germany, and salt mines, in monasteries, castles, error rate bunkers, and some germans at this point, especially in late 1944, believed that they would lose the war. ..ers. some germans at this point, especially in 1944 late in the year, they believe that they would lose the war. the smartest thing to do was to get all this to a safe haven outside of germany. and the united states government initiated something called operation safe haven. to be the intelligence gathering capability of the treasury department, economic administration, to find out where these assets were going.

in 1997 and 1998, he oversaw the production of two government report about operation safe haven and these reports were quickly produced ae not well received in some places. so, ambassador, can you tell us what prompted the clinton administration to want to have these reports produced, and what was the outcome of these reports? >> well, first, robert has dope an enormous -- has done an enormous service through his book. but i want to try to put it in an even broader context, and that is it's a great tribute not only to the monuments men, but to the united states army and the united states of america. contrast this enormous effort to save cultural property, to get it returned to its rightful owners with the action of the soviet union coming from the east to berlin.

ask they were intent on doing just the opposite, stripping germany, stripping its museums of everything that they could that was movable, taking it back to russia as war company sauce for their enormous -- compensation for their enormous losses. so here we are doing exactly the opposite, trying to preserve it, trying to get it back to its original owners while the soviets are trying to compensate themselves for tear losses. now finish for their losses. now, with respect to the reports, we had lawsuits that were being brought against the swiss banks, and we began to realize that there was a broader story tan the -- than the amounts put in swiss banks by victims. and that broader story was how did the germans finance a war effort for 12 years when their

currency, the reich mark, was not accepted as international currency. and to his enormous credit, william slaney, may he rest in peace, came to me and said we ought to look at this. we had an interagency study, we had more than a dozen agencies involved including the cia and others, and we did really a landmark study on what happened to the gold that was looted by germans and went to switzerland. not private swiss bank accounts, not private banks, but as the germans swept through europe, they stole the gold both from jews, but primarily in larger amounts from the central banks of the governments that they occupied. and in order to get the hard currency to finance the war, they took that gold and gave it to the central bank of switzerland which knew exactly what the real reserves of the

reich bank were, realized early on that this was far in excess of the reserves the german central bank had and that these were looted. they converted that gold into swiss francs which the germans then used to finance the war effort. and we disclosed this in our report. it caused, of course, an explosion in switzerland. and then we did a follow-up report the next year of what other neutral countries, portugal, spain and turkey, had done to facilitate the war effort. now, to switzerland's great credit, they ended up taking our report and, if anything, improving on it. they appoint toed a professor to do their -- appointed a professor to do his own report, and his report is a landmark in self-examination. and as a result of our report and his report, we ended up getting 20 countries, greg, to set up their own historical commissions to rook at their

role -- to look at their role during the war. >> we're really running behind at this point. [laughter] i mean, i knew that every single question would be a one-day answer or a one-book answer. >> we're doing well. we cut it down. [laughter] >> so we'll skip over, basically, and you can read this in robert's books, the whole movement this 1944 and '45, the greatest treasure hunt in history. or you can see the condensed version in the movie. but it was dangerous and hard work. and two monuments men, officers, were killed; an american and a british major, ronald balfour. so, i mean, these were scholars putting their lives on the line and in some cases, both cases they were killed actually trying

to rescue property that was in the harm's way. this treasure hunt of where these came from all these different sources, but as the war was ending, there was still a lot of questions, where is all the loot, who is involved in taking the loot, things that we know now from the work by nancy and others but at the time we didn't. and the latter part of the war, the office of strategic services created something called the art looting investigation unit. it was staffed by monuments men such as lane faison. so, michael, can you tell us about the unit, where they operated, what they did and what they produced. >>. i'll try to do it not in a day or in a book. [laughter] it's really amazing how much is owed sometimes to a very small group. this was just ten individuals.

three of them were principal investigators art historians, theodore russo from the national gallery, lane faison, and james plout from the fog museum at harvard. and their task was to try to identify where this vast network of hidden assets -- particularly their emphasis was on art, archives, libraries. and so there was a lot of concern that this material would become fodder for sale in the black market and finance the nazi resistance. there was a lot of concern in late 1944 and 1945 that willed be a -- that there would be a nazi resistance after the inevitable defeat. and so during the war, the vast counterintelligence effort by the allies, there were about 2,000 individuals had been marked as people who were involved somehow in this art market.

so they had names, they had an idea of who were the players, and from the spring of 1945 onward they go into germany and austria, and they do basically two things. they do an enormous amount of archival research because the records of the e.r.r. that nancy mentioned were located. so they're looking at that, they were looking at records that were found in munich, and they also interrogate key individuals who were the players in the art market. and i think these three were very disappointed, actually, because after the war while rosenberg and -- [inaudible] were held accountable, the second tier actually got away without any indictments, without any sentences, and they started business again. but nonetheless, they were able to map out where all of this material was and saved an enormous amount of time. it saved these materials from

being looted by others and being lost. and they produced detailed interrogation reports on 12 individuals and also special studies of the lintz project of hiterer's and on ger -- hitler's and on gering's personal collection and rosenberg's organization to. so this group, this very small group of investigators did an enormously critical job the laying the ground work for the monuments men's work. >> they helped assist the process of identifying where the art was, and this art both german-owned and looted, ended up coming frequently to collecting points in marburg, munich, and these were operated by monuments men. with immense quantities of art trying to put humpty dumpty back together again.

while i was writing my dissertation on the american revolution, michael had the great sense to write his on what happened, what were the policies and procedures for returning it. >> thank god he did. [laughter] he did a great job. >> so, michael, could you tell us how they handle thissed this property -- handled this property, getting it back to the rightful owners? >> there were about 1300 repositories where the germans had hidden all of this material, most of it in the u.s. zone of occupation. and so you just can't operate or run 1300 of these places. so as greg mentioned, they set up these operations. an architect was the chief of the monuments activity, the operations on the ground. and it is amazing that these monuments officers were able to just create these places. i mean, germany's devastated, and they don't have a lot of

support from the army. but using munich collecting point where the ark and much of what needed to be rest constituted went, in two weeks' time by the middle of june 1945, the whole thing, the furor bow is refurbished, security is set up, there's coal for heat which was absolutely critical actually. so millions of items flowed in. one had mostly art from the prussian state museum, some internal art. another was the site for looted jewish material; archives, libraries, religious item, torah psychologicals and so -- scrolls and so forth. so this innovation was absolutely critical to ultimate restitution. >> thank you, michael. you know, robert frequently reminds us that the mission of the monuments men is unfinished and, indeed, as ambassador eisenstadt and others will tell

you, the mission is unfinished. one important activity in fulfilling the mission of the monuments when was the 1998 washington conference on holocaust era assets. this conference about what's called the washington principles -- and each of you should have in your program a copy of these principles -- which were adopted in 998 and reaffirmed again in lithuania this 2000 ask prague in -- and prague in 2009. how the principles come about and how are various countries fulfilling, following them? >> i negotiated the principles, but it's really important to understand that there was a huge gap through no fault of the monuments men. the basic principle was that the art would be returned to the countries from which it was taken rather than trying to go

through an impossible task of finding the individual openers. owners. and so art was returned, for example, to france and to many other countries on the theory that they would set up their own claims processes to allow claimants to recover their individual art, and that did not happen. in part because much of the art was airless, there were no families, they were all killed. but this part because they simply wanted to keep the art themselves. the m and r collection, for example, in france. and then a major activity occurred that added to this inaction, the cold war. all the attention of the allies that had, as robert brilliantly has described, focused on this collection and restitution was properly focused on the new soviet threat. and so from the end of the war,

essentially til 1997, 1996, this was almost no attention to this issue. there were a number of scholars, lynn nicklaus and constantine -- [inaudible] and others, jonathan petropolis and michael who wrote about this, there was a bard conference in 1995 that elevated the issue. and then what really brought it to attention was a catalyst that no one would have expected. there was an exchange, a typical exchange that occurred with a museum in austria to the u.s. to the museum of modern art of ig with on -- igon sheila paintings. and they had forgotten, remarkably, to go through the very simple process of filling out form there the state department which protects these from being seized, and they didn't. and they were claimed by a holocaust family. and robert morganthau, the

manhattan attorney, then subpoenaed the art, and it sent a shock wave through the american museum community. and that resulted in the amd, the american association museum directors under pressure creating a series of guidelines for researching art, for publishing presidentially nazi-looted art and for establishing a process. and what we did is we came behind that as a bow wave, and we internationalized it with our conference in december of 1998 at the state department with 44 countries. and we were able to get them to agree to a set of principles which was research your perot nance to see if any is suspect, establish mechanisms and claims processes and make sure that you

