>> but they didn't say that they were going to reject a star proposal. i think about would be guiding the shoemakers in the future as

well. [inaudible question] >> you are making a speech in which he talked about the palestinian rocket fire on israel with the german attacks on london. and i'm wondering if that is accurate, if the reports are accurate. so i'm wondering if you could talk about how in your mind you can compare the attacks on this area they killed an estimated 9000 people. >> well, what i was talking about is how countries respond to the threat of missile attacks and what actions they take in response to those missile attack. and you are right that the civilian casualties were much greater than they are in israel. and it's not because hamas is trying to do that but because the system is working better.

so as i said before the reason why think that iron dome protects them gets to the exact point you are making now they don't have mass casualties on the israeli side and if you did then israel would probably be forced into a much horse will respond from otherwise be the case until my issue is the criticism of israel for the way that people perceive that it is. so you may disagree that it was through the united states or britain and they would take is a waste a forceful action. but if you had an attack from contiguous territory of two thirds of on shelters, because everybody knows what i'm saying is true and it's really important to remember how this

works. especially one in similar situations, not a perfectly similar situation because of the casualties him as you mentioned, but you have a party that wants to destroy israel nsi said they called for genocide of the jewish people worldwide and you can read it there. so it's not because they don't have the will or the intention to do a because they don't have the capability and that is a compact and i made and i think it's very important and this is the central point. and so i don't think that israel should be judged by a standard of perfection. we are not perfect, we make mistakes and a missile can hit the wrong place, but we don't target civilians. so given the fact that we have our people in on shelters, i think that israel should earn the admiration of the international community for the restraint that it has shown in the face of these are. you know, we have our soldiers right now, our soldiers are

dying so that innocent palestinians can live and not is what happens because a lot of the operations that we have you won't have to put soldiers in. it happened with or and i remember it happened in 2002. and also to statements that were made when our troops went into the june event in 2002 and that is a place where more suicide bombers came out in any area in the west bank. they could have decided that we are going to tell people you have 48 hours to leave the area and soldiers went into those areas and died protect the innocent. what is happening now is we have soldiers fighting and people standing in the house using civilians as human shields and we now have a suicide bombing situation going on in the area where soldiers are fighting, whether it is explosives, cars, all of that information is starting to come out and they

are once again using suicide bombers and hamas is an organization that uses about 80 of them to blow up our cafés and pizza shops. so the general point that i make is that israel should not be judged by a standard of perfection, and we will continue to insist that we hold the highest value and you have to ask yourself this simple question, what would america do. you can follow what would france do, britain, other countries. how would another threat be responded to, a similar threat. so i haven't heard that any of them would respond with less force. as i said last night we're not talking about a worn thousands of miles away. we are talking about the decision-making happening when two thirds of the country is in bomb shelters and when the prime minister secretary of state said the other day on television that

he has else of his foes to go into a bomb shelter. so imagine that situation happened time after time. and so i said that you were accused, if i was on the taken, but i think 500 people and another person said it was 5000 people. it's always just thrown out there. and so this is what you have. so in three months you have like 9000 people killed and a half million people and there are 6000 people that were wiped out, 10,000 people were exterminated every day in auschwitz. and so we are doing everything to make sure that the billion casualties are not, that the civilians are not heard. despite all those allegations,

when all the dust settled, it remains and stays there. but when all the dust settles eu and in a report and i believe they came up with 54 people that were killed and i think 51 of them were armed according to a u.n. report. so let's wait until everything ends before people rush to judgment about israel's act and you'll see exactly what i said yesterday, that no military has done as much as israel has to avoid civilian casualty on the other side. >> we have about 20 minutes left. [inaudible question] >> i'm wondering what is the state after this operation and are you engaged on this replenishment and secondly, human rights watch come you mentioned rules of war and human

rights watch came out detailing cases where israel violated the rules including boys killed on the beach on the waterfront. >> how do they make that investigation? >> they have concluded and now they're going to look or evidence. >> the first question they asked me about this. >> okay, so obviously there is some information that we talk about publicly and i can only tell you that israel is quite capable of defending us. the second thing is that we are constantly in touch with the administration about the issue and as i have said we received the support of that we have from them in congress and additional monies that congress has already passed a week ago or 10 days ago

it has to do with moving part of the assembly line to the united states. some of that will happen here and that was supposed to balance out. and so let's understand something. one of the reasons that hamas is using human shields in zimbabwe is not just because of the nature of the regime and the people, if you yourself are going to have this, you're not going to care about the palestinian civilian population. but beyond that, one of the reasons why they do this is because it works and it's a strategy that seems to work and what happens is even the most careful action by israel would lead to civilian casualties and if those casualties then have

