squadron, i was there two or three months and we got in an airplane within 72 hours an after down and stoop a special purpose magtf for haiti. >> 1994 or 95? >> 1983, yeah. so i think this is what we do, marine corps. we've got a long history of these types of sort of small war type operations. we've got a generation or two of marines have come in, with the expense of being in iraq and in afghanistan but i think this is a return back to more the way marines have traditionally operated. this is not an area where i feel uncomfortable. and, in fact, many of the places that we're operating, many other

countries, partners that we operated with are the same ones that i spent the first 10 years of my career on amphibious shipping banging around the mediterranean working with. >> so the new normal is not all that new to you. >> well, i think it's maybe just a different way to characterize it. without getting into all the social aspects of media and the speed of information, all those things that have been talked about a lot, for example, with the arab spring. so i think what the new norm tries to characterize it is that the speed at which these crises will erupt and the speed at which they can transfer and erupt violently. i think that that may be a little bit of a change but i think that the idea, for marines to be forward deployed, to be ready, to deal with today's crisis with today's force, i don't think that's a new.

>> okay. thank you for indulging my questions. i will turn to the audience. i will reiterate that our conversation is entirely on the record and, therefore, i would ask you we do have microphones, right? if i call on you, please stand up and introduced herself in a clear voice before you ask your question. i'll start with this crushing it and didn't go to the gentleman at the very last row. >> thanks very much. thanks for the briefing, colonel. i served in many of the embassies that you mentioned, and so are the ones you mentioned you haven't had to evacuate yet and probably will stick please introduce yourself. >> frances cook. i was left a little word of wider briefing because as i recall the news stories, human into a fairly nonpermissive environment in juba and he seems to be what you described that you don't fly with a lot of protection in the attack helicopters anything else. is that something the army -- you've mentioned the army jointed. i'm unclear on what kind of

protection you had going into juba. >> thank you. >> sure. well, it was a couple of things that happened down in south sudan in juba. but just to be clear -- >> i'm going to interrupt you and ask you again to remind people that don't have any idea which are talking about what that mission was, when it happened, et cetera. if i may just pull on that thread to make sure everybody knows we were talking about and went. >> so, around the middle of december, a violence started kicking up between two tribes in south sudan. one that was loyal to the vice president and one that was loyal to the president. there was some disagreements between those two gentlemen about whether a to have been attempted or not been attempted and then fighting broke out. which put -- a coup. put several folks at risk that

the country and there's lot of ngos operating, u.n. operating in the country and, of course, a large diplomatic forward have seen juba all in south sudan. the armies east african response force was brought into the embassy in order to assist with the security. the embassy also had ordered an evacuation of that already drawn down a large portion of the embassy. and some planes were used to try to back with some personnel from north in one of the camps and they were shot at. we ended up coming in after that. that's not norm our area of focus. we are focused in north africa and west africa but we were directed with about 12 hours notice to make that flight from moron down to djibouti in order

to be in position to evacuate the rest of the missy. and, in fact, we did assist with the continued withdrawal of personnel out of the embassy. so as far as the conditions that we executed, that withdrawal, we felt that the security was adequate for us to do that. i'm not sure if that answers your question. >> i'll take the question right next to the camera there, please preventable, to the two questions on the second row, third row from the back. >> this is joe talbot. i would like to ask you about the legal framework of your missions. do you usually need to clear your mission with the local authorities? if yes, do you coordinate with the local authorities in case of evacuation or securing and embassy -- securing animistic? >> absolutely. i mean, ambassador does that

coordination within the country that we would be operating in. we would only do that under her or his request. so that coordination would be done. as far as the countries that we operate from, we have agreements in place for the missions that we are responsible for, and we are not doing any operations that don't have visibility and approvals for those countries that we operate from. >> going to take th the questio, this gentleman right here with the glasses. okay. we will start there and then go to the gentleman to his right. please. >> hi. i'm wondering about the relationship of the marines to our other special forces, navy seals, army rangers, delta force. and to take a current case example, there's a report we have special forces in southern libya right now where forces

loyal to the former regime took over a military base. how would it be decided who reacts to that? would it be -- isn't clearly defined whose function is which, or would it be a joint operation or what? >> to respond -- while i mean -- well, i think and we are a conventional force so even though it's a special purpose in our name, we are not a special operations force, as a special marine ground task force. not a standing magtf at the indicated pashtun indicated by the mu or the brigade or the marine expeditionary force. i'm going to get any of the orders that i get from the combatant command who i'm responsible to. and in this case that would be after, general rodriguez. he will make the determination on what's the best forced to employ based on what the requirements are. >> however, does the scope of our crisis response force per se tend to be limited in time what

you're going to go do something over communist, a discrete period of time and come back. are not necessarily? >> well, not necessarily. however, that's how we envisioned the force, that we would be tasked with the nation that came out. we would to execute that mission and then be reconstituted again to be prepared to operate over a wide area. because there's just not enough of units like this to operate and multiple different places at one time. we do have the capability. if it's appropriate to forces of joint cars and rolled underneath it, you know, we have the flexibility and scalability to do that. or to become part of a larger force as well. at the combatant command determined w were not the best forces of our capabilities would help augment another force, allow them to do the mission, we certainly could do that as well.