establish alternative dispute processes that are based on decisions on the merits and not technical defenses. and there was a great burst of activity in the american community. the national gallery, nancy returned a piece of art which they found which was well done, the chicago art institute and others. but then what happened is after a terrific momentum creating a search engine so a claimant wouldn't have to go to a hundred different museums in the united states, they could file one claim and it would go to all hundred museums who would search. so all of this was done. christie's and sotheby's established and still have full-time employees who look for any suspect art, and i would say in any given year a dozen are returned and won't be sold. but here's what happened, and it's a shame. that momentum was lost. the leadership that the u.s. showed really began to

dissipate, and the museums over time started to assert technical defenses when claims were made like, for example, the statute of limitations has run. they even preemptively filed injunction suits to prevent claims before they were made. now, they said they did it after researching it themselves and determining it wasn't looted, but there was no objective measure of that. and then they ended up, ironically having started this whole process, falling behind and finding that the dutch, the german, the austrians, the british established their own commissions, and they were functioning better than we. the austrians ip corporated the -- incorporated the washington principles into their law, returned 250 paintings. now, for sure, those commissions are much criticized, but at least they exist. we don't have a commission. we do not have a commission. now, partly it's because our museums are private museums, in

europe they're public museums. but we can do, and i suggested, that we set up, for example, the harvard mediation service with no u.s. government money at all, a mediation panel so that these disputes could be done without these technical defenses. so i'm sad to say that after this passage of 50 years where we hen revived it -- we then revived it through the washington principals and the aamd, that we've really fallen back, we've stagnated, and we need to get back into full filling -- fulfilling what, robert, the monuments men did. that would be the real tribute to the monuments men, is to get back to where we were then. >> what i'd like to do now is have nancy, what is the american museum community doing, and could you make it short, please? [laughter] >> well, i would respectfully disagree with the ambassador that we need a commission in the

united states. the commissions that are set up in europe are for a totally different category of objects, so objects that were recovered after the war, known to have some perot nance issue and in the custody of those countries, and they need to deal with those. the objects in american collections are here by happenstance, it's more erratic, and what the american museum community has done since the 1998 conference which ambassador eisenstadt was so instrumental in is adopt these guidelines for research publication. but they're misleadingly simple guidelines. the research, for example, prove nance research has always been something in american museums, but this specific research into the world war ii period using these records that are here at the national archives are very, it's very complicated, and it's very different from anything that traditional art historians and museum curators have done. and i am proud to say that the american museum community has

partnered with the national archives many times over the past decade to do multiple training sessions for curators around the country on how to access these materials. we've done two major conferences out in college park, we did an international conference in 2007, and then we did two years ago right in this very room a two-day international conference on accessing these remarkable resources that are here at our national archives. and coming up in june we have another pickup coming. partnership coming. so i would say we are trying as hard as we can to research our czechs. we are open to -- our collections. we are open to anyone who has any questions, and no american hue seem -- i can say this forcefully -- wants to have anything on their walls that doesn't belong to them. >> i would say two things. the first is we didn't disagree that the museums didn't raise technical defenses and let the decisions be made on be merits. and second, joran nearly -- josh

nearly, your own attorney, has suggested that having a commission would be a good way of trying to get this out of the courts, out of litigation, getting the lawyers out of the picture, getting technical defenses out and making decisions on the merits, and i agree with him. >> i just have a few questions for robert, then we'll turn to some questions. >> is this blessed is the peacemaker? [laughter] >> you're sitting in between. >> this is not my typical role, but we'll try it out. [laughter] >> well, i was going to ask you how you got interested, but that's easy enough to define with mr. google. but did you actually enjoy doing the research and writing? was that your own treasure hunt? >> yes. it won't come as a surprise to think of you all, i'm very impatient. [laughter] and, you know, guilty as charged. but i like to see things happen and make things happen, and yet

when i am -- this is the big asterisk about me being impatient. when i'm with one of these elderly veterans and i have the chance to -- and it usually only takes me two or three questions, and they know i care, they know i'm deeply passionate about this. they'll talk for hours and hours and hours, and i will sit there and feel like i have the greatest job in the world, having the chance to listen to what their experience is. so oftentimes never shared with anybody else. and i've had a similar experience in many cases with spouses of deceased monuments officers. some of the monuments officers we found that -- in one particular case a woman who got married, and we had no idea what her last name was, her married name, so we didn't know how to find her. it's a joyous, joyous process, and allowed us to tell the story in a way that i don't think it's been told, and i think this is part of why it's resonating with you all, which is this is a

story. we're sitting here talking about works of art, and this is important. when we say works of art, library book, jewelry, tapestries, stained glass, paintings, draw, it's a whole spectrum of the arts. but we're really, it's a people story. why did these men and women who had life made risk their lives to walk away from established careers and their families and kids and go risk their lives this combat to do something that wasn't messily going to benefit -- necessarily going to benefit the united states, it was going to benefit civilization. we haven't seen anybody do that in wars before. that's the denouement, that's the sea change that we've never done anything like that since from top to bottom. we've had cultural preservation officers, modern day monuments men and women, very important to point out, in our military today who have the absolute best of intentions and good training. but what we had in world war ii that made it work was leaders

doing only what leaders can do, and that's leading. president roosevelt decided this was an important idea and endorsed it. general eisenhower issued historic orders that empowered these men and women to go do their job. and we haven't had any leaders do that since world war ii on a public basis about respecting cultural treasures. and that's what we need to have happen today. so i submit, i agree with things that stuart said, i agree with things that nancy has said. i think museums can become easy scapegoats. and i, i'm, i spoke to the american association of museum directors earlier this year, and i head the comment to them is the -- i made the comment to them it is not okay to have a $40 or $50 million budget and then plead poverty on being able to afford researchers. you can't do that. on the other hand, it's easy to pick on museums and say why haven't you done this and done it faster? the research work is very complicated, and there are not

millions of researchers out there floating around. these issues that stuart has raised are questions we're going to have to debate today, and it becomes more complicated when you go to europe, and you have statute of limitations in various countries over there that are going to need to be revisited. but i submit that the best place to add jude case this is in the -- add adjudicate this is ie court of public opinion. and i can't enlist the public opinion unless you all know the story, and it's been my effort to try and tell the story. i'm not a trained art historian or writer or anything, i just have been passionate about this for some 15, 16 years now, the last 13 full time. i wanted to let you all have the chance to love these men and women as i have by knowing their story and knowing what they did and why what they did so important to the treasures we have today and why these efforts to honor them with congressional gold medal, which is before the house and the senate today, and the work of the monuments men

foundation with our toll-free be number, is-866 -- 1-866-world war art which george clooney and others have been very supportive of to ask the public for their help. if you have a veteran who wrought something home -- brought something home, come forward. no one's had a chance to ask the public for help before. so that's the effort that i'm undertaking and that the monuments men foundation is building on the early work by michael kurtz to and write about the monuments men as part of his dissertation. on the work of lynn nicklaus to help explain in cogent understanding the nazi looting, the work of nancy yeide trying to explain to people what prove nance is, it's a fancy word for who owned it before you. that's it. we talk in these complicated terms, but there it is. you want to know when you buy

your home you have the clear title, who owned it before. that's what it is. the work of stuart and his team, the state department and others that have been trying to bring worldwide visibility through legislative and through the formal judicial system, but i submit that people that have been left out of the discussion are people like me that don't have think academic training about the history of this, about the legal terms, about art history. we just like art, we like great stories, and we believe that no passage of time should change character of the theft. if something was stolen and we can identify who the owner is, we should give it back. [applause] >> well, as i've said before, we could spend days talking about the past, present and future of this topic. but i would like to thank the panelists for coming out tonight. and i'd also like to thank our boss, david, the archivist of

the united states for not only his presence, but for his interest in the records of the monuments men and the work of the monuments men. we're lucky to have a boss that has an interest in a subject we have an interest in. now i guess i can direct you to microphones on either side if you have questions. >> yes. you brought out, we knew that after the second world war murder was a great atrocity of the germans. the first major trial that everybody saw in the world what happened was the nuremberg trials. did anyone discuss these issues of theft at nuremberg trial aside from murders? were there, there were people there who were certainly gering and others stole, and was that brought out to the world? >> yes, it was. the work of the art looting investigation unit was critical.