pictures, you then have video in it's heart wrenching. and so unaffected i'm affected by it as well and i understand the contacts and why israel has to do the action is taking. so what they rely on is pictures lead to pressure on israel and that's only what happens. you push one button and you put he put them in harms way and that's what hamas does by placing the missile batteries were they place them, firing from areas where they fired. and then the second step is to have them respond in the third step requires that those be blamed on israel and if they succeed in doing that in this becomes an effective strategy, they continue to do it again and again which gets me to the point

where after 2009 you have this report and we tried to talk about these war crimes. it leads to the situation where hamas feels that it's in their interest to place their command centers next to hospitals and schools because they can get away with that the question i asked this last night in his speech that i gave is a will the world actually taken down again the use of human shields. i saw that senator barbara boxer sent a very strongly worded letter to the head of the u.n. human rights commission and council who had made a statement 10 days or week before and said why are you not taken a stand and senator durbin had issued a written about that. the question is where is the u.n. and what they should be

doing is dumbing hamas not just one or two sentences in a 10 page indictment of israel, but focus on this and this can lead to a change. the chances of them using a go down. you asked me about specific cases of human rights and how can you make that calculation. they don't know the evidence and they don't know what israel's decision-making is at the time to accuse someone of a war crime is a deliberate act and i know it is target them. and i don't know what led to civilians being killed. until you get all the facts you cannot make that judgment. it's what they are doing is serving in this court that somehow afterwards will try to find asked.

but with the statements they made an wait until all the facts are in and then you will see that what i told you was true. we will go case by case and we have an investigative arm to everything and anyone who deliberately targets the innocent is held accountable. it is not the policy of israel's government and what i have seen having been in the war room, it is remarkable how much, as i said, and the legal decisions go with the rules of war and how much they are involved in the day-to-day and our decision-making portion of israel, every single strike is something that we appropriate legal officials in the military would have to authorize.

[inaudible question] >> obama famously put the odds of reaching a nuclear agreement no better than 50/50 in light of developments. where would you put the odds? would israel consider itself bound by it in some sort of nuclear program in iran? >> i don't know what the odds are. and i haven't seen any evidence that this is serious about dismantling their nuclear weapons capabilities. and so if that is the case then it will obviously lead to one outcome assuming that they would have to significantly diminish their nuclear weapons capability. israel's position is that they

don't need any capability whatsoever, they don't need nuclear weapons capability and this has been a difference between us and the international community because they say that they should have a weapon we say that they shouldn't have a nuclear weapon of ability. but a peaceful civilian nuclear program, israel has assessed that to be in the wrong. but i don't think they understand that you do not need an underground bunker in the side of a mountain or is to have a program. so they don't need any of that stuff and that is why they shouldn't have it. and there are 17 countries around the world, including the one i've been in southern neighbors and so there's no reason why they should have any of those capabilities including

significantly dismantling it. they don't need any of that have a peaceful program. of course iran is not interested in this program and that is why they have invested tens of billions of dollars in their nuclear program and that is why they have absorbed well over 100 xt billion dollars and they don't have is that there is than to give a nuclear payload and so they have already been able to reject this, so they are able to continue their illicit nuclear program and what they did it and

so their position is that the world should stand very firm and ensure that iran has sued fully dismantle its nuclear weapons capability. and so what i would suggest everyone here is imagine if we were meeting exactly one year ago today. and i would tell you that i believe that it's possible and everyone would've thought that there is no chance for that have that happen. but that didn't happen. there was a right mix of pressure with credible military force and the diplomatic view the basically forced syria to

dismantle everything of its chemical weapons arsenal which is strategically for israel very important that these weapons have been removed and something that obama doesn't get enough credit for for having achieved a very significant objective. because the nightmare scenario a year ago was the class of syria, chemical weapons in a dozen places and then also some parties getting their hands on these weapons rant to imagine them running through with chemical weapons and i think that the diplomatic thing that we have done, every deal that we have done has a certain hot elation of orson and it's true that it hasn't solve the humanitarian situation in syria

and from this point of view the syrian deal is a good deal. and so we were never opposed with talking to iran. even during the interim agreement. we just had keep the pressures up because the best situation from our point of view would be to fully dismantle iran's nuclear weapons capabilities without having to take military action. so that is the best point of view. and israel always reserves the right to defend it self and we have a regime that is openly calling and working in supporting terrorism all over the world and they perpetrated attacks on five continents in 25 countries in last four years and they are the patron of hezbollah , which is their main proxy in syria and that is

something that we have not talked about because hamas has had a different relationship that has changed over time and so they also not only armed and helped train hamas for many years, but now the palestinians have significant weapons arsenal that is not reported a lot and they represent a great threat to my country. >> last question. peter baker? >> we have been very good about explaining this. your explanation has been