>> question right there. >> tod lindberg from houston institution but i want to ask you about the applicable to other structure, this mass forced to response types of operations. that's something you've had some opportunity reflect upon at all? second, i would ask about the quality and character of the cooperation with the french and spanish allies. is that something we could expect to see in action in a cooperative fashion anytime soon? >> thank you. regarding the mass atrocities, we have basic capabilities that would allow us to support a humanitarian support or disaster relief. just basic capabilities so that would be inherent inside having aircraft that could move things, move supplies, move people, move

cash of us, those types of things. but this organization didn't have any specific training or, you know, unique capabilities that would allow was to respond to a mass atrocity. as far as our relationship with the spanish and french, the relationship that we have with them now is primarily in a training relationship and a partnering in order to do training. not an operational relationship. >> although i would understand that president obama and president -- president hollande, indicating there would be some more regular cooperation between the two. is anything you might comment upon in that regard? >> i've heard about the op-ed as well just before we walked in here and i haven't read that op-ed. to be honest, again we have the capability to work with partner nations. we have the ability to work with

other joint forces within the u.s. department of defense. so either one of those is something that we are certainly capable of executing. >> actually, if i could just pull the thread on that same topic a little bit farther. your unit did a training exercise, or otherwise with legionnaires? can you put that in probable perspective to us, what did they do, how long, where? >> there's a habitual relationship between the french foreign legion brigade that's in the southern portion of france and the second marine division. which is out of north carolina. so we are able to capitalize on that relationship and conduct something with the french. and to be honest, the great advantage to us and working with legionnaires who are very comparable to marine infantry in skills and attitude and capabilities and the way they employ their force, but would also did was provide just for

enough that it really got us to stretch our legs, required aerial refuel in or to get to the ranges. we were able to go to an uncertain area, operate in an uncertain training environment that we hadn't seen before. and so to tie all those things together and execute a full mission profile, it ended up working out very well for us. and what it also did, both the spanish as well, with the spanish and french, having this force in that part of the mediterranean and it does harken back to what we discussed earlier, the '90s, and in the '80s when we did a lot of training with the french, the spanish, italian, a lot of our partners in the southern mediterranean that we haven't been able to do for the last several years due to commitments in iraq and afghanistan. >> your response reminds me that around the pentagon and here in washington we've often times

hear the word present, particularly in conversations over budgets. and how to trade off allegations of budgets. i think it's an aspect as you just described, it's an aspect, correct me if i'm wrong, what our military is doing everyday that i doubt most americans have much appreciation for. when you're out a six-month deployment or soak him how much fairly intimate engagement there is not only with allied forces but with ad hoc partner forces. is that more, the same, less? to the wars interrupt that? where are we in sort of our present posture, if you will. >> certainly in the mediterranean basis, some of that has been interrupted. really is been interrupted, from the marine corps stands, it's been interrupted by a lack of come and argue, conducting those

exercises. so i think it's tremendous value, tremendous value to us, to partner, and i imagine it's probably in the interest of our partners to work with us. i will say as well, the experience that that provides our young brains when they get the opportunity to go into an arduous training regiment and come out the other side into a social activity in exchange of ideas and camaraderie ship with our partners, it's really an event that they will remember for the rest of their careers. and it's not something that marines have joined since 2000-2001 timeframe have had opportunity to if they haven't been part of a marine expedition unit. >> and yet i would guess as much in what you said as anything

else that working with partners is one of those features of the new normal. >> well, i'm not so sure if we ever stepped away from our partners. just have been working with in a different environment. so it's probably a return back to the type of engagements that we had habitually done in the '90s. our forward deployed forces with the opportunity to train and operate with partner nations in their country. >> i just try to keep my perspective at the level of most normal americans i think don't appreciate how much interaction and co-mingling of capabilities there actually is with our real forces it out in the world, both to train and to do real-life missions. there is a question from the woman in the dark blouse on the second row please, and then i will come over here. >> julia martin, u.s. global leadership coalition and i was hoping you could comment specific on partnerships with the department of state. used it a little about that but

hoping for more specifics, and also usaid. >> we have really done, with this force i would than anything with the usaid. specifically. i think the partnerships with the state department has been great from my perspective. and i mention on the slide out there, we called it chelator engagement but i probably should've done a better job explaining that, but i was fortunate enough with some of the members of my staff to visit quite a few of the embassies that were in my area of responsibility. and work with the country teams there any many cases, you know, getting to see the ambassador and then some of their key staff. as well in the country's that we operate in an are based in up in spain, france as well as italy. we spent a fair amount of time engaging with the state department and with this country