actually, theodore russo who did the volume on gering's work actually intergated gering while he was -- interrogated gering while he was at nuremberg, so a lot of the documents that were entered into evidence in nuremberg as it related to the art theft ask so forth came from the work of this unit, and it came really from their research as they went through the german files and located documents and had them verified by these various interrogations that they did. and they actually even brought some of these second tier nazis to nuremberg to give testimony about rosenberg and gering. >> what was really most effective was taking the 39 err albums, these photographic albums showing what they had taken and literally putting them in front of each of the eight judges and saying here's the evidence. >> and there's file footage of that that comes from the

national archives that you can watch that's absolutely riveting. and it's all online. you can, you can have access to it. >> thank you. >> we have it at the foundation too. >> thank you. >> do we have current monuments men for the wars of that have gone on recently like iraq and afghanistan? >> we, we do. we have well-intended people 2349 museum and archaeological community that have advised state department and defense department, and they did so prior to the american-led invasion in iraq in 2003. but for a variety of reasons and, in my opinion, the principal one being that the other half of this diay which has to work which is the leadership from the top, in our country, it's ceo, it's the president of the united states. and well intended -- and i say this apolitically. i don't care who the president or secretary of defense is, but you -- there was a monuments woman named edith stanton who in 1947 said it's not enough that

we be virtuous, we must also appear so. and she understood then the power of appearances, and our parents all taught us a that. -- taught us that. so we didn't have these monument withs officers there because the prioritization wasn't there. i mean, we protected the oil installations. that was a smart thing to do. you've got to have fuel for your vehicles. we protected the electrical grids, but we didn't protect the museum, the national archives this iraq, the national library which these nut jobs over there were either trying to destroy, flood, damage, and whose problem does that become? it becomes the american army. it's a big, big problem. and so i think what we've got to have today we certainly need to be training people, and we're doing that. people like corrine wagner, lori rush do a tremendous job. but in the absence of the president of the united states restating, in my opinion, the words spoken by president roosevelt and general eisenhower, that the united states will respect the cultural

treasures of other countries and it comes down to the lives of our men and women or an object, the lives would matter more. but if that doesn't happen, the best efforts are going to work their way up the bureaucracy and sometimes stall and fail. and we had people that went over there in 2004 to fix the problems, and they did a tremendous job. what does everybody remember from it? they remember what did in 2003, not 2004 because first impressions matter. so the problem and challenge is here before us, and it's a huge part, again, of our effort, the monuments men foundation. if we can make sure that all the voters around the country know about this, i dare say no political leader's going to go into combat again and not say, hey, do we have monuments officers? >> one quick word on iraq because it's very much in the news. i was out of office at the time, but because of the work we had done when we bombed the defense ministry in damascus -- excuse

me, in baghdad -- [laughter] i wish it had been in damascus. [laughter] >> don't tilt your hand. >> when we did that, the pipes burst. and when our troops came in, they found jewish treasures, archival treasures going back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, and they called me and said given your experience, what should we do with it? i said, three things. get it out of the water, get it to the national or archives where it can, you know, curated properly and never return it. two of the three things were done. an agreement was reached with the iraqi government to return this jewish cultural property which itself was looted, in my opinion, from the jewish community that left in the '50s after the formation of israel. that's still a very topical issue now. congressional interest in it and so forth. so, you know, what robert has

exposed is still very much a current issue. >> i would like to point out that my wife and doris hamburg went over there and helped bring the stuff back and have overseen it ever since. mary lynn's my wife's mother would call and say do you think she's safe over will? and i would say, well, compared to the beltway -- [laughter] she's probably safer there than here. laugh but anyway, yes, ma'am. >> ambassador, as you know in germany is considering changing their 30-year statute many light of that case with that -- in light of that case with that man with priceless art from his father, and it looks like he'll be able to legally keep it, but there may be a change. do you think that 69 years after the end of the war that there will be a way for these countries that have these statute of limitations to end those statutes of limitation? >> that's a great question.

and let me just say this, first of all, with the really minor disagreement nancy and i have about whether there should with be a commission, the amount of looted nazi art in the united states is minimal. very, very minimal. the great amounts are in europe. in germany and in particular in russia which has greatest treasure-trove of looted nags -- nazi art. they passed a law after the washington principles which said we're going to keep our so-called trophy art to pay for, in effect, war loss contrary to, again, our policy and the monuments men. but we're willing with the washington principles to return that art which the red army took and in turn which had been taken be i the nazis from jews. they've never implemented it. so the real focus needs to be on europe. now, on the question you asked on that case, it's an incredible

case. here a guy goes from switzerland to munich, comes to the border. he's asked if he has anything to declare. he said, well, i have 9500 year rows in cash, and they say, well, where'd you get 9500 euros in cash in he said, well, i sold a piece of art. they looked in his apartment, and there are 1200 pieces of art with some having empty cases that indicated he had sold it, and to make a long story short, it turns out that a lot of it was, in fact, nazi-looted art. so initially, the germans were treating it as a tax evasion case. the guy sold it, didn't report his taxes. and we intervened, we, the state department can, intervened based on the washington principles. rob, based on what you've done as well, what michael has done, the work that nancy has done, and we said, no, this is not just a tax evasion case. look at the principles and

publish the art which initially they wouldn't do but now, to their great credit, about 450 pieces have been published on the internet so claims can be made. but then the issue is the question you asked, the statute of limitations. now, i can't guarantee this is going to happen, but we've urged, again, that technical defenses not be used. that's why i feel so strongly our museums should set that example, and they're seriously considering, in effect, creating a new law that would waive the statute of limitations as to the art that's in the department. whether they'll do it or not still remains to be seen, but they've publicly indicated they're looking at it, and it would certainly be a wonderful thing, and it would be consonant with the washington story. so this story never ends. it never ends. >> let me say about this, i hate to predict the future. it's a or perilous thing to do. but i believe we will see changes, and i believe that the principle reason is that the

public, the court of public opinion is thousand going to know what the heck -- is now going to know what the heck everybody is talking about. it's been stuck with legislators and lawyers debating this thing and using fancy terms, and the general public doesn't know what they're talking about. so you have something like the case that hit the front page of the newspapers around the world, and there's a billion pfaff euro trove of -- billion and a half euro trove. no one has seen the works of art, no one has a list of the works of art, and yet somebody's divined a billion and a half euros. [laughter] hey, i'm happy because now everybody in the world's paying attention for a moment. and is it worth hundreds of millions? yeah, probably. but we don't have the information, as the ambassador said, to be able to go through and determine exactly what the values are. it's a hairball of a case, but i think the this: i think people around the world, at least in the western countries, are governed by laws. and for the most part, people, i think, feel what i said earlier.

no passage of time makes it okay for somebody to keep something including german museums if it was stolen and we can identify who it belongs to. if we can, if we can massage this process by making sure that legislators in germany and others -- and we were, when we were at the berlin film festival last week, we were with the german cultural minister for 30 minutes. we were her favorite people and especially monuments officer harry ellinger. if they realize that the voting public now understands the story and it's not just a big, big discovery, but it's the whole theft unfolding in slow motion, and if you get google alerts like we all do, there's discoveries like this in the paper every sickle day -- single day. not that dramatic, but they're out there. it's all the same story. but public doesn't know what the story is. today read this case, 80-year-old guy, it's complicated, tax evasion, etc. the film is now going to reach a

worldwide audience in a way that none of us can get out there. are there adjustments to the story? yes. are the principles accurate? yes. now people are going to understand, wow, this doesn't seem right that we've in berlin made such effort toss discuss and be open about all the things that happened in nazi germany and berlin in particular. everywhere you go there's a museum built to discuss it, a sign of something that's a going to be built, and yet that same transparency hasn't been evident in how museums and how the countries approached discussing these works of art. but if the public that goes to these museums and elects these politicians now knows about this and all the politicians go see movies too, now the game's changed. now everybody can participate in this discussion. and now instead of having legislators legislate the statute of limitations, now the public can express their view. and i believe if i'm right and people around the world -- for the most part, people of goodwill feel it's not okay to

keep things just because there's been a passage of time -- we will see these laws change because it's the right thing to do. >> the interesting thing is that gerl lits' tower was given -- father was given art back. get hard currency and returned it. he obviously kept some for himself. [laughter] but what's fascinating is after the war he convinced the allies that he was a victim of the nazis, not a nazi himself, that he had allowed some jews to get out by selling some of their art, probably at discounted prices. and this is now his son who has it, and he kept this 1200 pieces in a dusty room in munich with trash and everything around it. it's an incredible story. >> with well, we have five -- well, we have five people to ask questions, and we have four minutes. so. please, be my guest. >> we've discussed europe a lot. was a similar action taken to preserve art in asia? >> yes. there were a handful of monuments officers.

of course, the problem -- well, there are some british monuments officers or u.k. we should say monuments officers that work in southeast asia, but we're talk about, you know, maybe five or less. and then about five or six, five or six, i would say, michael, that work in japan. but, of course, they can't get there until after the war's over, and so it becomes a very different kind of operation whereas the american/british effort in western europe is about trying to preserve works of art and affect temporary repairs, in japan that whole effort has to be skipped as a result of the dropping of the two atomic bombs. >> yes, ma'am. >> i want to raise a question of provenance with regard to berlin, specifically the art museum in berlin, which is one of the eeriest things in the world to go through room after room. thaws of works of art -- thousands of works of art. it is just artist, title.

that's it. you don't know if it came from the prussian state, you don't know which state or municipal gallery it came from, you don't know anything. and that's the principal art historical museum of germany. it is very, very weird. comment? >> well, i mean, let me just contrast that with france. france had the this so-called mnr collection which was, essentially, looted jewish art that they really made minimal efforts to locate the owners. but, to their credit, much more recently and after the washington principles what they did with their art is they signed it so they would say, for example -- in fact, the jewish, there was a question of whether the jewish community should claim that art and have a museum of their open, and they said, no, it belongs to the french state if there's no error. but what they want and what we got was some history of what

happened. and it may say from an unknown jewish family, but at least someone who sees it a hundred years from now will say, gee, you know, what was that all about and will start looking at it. and so it's very important even when art so-called era-less art to identify where it came from. to their credit, the germans have a wonderful process. there are 40,000 so-called, i hi it's called stempel stein or little risers outside of the apartments of jews that were expelled with their names and dates, and it's raised about an inch above the sidewalk so when you're walking, you have to look down, or you'll trip. and this is all over the country. and it's a way of saying this should be done again in the museums that the jewish family was expelled from here, and it's, again, a way of teaching lessons for the future. >> and also that there are actual web sites that the german

government have put together which today put up provenance information and objects with missing information and also objects lost from german museums. so there is information out there in a published form either on the internet or on books. whether they label it in their galleys, i really can't speak to that. >> i really hate to cut off the questioning at this point. >> don't. [inaudible conversations] >> well, susan, how much time do we have? >> [inaudible] >> ten minutes. oh, great. yes, ma'am. >> this is for mr. edsel. i noticed in the books you very rarely mention the monoyules women at all -- monuments women at all, so i was just wondering why you haven't told their story as well as the men's. [laughter] .. [laughter]

>> i haven't been busy enough? the women play an important role however during these times women worked in combat and so the effort of the women, it plays a role more behind-the-scenes helping assemble the maps used for allied pilots. some of the early intelligence work by people like our dealio call and edith stand and who an important curator for joseph widener whose collection is one of the early collections to come to the national gallery of art. their story really comes into focus at the conclusion of the war with it integral role they play at the collecting points helping get the setup and the sorting process for institutions. my three books, the first book i wrote rescuing da vinci which is

a photographic telling lists the names of all these people but it's not a narrative story and the two books that followed monuments men and saving italy tell the story of the origination of the idea and the historical background of the creation of art preservation officers going back to germany in world war i up until the end of the war in 1945. so the answer is not yet but i'm not unaware of it and it's all mind list of things to do. >> i would say that my colleague sylvia baylor, sylvia can you raise your hand. we'll have either tomorrow or friday on giuliana a monuments woman so i'm looking forward to reading that. >> we found one in 2009. my labor day was spent at a va

hospital in boston interviewing the bronze star recipient and just a tremendous tremendous woman. we had a great experience with her and hers is a story that you'll have a chance to know about in the time ahead. >> a member of the audience raised a point in mr. some of it about the monuments. there was a plan to save the artifacts and unfortunately not implemented but this was part of the 352 civil affairs special functions team. efforts were also undertaken by the colonel and is meant to save the treasures of iraq and the city stinking of sewage and army civil appears move to save modern or back as well as the treasures of the dynasty. the ambassador might like to know there was also ceramic

agent -- in a museum in baghdad. tonya ga headed the artifacts in that country was forced to flee for his life when the assassins got loose. unfortunately he died in a boston airport but the army was still interested in preserving the artifacts where we go. >> one thing with the iraqi government had shown any interest in maintaining and portraying these treasures but keeping it in the basement of the defense ministry what are they going to do if they get it back? >> go ahead. >> i just want to point out if everyone feels like they are sitting on a goldmine tonight they really are. i am steve katz into elderly jewish gentleman came into the congressional office of the great congressman and they told the story of austria having thousands of still looted artwork and agricultural

property in the government buildings and museums and the key to their story was that did you know congressman about all the captured german war records in the national archives. i was a young staffer. he sent me over to what was the collection ensued when the not for michael kurtz and the fine work of the archives we would never have forced the austrians into restitution plan. to the point about legislatures we need them in good democracies. we need to make them better and that democracies. the in austria they vitiated all the laws to get them re-created. the list that came out were frightening in terms of the pressure it took to bring this about. we had a jewish ambassador at the time in vienna. he wouldn't lift a finger. people don't want to get involved. so we need champions but for the national archives let me tell you folks these champions could

make their case. of the records i went through before greg's finding was created we have international archives the blueprints for hitler's museum. when you see that it's pretty frightening. for his birth date and maybe robert can confirm this hitler would produce four color brochures about the size of a readers digest of his favorite looted art and he would send this to the front lines of his troops. so i want to compliment the archives and asked michael if he has a second, how did the archives get all of the stuff they did -- because it includes the german war records from the salt mines that hitler hid the stuff then. >> and all the documents and we didn't understand at the time. >> the liu and everyone else. it's due to the national archives that we know this. >> back in the late 1990s

ambassador eizenstat you asked me how many pages of material do you have and i said 10 million? it sounds like a good number but actually i think i probably underestimated as we and covered more and more material. this created -- from our enemies. yes maam. do you want to respond might? >> very briefly. the national archives was the inheritor of the records that were seized by the army. the army over the process of many years and the national archives picked up the project, microfilmed the captured german records in order to preserve them and eventually the restitution of records -- and so we kept all the records of the united states army as it relates

to all the functions of combat and post-war operations and so when i started my research in 1979 there was no google. there was no greg. there was greg who was very helpful and so now one of the things i would like to mention also is the united states the national archives i should say, following up on what ambassador eizenstat was trying to achieve with the washington principles has established and created an international research portal for nazi era cultural property and is absolutely a treasure mind. if you need to as a family member or an heir to a piece of property try to trace a work of art study what's available on line. if you are doing research oriented historian and due to the work of the national archives there are now 19 other

national archives and art institutions around the world, in europe i should say that participate in this. you can do a great deal of research. that would have been absolutely physically impossible prior to five to 10 years ago. >> the best thing about being a citizen in this country, passport in the right to go to the national archives. i kid you not. these documents, these photographs is one of the great privilege is to be a citizen to go out there and see the labor of so many people that it worked out there and making them available whether it's your day off for doingese. >> i think i will let ambassador eizenstat make some closing remarks, at which point we will adjourn to where robert will be signing copies of his book. susan, does that sound like a good plan? i'm sorry we didn't get to you but perhaps you can address one of us afterwards.

ambassador eizenstat. >> i can say on a personal note that we should all be very proud to be americans, because what the national archives has as a great resource, what robert disclosed about the heroism of the monuments men, what it demonstrates about the determination of u.s. army, which after all in 43 the war was hardly one. it was hardly one. normandie hadn't even occurred. here we are in the midst of a cataclysmic battle, and general eisenhower takes it upon himself to issue this kind of directive. these men and women risk their lives because they think the art is so important. and it's that spirit that we need to get back to to continue the momentum. that would be the real tribute.

i would say also that one wished have the effort that went into this was put into saving the jews of europe, might not have had quite as cataclysmic an outcome but that should not anyway detract from this remarkable, heroic story. and again, only the united states of america could have taken this on itself and its of a war. and it's a great tribute to the country. it's a great tribute to the archives to have this, and a great tribute to robert for having brought this to must. [applause] >> well, thank you for coming, and we will see you outside. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> some of the duke administrators or let on who were not lawyers gave the kids bad legal advice which was essentially don't tell your parents, don't get lawyers, cooperate with the police and basically this is going to go away. so that gave duke, duke thought they had legal exposure because of that. and beyond that there was this desire to make this go away, to protect the duke brand, to make sure that, once it was decided

these kids were innocent, that the last thing duke wanted was to try to then have to litigate with them about all of what had happened. so the easiest course of action was to pay them this $20 million, have them i presume signed nondisclosure agreements which helps explain why they're not talking to me and haven't talked to anybody since they settled. but it's not exactly clear why duke felt the need to pay these kids. you know, people get, unfortunately, wrongly convicted all the time. they are -- there are places like the innocenc innocence proo defend those kinds of people and try to reverse the judgments that were made. examples of people wrongly convicted for murder, spent 18 years in prison. 18 years and get $20,000 payment a year as a result. these kids spent, other than their arraignment, an hour or

two, no time in jail, no time in prison and a $20 million. >> in "the price of silence" author and duke obama william d. cohan look at the duke lacrosse scandal of 2006 sunday night at eight on c-span's q&a. >> former british foreign secretary david miliband and former u.s. ambassador to syria robert ford discuss humanitarian efforts in syria. the washington institute host this event. it's about one hour 10 minutes. >> good afternoon, everyone. my name is andrew stigler, i'm a senior fellow here with the washington institute for near