teams in order to make sure, as the other gentleman asked in the back, that we all have a common understanding of what it is this force is designed for companies defensive nature and how we would intend to operate if, in fact, we were called to operate and execute from that country. i think that, this is, you know, my slide about lessons learned is in no way a slight one way or the other. but it's just that sometimes this is kind of a hard problem. and in order to be out and operate in some dangerous places. one of the things that i think that a force like this does is it enables our diplomats to be able to operate, and i wouldn't say take risk. however, what it out to do is have them feel a little bit more comfortable with the many risks that they do take in the course of their duties, knowing that you have a force like this that is standing by and it's going to

make its best effort to support efforts as needed. >> there's a question writer on the second row, please. then i'll come here. >> colonel, two things. general paxton, assistant commandant was taking a couple weeks ago, said that your magtf and special magtf africa could benefit if you had amphibious shipping to work from. you mentioned lack of -- could you talk about that, how you might have some the things he did might have been better if he had at least part with you. and the other, you talk about, you took your command element from 22nd thank you. how about the rest of the ground and air combat units? where do they come from and how much training did you guys have

to prepare for that mission before you actually went into theater? >> okay. great questions. as far as the amphibious shipping and the impact of not having it, and it again gets back to his question of operate in somebody else's country or even trying to fly over somebody else's country. we are very keen to that, obviously. i think sometimes we operate in the united states we forget that we have a lot of the latitude to operate inside our training areas and do the type of mission training and support that we need to and do we go to another country and expectation is we ought to build you the sum of our same things. the reality is where operate in somebody else's country. we need to be respectful of their procedures and policies and rules that govern the operations there. so absolutely, we are a maritime

force. we maintained the capability to operate off ships giunta we are not based off ships. we maintain that currency as well. the capability that a u.s. naval vessel brings to a force like this is incredible. just having that u.s. sovereign territory that can move around and not have to worry about all the diplomatic clearances and issues associate with overflight or operations is a huge force multiplier. so given the opportunity to be on a ship versus operating off land, marines would take being on a ship any day. a u.s. navy ship. so i hope that answers the first part of that question. as far as our organization, all the elements of this force were drawn from the operating forces at camp lejeune from second marine expeditionary force.

so these are forces that were trained and ready. iin some cases they had other nations that were assigned and then were off ramped. and then they trained up for this mission. we did have opportunity to bring the force together and train. it did not go through as comprehensive of a pre-deployment training program that we do for some of our standing magtf such as the mu. we trained, and were certified through the training by external training organizations, our special operations training groups if you're for me with outcome and marine sector to cooperation group that supported the training into theater security cooperation. so it is a trained and certified force drawn from the operate in forces at camp lejeune spent there are two questions of a. i would like to take them in turn starting with the gentleman on my far right. spent is our other question, please signaled to me that you

have them as we draw down to the end of the hour. >> i have actually three questions. the first one is about when you are deployed for, like a longer, particularly long instance in a country like afghanistan or iraq, do your members get any sort of cultural training in order to avoid cultural misunderstandings with members of that society? >> let's take these one at a time. go ahead. knockabout one spent yes. we certainly do. iraq and afghanistan, both of those, there was cultural drink that was part of those workouts and they say that from my experience taking -- from iraq, and this training that we put together prior to deployment for this mission, we also brought in a gentleman who had spent about 20 years as a french marine embedded inside of a lot of the

military organizations in africa so we did cultural training as well spend one more question about that. in 2007 i guess in iraq, some members of local communities a recruiter. i'm not sure they were recruited specifically by your like team, or just the other part of usability. i want to say, how does that work? do you usually work with the locals? in terms of fighting the enemy whether it's al-qaeda or any other group. >> well, this force is not specifically organized that way, and, of course, wasn't established been. we just established this force this last year in 2013. >> permit me to take the question right there next to you, take you. >> thanks, john trojan, sine. he talked about air combat element that is one if you talk some about the logistics combat element of the magtf, how long

you could sustain to suck on those types of things. i also wanted to pull the thread on the training aspect a little bit and ask if there was anything particularly notable or special specific about pre-deployment training that the spmagtf to or what it looks like but scaled down to the smaller missions that. >> thanks. was the logistics combat element, that we brought with this force, it's tailored for the size of the force. we like to talk about with our standing bring expenditure units, 15 days worth of systemic, 30 days with a marine expeditionary brigade, 45 days of sustainment wants the force is employed. we felt five days was the right number for this force, and that's how we employed it. that level of sustainment allows you to deploy the force and not e-mailed have a problem on your hands as far as keeping the force moving.

we have tremendous capability inside a logistics combat element. most of it was throughput type capability nor to operate the hub which is our main base in moron. so what that allowed us to do was essentially bring throughput supplies, parts, equipment through the area and then get it out to the force wherever the force might be at the time. so very good capability inside, but taylor. certainly not as robust as some of the standing magtf that we have here regarding the pre-deployment training in anything note of all, i think it was a scaled down version. this is a standard organization. didn't exist last year in april. that's about the time that we started training to head over to spain.

eric schmidt with the "new york times." you talked about your area of responsibility being north and west africa. obviously a large portion of territory. we have at least two al-qaeda-linked organizations there. aqim and smaller organizations. how do you -- as you l