east policy where i work on mostly syria among other things, or series and everything that it affects in the region. the discussion today is about the serious conflict and where strategic interest in human and -- imaging interest intersect it with over 160,000 killed, countless thousands injured, missing or detained, the syrian uprising continues to make a grizzly and double mark not only on syria but on the middle east as a whole with over 40% of serious 23 million population displaced internally, or as refugees during over three years of a bloody uprising, syria recently overtook afghanistan as the world's leader in forcibly displaced persons. a dramatic attempt to bring about a settlement have yielded very little to the syrian

people. indeed, during the recent geneva ii peace talks, were ambassador ford was president, ambassador samantha power from u.s. permanent representative to the united nations noted that the regime's bombardment of opposition controlled areas during the talks marked quote the most concentrated period of killing in the entire duration of the conflict, in history of the syrian conflict to date happened during those peace talks. following the breakdown of those talks, the assad regime's unwilling to discuss a transition. he is holding out for another kind of transition, centered on his quote reelection to a third term as syrian president which by some reports could be announced next week. if this occurs it's extremely unlikely diplomatic efforts would put the pieces of syria back together again anytime soon come into one country or anything were simply a functioning state anytime soon. while the situation has brought only misery for the syrian people, it has increase regional

and international security concerns as well. many have compared serious demise to that of the former yugoslavia, it now looks more like somalia where a bloody two decade long civil war has torn apart the state and created a sanctuary for criminals and terrorists. syria has already effectively fractured its three barely contiguous areas in which he was designated terrorist organizations are now ascended. the regime still holds sway in the western syria, and fighters from hezbollah, the shiite islamist group backed by iran, regularly cross increasingly meaningless lebanese for to join a side forces. they've been bolstered by shia militiamen from iraq, yemen, afghanistan amongst others leading some to refer to the regimes forces as iran's foreign legions. meanwhile, heavily sunni arabs north central region has come under the control of a diverse assortment of armed opposition groups including al-qaeda affiliates on this rock of islamic state of iraq and the

levant. in the kurdish north, an offshoot of the pkk has also dominated the theme and operates freely. meanwhile, attempts by neighboring states and world powers to contain the crises are under serious stress. car bombs and violence abroad lebanon and iraq, threatening both the countries fragile sectarian balance. currently struggling to defend its territory from cross-border attacks, weapon shipments. what is sometimes called the region's security architecture, in the middle is post-world war i boundaries, set nearly a century ago as was the people who live within the architecture are under unprecedented stress. this has deep limitations. to help us understand how he managing crisis in syria intersect with the west strategic interests, and what

policy prescriptions maybe not necessary, i'm joined by two very distinct gas. david miliband is the president and ceo of international refuge committed to see the agency for relief and development operations in over 40 countries, assistance programs and the irc's advocacy efforts in washington, geneva, brussels and the world's capital. on the half of the world's most vulnerable persons. prior to joining irc, mr. miliband had a distinguished political group in the united kingdom, serving between 2007-2010 as the youngest uk foreign secretary in three decades. during which he was a strident advocate for human rights. a second of state for the environment, he pioneered the world's first legally binding emissions. he served as minister of schools, head of downing street's number 10 policy unit. and a member of parliament.

mr. miliband's parents fled their home in belgium to england in 1940. as a son of a gc brings a personal commitment to irc's work. his accomplishments have earned him a reputation in the words of former president clinton is one of the most ablest and most creative public servants of our time. is an effective and passionate advocate for the world's uprooted and poor people. is joined today by ambassador robert ford. ambassador ford is a 30 year veteran of the u.s. department of state and peace corps, and recently finished his career as the u.s. ambassador to syria where he served from 2011-2013. this is not ambassador ford's first appearance at the washington institute but it is his first time here quote in the flesh. he joined us via skype from u.s. embassy in damascus for my book launch in october 2011. for his leadership of the american embassy in damascus, including his july 2011 trip to

support peaceful pro-democracy protesters, as was his leadership during an assault on the embassy following the trip, he received the presidential honor award and the sector as a distinguished service award, the u.s. department of state's highest achievement. for his defense of human rights in syria, the john f. kennedy library in boston to work in the annual 2012 profile in courage award. his penchant for do with the middle east from the ground up instead of the top down started during his stint as a member of the peace corps in morocco. like many, if not most, he chose his approach to middle east and learned arabic fluid. it often landed him in the hot seat in hot places. he served three times in iraq between 2003-2010 including as ambassador senior political advisor. later as deputy ambassador in iraq he assembled a government team that devised logistical and

security plans for the obamicons is used to set up to put a post in iraq. he also served as u.s. ambassador in algeria as well as during that country's civil war during the '90s, deputy ambassador in bahrain and was posted in turkey and cameroon. will start off with mr. miliband's comments and we'll move on to ambassador ford, and after that we will open up for a discussion. mr. miliband. >> well, thank you very much, andrew, good afternoon, everyone. it's a real pleasure to be here at the washington institute which is the is a well deserved reputation, a critical forum for public debate and dialogue, often on unfashionable issues. is a source of enormous sadness to me that the syria crisis, the region crisis is engulfing large part of the middle east should become a crisis that to me people don't want to talk about.

i'm grateful to the institute for putting this event together. i'm particularly delighted to be able to share a platform with ambassador ford, who really does deserve much more than i do your very kind introduction to ambassador ford has earned his introduction to the extraordinary public service. i'm looking forward to our conversation. i think that when i first talked about having this event, we wanted to try to tease out the interdependence between politics and the humanitarian challenge, the humanitarian agenda. because traditionally, i've moved from being some who've dedicated micro-to using politics and government to solve problems. i've now moved to dealing with situations like government or politics is the problem. if you like i'm looking at issues from the other end of the telescope. and traditionally, the

humanitarian sector sees itself dealing with the consequences of political failure, government there, most obviously is civil war. but what is really interesting about the syria crisis, the white american challenges, is the line doesn't flow in one direction. it's not just the political instability causes he managed care and -- connection trouble. it's the american crisis causes political instability. that's self-evidently true of the countries of the middle east that are afflicted by the syria crisis. what's interesting to me is it's also true in afghanistan and pakistan where we do a lot of work. it's true in large swaths of africa. i hope we can tease that out in the course of this discussion. i want to say a few things about how things look for a is as a humanitarian organization that is not dedicating about 20% of

its global budget to the syria crisis. what i would say in short is that the syria emergency has become the defining humanitarian crisis of our time. it's being defined for all the wrong reasons. above all, the failure of the military and community collectively to rise to the huge challenge that supposed by the terrible cocktail of dictatorship, religious entity, communal sector and is him, into regional power plays, global power plays that is at the heart of the syria conflict. but we were actually expelled from syria in damascus in 2009. we are not officially recognized in the country. we are working inside syria on a cross-border basis, and in the

four neighboring countries of turkey, jordan, lebanon and iraq. about 60% of our work is cross-border. and just by way of background, interesting, we are in washington where headquartered in the u.s. is a humanitarian organization, but a plurality of our funding for the syria crisis that comes from europe which i think is an interesting indication of the relative priority of the syria crisis. let me just say a bit about why the collective response looks more like a defining failure and a defining success for the humanitarian enterprise. i have to be careful when i talk about this because i am enormously humbled and proud, humbled in the face of the efforts and proud of the efforts of irc staff. we think we've helped about half

a million civilians access medical aid in the last three years. we think we've helped about half a million syrians inside the country come inside syria have access to medical aid through our efforts on the efforts of our staff and our street and partners, some of whom i think are in the room today. half a million more syrians inside syria have access to non-medical aid, just coming out of the winter. winter session gets and other help. at least equal numbers of syrian refugees have had help from us in the neighboring countries. so why does the collective response look more like a failure than success? there's a mismatch of need and help. to think nine and half million people now displaced from their homes. i think this is interesting, want to catch a sense of the diamond is in here. if i've been giving a speech, remarkable months ago, 2.4 million syrians in sees

areas. cities that are cut off from aid. with now, the u.s. talks the three about 3.5 million students cut off from medical aid, from aid because of the sees areas, a 1 million increase over the last two or three months. and, of course, inside syria it's a failure because the very notion of a civilian has been lost in the crisis which i think as wide consequences for those of us were concerned about international law, international humanitarian law around the world. the president that is being set in ensuring crisis is that there is no such thing as civilian, and whether you're an aid worker or a new citizen or civilian you are presumed to be on one side. the mismatch extends to neighboring countries. i always tell people lebanon, 5 million people, a million refugees, that dislike the whole of britain coming to america in the space of three years. you may like us but not that much.

we haven't found a way to dramatize what it means for countries like lebanon, it also for close of the united states like jordan, six and 50,000 registered refugees. the jordanian ambassador talked about an equal number of unregistered refugees. and jordan the population 5.5 million, the equivalent of the whole of poland coming to america in the space of two or three years. it may be an interesting piece of sort of the granularity from the field, the refugees who we are now helping in the neighboring countries are the victims of multiple displacement. displacement. they haven't just come come straight from a bombarded city into one of our centers in a neighboring country. they've been displaced around syria before making it out of the country. the education issue is getting some play. 80% of refugees in neighboring countries are women and kids.

there's not 88,000 kids in lebanon are going to school in the afternoon. that still leaves about 300,000 syrian of children in lebanon who have no education for three years. the estimates are by the end of the there will be 500,000 kids not getting education. that's the kind of mismatch we are talking about. any of you have been, i was last in lebanon three over four months ago, lebanon and turkey. the emergence of tainted cities around the country, 1000 lebanese towns and villages have had the population more than double. the shoulder issue is enormous. the u.n. appeal you will know about, $5.5 billion as for unoriginal basis, 1 billion received so about a 16% achievement rate. that's evidence of the mismatch. the crisis is getting worse but the political process is completely stalled, would be a generous description of the political progress.

let me give you a bit on, since the u.n. security council resolution, organizations like mine who work hard for over three years, it's pretty shocking indictment of division within the security council that it took three years to get a resolution solely on the politically neutral question of you managing help. since then there have been according to our research, to border openings of turkey to syria. convoys of food have come in for almost 400,000 people. but that's not feeding them for a year. it's feeding them once. so it's important not to get this out of proportion to temporary security improvements in a level about some supplies and that government restrictions and remember these are restrictions on the u.n. and ngos were working inside syria -- aleppo, having it at least 12 of the 14 governments. just in terms of where this is

going, we're out of winter. were now very concerned with spring and summer on the way, increase risks of transmission of disease, the polio outbreak got quite a lot of coverage last november. people are talking about measles. it's a major concern. the danger of drought in the northeast of syria i think is very significant over the summer months. food crisis. continuing destabilization of the neighbors given the thousands who are writing every day. -- who are arriving every day. the resilience i think has been extraordinary over the last three years, but i don't think we should be complacent about it. i just want to pick up something that andrew referred to. someone said to us, president assad has got the war he wanted. it's a war in which his enemies are described by some people in terms of making them as bad as

him. and in that sense it's the war that he wanted to use the example of somalia. people have talked about the lebanon session. i think it's almost more from it's a more serious than that. i talk about the afghanization of the center and the afghanization in the sense it's no man's land, incoming turns into becomes, very interesting piece in the london review of books this month by a professor who talked about a credo for a research al-qaeda industry that's why the notion of an afghanization is appropriate. let me just finish with the following reflection. sometimes we in the american sector talk about campaigning for more access, that we talk about access issues that are

making it difficult to get humanitarian aid through. and it makes the problems almost seem like some sort of unfortunate accident. it's almost as if, in the example i give you, if someone is being strangled, you don't say they've got problems accessing and. it's an active process, not a passive byproduct of some sort of closing of your arteries or something. it's an active process. the humanitarian situation in syria is not the accidental byproduct, the unfortunate byproduct of a war without war. it's a strategic product of a war without law. i think it's really important to understand that, trying to think to what extent can a jamaican sector be held, the phrase i use is we have the ability to staunch the dying and mitigate the suffering. but we don't have the ability to

stop the killing but it takes politics to stop the killing. that if you're interested in stanching the dying or relieving the suffering, i can report that actually have the capacity to do more. so the funding constraint is bigger than the security constraint at the moment. and how can we break that cycle? some points i want to make. one is the best in the world, john kerry has got a lot on his plate to he can't get anything other than temporary attention to the syria crisis. we are arguing that every permanent member of the student council, and all interested parties, should appoint a humanitarian envoy who would be a full-time focus on the humanitarian crisis. the u.n. ambassador, a diplomat a distinction and muscle with

the support of their head of government to give ongoing engagement at local level but also at an international to the mentoring situation, broken the cease-fire to broker through are opening up to public scrutiny some of the abuse that's going on. it's very important that we legitimize and talk about and emphasize the centrality of cross-border operations. you don't need a special u.n. security does a resolution to legitimize cross-border operations. governments have a responsibility to facilitate cross-border effort. it's important in the debate at the u.n. we don't lose sight of that. thirdly, one of the important parts of any humanitarian agenda has to be to put pressure not just on the party but on the supporters of the conflict so they have to be held accountable. fourthly, the use of mandates for the u.n. for inside syria,

the image of the u.n. shut to you in cars coming out a the middle of homes with civilians between them being shot at. and the bullets being taken by the u.n. is an excellent attribute to the bravery of the u.n. but they need to be stood up, they need to be sorted in the work that they are doing. so just to finish on the following note to if we had been having this meeting three years ago, and i said to you, look, my fear is that in three years time there will be 160,000 dead, 6.0's place within the country, 3 billion displaced next-door, 1500 kids assassinated, large numbers of people and government and torture chambers, polio on the loose but if i said that, you would say can't be that bad. i think we would have said, my goodness, we are responsible to do something. i think it's worth having that kind of perspective because

otherwise our senses are going to be doled to what is extraordinary crisis that is not going to be contained within the boundaries of one country. thank you very much indeed. [applause] >> good afternoon. andrew, andrew let me thank you and patrick clawson hoosiers somewhere in this large group, for the invitation to come today. i'm very flattered to be with david miliband. i have huge respect for respected international rescue committee is doing on behalf of syrians, and really it's a big honor for me to be up at the table with you. i also just want to say, i see a number of familiar faces that i just want to say hello. joann cummings is here, and she was with me at the embassy in damascus, event with a very good work, the state department

centesenther to work in yemen. so glad to see you home safely, joann. do you ever do paris? [laughter] and then i also see connie mayor is here from the state department, she and i have noodled the syria lebanon conundrum for 25 years. i see jeremy shapiro here who we used to sit around and think how can we address and fix this syria problem? and it's just a tragedy. and then finally i see basam ithoc had the backing 2011 when we had hopes that the regime would actually engage seriously with the opposition, i worked a lot with him on trying to get that dialogue started. it ended when the regime went into a couple places and arrested everyone. and its content was quite clear by then come by july 2011. so what can i say about the

extended searing crisis? david did a good job in andrew, summing up a couple points i would like to make. first, the united states is hugely concerned about this. we have a big team at the state department and the u.s. agency for international development who work on this. secretary kerry is personally very interested in it. i spent all of time with him. we are the largest, the united states is the largest single donor to the syrian relief efforts, a total now of $1.7 billion, and that is a lot of money in this budget climate. that's about got to $1.7 billion after secretary kerry went to a conference in kuwait in january this year, january 2014, and announced a $380 million increase, which brought our total funds available for syrian

relief efforts up to 1.7 billion. and that money is going in part to refugees, two-and-a-half, 2.6 million refugees, in particular in turkey, lebanon, lebanon, a million come almost a third of the population come unbelievable. jordan and iraq. and in a very large part of that money is also going to help people in need inside syria. part of that is distributed through the united nations, and they do want on this occasion to signal a huge thanks to the united nations for their efforts inside syria. there are a lot of heroes working for the united nations inside syria. and john and valerie amos are doing their utmost. john has been a real fighter. week, the americans come in addition to the 1.7 billion i mentioned there is additional

money where providing to local communities in areas where the syrian regime has lost control. these are in particular in the north and the northwest, aleppo, added to the east where we are providing things like rescue equipment, where we are providing food, and now we are paying salaries in some places for police and even teachers to sort of keep communities going. but in the end, as david so eloquently said, the crisis is not getting better. the crisis is getting worse. and i mentioned the people in the refugee camps where we and other countries are directing assistance, to me, they are the lucky ones. they are the lucky ones. the ones that are really suffering and the ones i want to spend just a couple minutes talking about are still inside syria and under blockade, which i find simply outrageous. according to the latest you --

united nations estimate i've seen from the syrian government forces have under blockade approximately 175,000 civilians. that's down i just to extend to its is good news, down from about 200,000 at the start of the year. they are mainly located in the damascus suburbs. but there are some other places such as in homes where there has been an uptick in fighting just over the last few days. this action, blockading, aid convoys, associated with syrian arabic crescent, this blockade absolutely contravenes the geneva convention -- convention. i have to say we have to be honest about it. it is regime tactic of war. the regime basically is doing this in sensitive areas which it's trying to recapture. often the places that they're

trying to retake on your highways are there just outside damascus. they don't have enough troops to go in. this regime is now suffering from major manpower shortages which is why the hezbollah intervention and intervention by iraqi shia militia is becoming more and more important. but facing manpower shortages the regime doesn't have enough troops to actually go in for a full-scale us also to surround committees and try to recapture and they basically shut all traffic in and out. what that has created in just the last few months has been in some media reports, are efforts by people inside, civilians were literally starving to death, for local cease-fires whereby in return for armed opposition elements in making their case turning over heavy weaponry, the regime blood food supplies in. in some places, some places these local cease-fires have been respected, have been observed for time.

in some places had collapsed almost immediately. but i think what's important for people here to understand, these blockades are conscious government tactic of war and it is not going to change, i do not think, as long as the regime is fighting for its life. even in places where the regime has allowed cross-border convoys, particularly up in the northeast an in the kurdish are, basically that allow them to go in in places where a kurdish militia, the pkk's militia, is in control. so the regime assures the convoys passed largely without to its friends. the u.n. security council resolution that was passed in figure with a great step forward, but it's not being implemented on the ground. we can talk about the russian reactions to this, if there are

questions from this audience. let me then finish my remarks quickly by just talking a bit about the opposition and its role in blockades. i have heard some countries say both sides are doing this. i've heard that quite a bit in places like geneva. the reality is that there are some small towns which the opposition also has blockaded. and in particular, the two you will hear about regularly, just to the north west of a level from an era of a place -- aleppo. these are not unlike what the regime has inflicted in places, these are not airtight blockades. the opposition often doesn't control access fullycome and food supplies come into these places from the north, from pkk kurdish areas. and these are places which have

been shelling opposition sites inside aleppo which is why they attracted the attention of the opposition. i do not justify the blockade. but -- that the opposition has imposed on these places, but it is nowhere near the scale of what the regime is doing, and to equate the two i think is to commit the broader point of what is going on in syria in terms of human rights violations, and violations of international norms. but i think the remarks last week found united nations human rights commission are spot on. last thing i want to say. it is important as we do with the opposition, we talk about humanitarian law and access, they have themselves, the ever splintered but i remember john said to me that when the u.n. tried to run convoys up from

damascus to aleppo last winter, they had to go through 53 roadblocks between damascus and aleppo. he said they were roughly half and half, half regime and have opposition. and so as we the americans think about the opposition and how to encourage a moderate, one of the things we need to do is to find ways to bring the opposition to work anymore automated fashion. there needs to be some consolidation among their ranks. i'm happy to talk about that further. i'm going to stop there so going to stop there's a weakened opened up for questions. again, thank you very much for this invitation. [applause] >> thank you, robert. thank you, david. i'm going to start off with the first question for this conversation, and it is a bit of conservation i think, unlike a lot of events we have a. over the did an excellent job of outlining i thought of the

symptoms of this crisis. and in humanitarian sense, oftentimes the policy response is about dealing with symptoms, number of displaced persons, food packets, these kinds of issues. but i got a sense from both of your presentations, but particularly from david, that there was also a sense in dealing with the symptoms of the disease was no longer adequate in that the conflict is obviously growing in scale. while it has fallen off the television screens of americans and others due to a plan, the tragic plane that has gone down in the southeast indian ocean or crimea, this room is nevertheless filled with people are concerned about what's going on in syria. so my question to both of you is, in terms of dealing with the syria crisis, much has been done by your organization and also by

the united states government, as robert outland, to deal with the symptoms of this disease. but how to become about and deal with the disease itself? how do we get on a track to try to do with and bring about an end, not just an end that can end up in a temporary cease-fire, truly a settlement in syria that can see syria begin to rebuild into the future? >> look, there are two inhibitions in answering that question. one, it's a remarkably difficult question. secondly, i am running an international humanitarian organization that has -- so there's a natural innovation of what i can say and speculate about taking over the line into

politics. i think that we've got to understand where we are before you can figure out where to go to edit a bit easier for me to talk about where we are then perhaps what might happen next. i think that the moment of maximum weakness of the regime was shortly after ambassador ford left, the jury did in the middle of 2012, the second half of 2012 looked like a period of maximum weakness for the regime, the unity of the opposition forces was not sufficiently degraded, and the sense of alliances of the government forces was weaker. second point, i think that i'm allowed to say that many of the arguments have been put against

a greater involvement by the west, that if the west got involved it would be more refugees, that al-qaeda, more chemical weapons and all those things happen anyway. i think it's worth reflecting on that over the last, over the course of that, the last three years. western governments have undoubtedly reflected the caution and the leering this of their population in getting their fingers and another middle eastern mangle in the portion that it's been brought in debt. but many of the things we most feared that would be triggered by further western engagement have happened anyway and i think that's worth reflecting on. thirdly, i think the potential of this to become a regional crisis is now very, very puntland. irc wrote a report before

started irc in gender 2013, there was, irc fact i report on syria, a regional crisis. a lot of people talked about it being a civil war but actually i think one has to understand the regional players have got involved. that it begins to speak, if you take those reports, you can begin to seek to draw some implications about the way in which you might want to address it in the future. >> robert? >> from the beginning we have seen the only way out of this conflict is, the ultimate have to be a negotiation between opposition and the regime. that's why we worked so very hard to get to a geneva conference. but i also have to be honest, that did not go anywhere. the regime is not interested in negotiating any kind of a transition government, and that was made abundantly clear in

geneva. and what was also interesting was that the russians either could not or did not exert enough pressure on the regime to actually make it discuss even put on an agenda for a discussion of a transitional government. the opposition did actually table an interesting initial proposal for a transitional government. you can read it on the internet, for those who are so inclined. so the root cause of messages -- of the problem is a sure assad is a magnet that is not attractive to foreign fighters and dessert generation -- generated huge opposition inside syria. so the fate of him is tied to the fate of the nation. and his likely announcement of running for reelection, the regime said it will announce the date in the next week, as lakhdar brahimi said, the

special envoy and civilian normalcy public it's setting up that transition government. so what to do? don't think it's a surprise. i think there needs to be more pressure on the regime. that's part of it. but another part of it is this going to have to be a diplomatic part in terms of getting an agreement within the various players in the region and internationally. i do mean in part russia and iran. that their interests are not being served by bashar al-assad continuation of this war. in addition to the regional instability that david was just talking about, there is also a very real security threat. there are lots of chechens now learning tricks of the trade in syria, fighting on behalf of the opposition. they are all over the youtube. they do not represent the

majority of the fighters against assad, but they're absolutely there. and that cannot be good for the russians internal security. the iranians also should beware of a large ungoverned space in syria that god forbid might even extend into iraq where al-qaeda and its friends have great deal of room to organize and plan. that cannot be in iran's interest either. and yet bush are is now a symbol that is attracting jihadi. and so we're going to put pressure on the regina were going to need to find some kind of international consensus in order to restart a political negotiation. i don't think that's today or tomorrow. >> to just follow up on that. does this pressure then, currently we have a huge number of sanctions on the assad regime including individuals, on energy

exports. we have also our support for the opposition itself. what kinds of pressure are we talking about? i would talk about red pickup current pressure, pressure we haven't exuded so far? can you go into detail about that? >> i think the question is for you. [laughter] >> to me, andrew, there are three kinds of pressure that will be important. the first is, it is a war. and so assistance to moderates in the opposition on the ground really matter. the state department, for example, is providing a lot of normally assistance to the free syrian army and i think that assistance is vital to helping them carry forward the fight.

second, second, there's also a different kind of pressure on the regime which matters, and i spoke about this recently at the wilson center. it is important for the opposition to find ways to reach out to those communities in syria that still support bashar and explained that they have a vision that does not include massacres and large-scale retaliatiretaliati on, or any retaliation, against those communities, minority or otherwise, that have supported the regime. there is a genuine fear, read the media reports, in places that if the opposition wins, long bearded extremists are going to go through and cutthroats. it is incumbent on the moderate opposition to explain that they do not represent that, they are taking steps to forestall that, and thereby, give those

communities which have supported bashar, and not very enthusiastically in many cases, give them an alternative. so that's the second kind of pressure, undermining the regime politically. and then the third is undermining their foreign support, the support that russia and iran have provided are absolutely instrumental. i just today read a blog posting from a british journalist named edward dark and gives up in aleppo with some of the regime soldiers and their talk about how they were hanging on in aleppo. there's an opposition offensive underway in aleppo right now. the regime is losing ground little by little. edward was talking to the syrian regime soldiers who moved back away from the fighting for a day or two, and they mentioned that hezbollah had just hit in 250 -- said in 250 new troops. they said africa troops. they don't think like we do, which i thought was very interesting.

[laughter] so giving, convincing the foreign supporters of the assad regime that there has to be a better way is also important. .. >> in all the debate about military intervention, yes or no, humanitarian, what scale, yes or no, the absence of a clear political answer to the question

of what we're talking about a transition to, what comes after president assad, the vacuum when it comes to political security, constitutional, economic guarantees and underpinnings of a functioning state, the absence of that political settlement about the distribution of power has been very, very striking. and i think the absence of that political -- i don't like to call it, it's not about a political vision, the notion of a political settlement speaks more strongly to the lessons that we should have learned from iraq and afghanistan, in the absence of that kind of political settlement, you don't get the defections from inside the regime, you don't get the rallying of public opinion, you don't get the context within which the military to and fro takes place. and i do think that without that kind of political orientation it's very, very hard to see words about compromise and post,

you know, ohs-president as sood -- post-president assad, it's very hard to see that coming off. >> okay. we'll begin questions. can we have the microphone over here, please? we'll begin with -- [inaudible] actually and then this gentleman. yes. just one -- [inaudible conversations] >> maybe, we'll go one by one and then -- >> thank you, andrew. gpa global policy advisers, to the extent that mr. miliband wants to chime in, please. i want to pick up on your last point about engaging regime supporters. we've certainly attempted that as it comes to the russians in the past, but there are ongoing talks with iran as it relates to its nuclear program. now, the publicly-stated position that be that these talks have been exclusively focused on the nuclear issue. however, there's been credible reporting of which i'm sure you're aware that there are some back channel negotiations that

have taken place in the past with the iranians. so my question to you is, i guess, a two-part question. your personal assessment as to whether that would be helpful at all in trying to get a political resolution to the problem in syria and, second, whether you think that might be ongoing if you're at liberty to discuss that. thank you. >> well, since i retired, i actually can't tell you what we're doing with iran today. but let me say a couple of things about that. number one, iran is an important country in the region, and it has interests in the levant, and so i think they're going to have to be engaged at some point. there was quite a discussion about whether or not they should be invited to the january 22nd conference, and in the end they were not because they themselves would not come out and publicly say they accept the geneva communique of june 2011, and the

invitation to montrose specifically said acceptance of the communique and negotiation to stand up a transition government. the transition government that i was talking about, i think, actually, is what david is talking about as well and negotiate the division of power within a transition government and in a longer-term plan for a settlement. so, but we have always said that even if iran was not at that conference and was not in that initial event that there needed to be a way for rapp to be included -- for iran to be included in discussions in some manner. but i'm not aware that that's ever actually been agreed upon and how that would be done. i can imagine lots of different models for that, and i'm not sure what would be acceptable not only to iran, but to other countries in the region who are extremely sensitive about iran and not to mention the syrian

opposition itself. so, yes, to figuring out a way to deal with iran, but i can't see exactly how or when we're going to do that. >> thank you. my name's -- [inaudible] journalist. ambassador ford, you and i crossed paths in iraq, you were the deputy ambassador. and your former boss, ambassador crocker, who was also in syria believes it's unwise not to have any level of engagement with the regime. in fact, he suggested recently that perhaps you ought to explore ways to engage the regime, especially on the humanitarian issue. how could you facilitate all this aid that needs to go throughout syria without engaging the regime, you know? and perhaps with that gasping prayer, as you suggested, mr. miliband? thank you.

>> do you want to -- >> i mean, the, on the relief side there are a number of ngos who are present in damascus, although heavily circumscribed in what they're able to do. as i said, we were expelled in 2009 for reasons that are not, remain unclear. and for humanitarian organization the pledge is that you will help people in need irrespective of their political affiliation, and that remains the basis on which we look at where we work and how we work and, obviously, the u.n. is engaging with the regime. it must be, though, a source of enormous distress but also significance how little the u.n. security council resolution has changed the actions of the regime in respect to the humanitarian situation.

and the word that's been ringing through my head in the last 10 or 15 minutes is accountability. there isn't accountability for actions even when they are illegal, and that is a very serious indictment not just of the u.n., but the danger is it makes a mockery of the nations of theup. because, of course, the u.n. is an institution that, in the end, is only as strong as the unity of the nations who make it up. and i think that is the context in which you need to think about the question you've asked. >> one quick point. there may or may not be a utility in engaging the regime, but it's really kind of a sterile conversation if you say to them the geneva conventions require you to allow humanitarian assistance to civilians to go through. and if the regime then wants to negotiate that place by place by place by place, that is an unending game. we actually saw that happen in the former yugoslavia.

that is not a good road to go down. so when you talk about engaging the regime on humanitarian assistance, i think what we really want is the regime to recognize that it has an obligation under the geneva conventions to allow that to go through. they have very good lawyers. i met a number of them at the foreign ministry. i think they can read the geneva conventions just as well as we can here. so i'm not sure exactly what the conversation's going to be like. >> jonathan and then, i think, dan raviv with cbs? jonathan's here. >> jonathan -- [inaudible] with mcclatchy newspapers. i spent a couple of weeks on the regime side in january/february, and i want to talk, ambassador ford, about your point for the need for the moderate opposition to reach out to these communities that support the sort of ones that are on the

kind of the fence, but on the assad side of the of the fence,t they need reassurance. there's another part of that equation, and that is these -- and i spoke to sunnis,al whites, others, christians --al to whites who reluctantly support assad asking with the lesser of the two -- as being the lesser of the two evils. they don't see an opposition that isn't able to have any credibility. nor do they see any kind of unified policy either from the united states or its western allies or the arab, or its arab allies either. how do you, how does the moderate opposition gain the kind of those communities' confidence or regain the confidence when they -- how do you address their perceptions of the disunity and the weakness of the pod rate opposition -- moderate opposition in order to achieve what you're talking about? >> let's take jonathan's question together with dan's.

>> well, it does sort of fit with jonathan's. i was wondering, and maybe ambassador ford would be, you know, best for this, what's the level of passion for the fight? there's been mention this afternoon that the syrian armed forces are having a manpower problem, but what about all the other forces, factions, etc. some of them, obviously, have come from overseas to learn how to fight. but more broadly, is everyone getting tired? do they want it to end? how much will is there to lay down arms? >> okay. if we could take those two questions. >> the second one, let me answer because -- i think people in syria are far more tired than they were in 2011 or 2012. i think infinitely more tired. and you look at the scenes of destruction, you were there, you saw it yourself. some of the cities are just shattered.

but that doesn't seem to be enough to actually compel the regime to sit down and have a serious conversation. instead, bashar is going forward unilaterally and going toward to re-- going forward to re-election in a country where more than a third of the population is either refugees or internally displaced. i can't even imagine how they're going to do a voter registration process. and let's be honest, nobody has ever won an election except an assad during the assad period. so your question, i think, is a really good one about what can the moderate opposition do to reassure. so let me throw out some comments. i mentioned that they put forward a proposal in geneva, and by the way, we didn't see it in advance. we learned about it after they'd put it on the table. so much for our close ties to the opposition.

it's a starting point to negotiate, and i think they need to highlight that. but it's actually not as important what the national coalition says as what the armed groups say. and so there's a real need to tie together the political opposition and the armed opposition behind a political vision at least for the short transition period, and after that there should be and there must be real competition between different political forces inside syria. but, hopefully, political competition within boundaries negotiated on some kind of transition towards a more representative system. so my main interest is the armed opposition and its political attitudes and those be tied back to the political opposition. i was very encouraged that some

members of the armed opposition did come to geneva ii and blessed what the political opposition was doing and was trying to do in terms of a negotiation. and i think more effort needs to be expended to bring the remainder of the armed opposition -- i'm not talking about al-qaeda. they're never going to negotiate. but there are other elements of the armed opposition, the islamic front, for example, that never actually blessed that, and i think there's going to have to be an effort to convince them too that there has to be a negotiation. and i think once you can get a broader segment of the armed opposition to follow that, i think that will at least address some of the concerns. there's a lot of other things that have to be done as well, but i think as a starting point that's where to go. >> okay. sorry, could we get a microphone up here, please?

and we'll take it together with daniel's question. yes, then we'll go to the next round. >> thank you. [inaudible] ambassador ford, as you know there were people in the past including yourself who said that the days of the regime back then were literally numbered. how willing would you be to applying that phrase to the regime now even in the most metaphorical manner? and, david miliband, you talked about the apprehension about a vacuum that may result if the regime were to topple tomorrow. how many of the the refugees do you think, syrian refugees in lebanon, in jordan, elsewhere in the region are actually worried about the opposite of a vacuum, are worried about if he makes a run and becomes president again? >> and taken together with daniel's question.

yeah, microphone over here, daniel serwer. please raise your hand, daniel, sorry. bit of a -- >> thank you. i wonderi could -- i wonder if i could, taking my hint from mr. miliband's notion that things have gotten worse over the last three years, i wonder if i could ask you both to speculate on the next three years. what kind of humanitarian crisis do we face, what kind of political crisis do we face for syrian state structures, andñje face with respect to extremists? which seem, to me, to be the main u.s. interests here. >> address those two questions, and then we'll move to the last. >> just on the refugee experience, i mean, obviously, this is anecdotal rather than scientific. i mean, i