excellent, but i'm wondering if you could explain about this referring to what he calls a pinpoint operation and then secondly it i'm wondering how you put what happen right now and honestly mention syria and iraq and the tall over the last couple of years. how do you think this goes? >> i saw that clip and it wasn't clear what he's actually was actually looking at. i can only tell you that i have spoken to the secretary personally and the prime minister has a number of times and there are these very strong public statements and he is understanding that war -- how did he put it? as someone who has fought in

wars committee understand that you can have civilian casualties and we can have very strong backing and especially from president obama and secretary kerry. so as with the regional forces, and the question raises ideas and you can look at why is hamas doing what hamas is doing other than the lack that they want to kill as many people as possible. okay. but why now? they feel that they are under enormous pressure. and it's because they have very few friends in the arab world. and hamas is pretty much the only people who are opposing this and the change in egypt has

changed their environment as well because the government has cracked down in a very serious way against this. so those tunnels that i am talking about include the tunnels between egypt and gaza and there were hundreds and over a thousand hamas. and we have a customs and loeb and we collect this information and we transferred to the palestinian authority's. and their source of cash is coming from that underground economy that the egyptian government led by icc has really cracked down on the terror activity also within this area.

so they see not only is hamas part of the muslim brotherhood, but also hamas was involved in one form or another and they know that. and i think the basically have radical shiite forces led by ron. and there you put in isis and al qaeda and others and there is a great battle and sometimes it's a battle between them and sometimes in certain areas taken crossover that divide with a lot of money they supported iran by hamas for years and they tried

to a few months ago interjected that and that had 40 of these rocket which is 44 miles from the northern tip of gaza. and so we interjected 40 of those rocket and you had cases where iran, the leader of the shiite radicals, they could support this and basically you have a big struggle going on also between them in many areas are in to what we see is the great danger of allowing any of those arteries to get access and that is why we see chemical weapons in agreement and that is why we see them as having nuclear weapons or being a threshold nuclear nation is

being so dangerous and we haven't discussed what would happen as part of the threshold nuclear power a few months away from being able to get a nuclear weapon and what the impact will be in the region and a lot of the sunni powers and the dangers of proliferation that happens. to argue, israel's view, we're not going to be able to resolve these issues. i think that we won't be able to determine the muslim world who the rightful heir is. what we need to do is we need to ensure that the worst don't get the worst weapons. and that has to be, and come in the most important. because this can take a long time, these fires can take a long time to burn out in the middle east and what we have to do is make sure that the out

side world doesn't get singed by it. and to do everything that we cannot humanitarian basis to help israel. we have a situation in syria. we are trying to treat those bleeding and near death. someone talked about this, how people see israel and the impact and these people came with pretty much the same story. we were told that you guys are the ones who saved us and there's over 1000 people. right now actually it was yesterday, the ivf just established a field hospital or at a crossing point to treat palestinians that were wounded. so what impact is that when have two i don't know. we can do things on a humanitarian basis and i don't know how this thing is going to play out, but the chances of this fire consuming more and more people will go down.

>> we have exhausted our time with you. i thank you very much for coming, sir. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> on her next "washington journal", we spoke with help intelligence community member jim himes about the intelligence gathering challenges facing foreign conflicts. then congressman huelskamp spoke about the prospects of va reform and president obama's pick to head the va.

popular mechanics contributor buck mckeon wrote an article about the science and technology in use to disarm serious chemical weapons program and that is part of our spotlight on magazine series. we will also take your calls and get the latest from two conflicting federal appeals court rulings related to the financing of the health care law. you can also join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is live every morning on c-span. >> this weekend on books tv. >> i thought it would the compelling to tell the story of a white family and a black family with the same name who come from the same place and follow them from slavery to the civil war and the civil rights movement up until today to

compare and contrast. >> chris thomason and how the legacy of say slavery still affects americans ready. he talks with the brother about her family's lineage as former slaves on saturday night at 10:00 a.m. eastern on afterwards. >> on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 commission report, the commission released an update to calls for reform and how congress receives a homeland security department. it also describes terrorism and cyberattacks. a forum was given that is just over four hours. >> good morning.

>> good morning and i thank you all for coming today because we appreciate you being here. i am the director of the homeland security project at the bipartisan policy center which is a nonpartisan bipartisan think tank. this includes tom daschle and bob dole, who today are here to celebrate the first day of the 9/11 commission report. but i'd be remiss to say that it's also the 91st of day of bob dole. so we are happy to celebrate that today as well. [applause] on behalf of everyone i want to say thank you for coming and i want to thank the end of her public policy center and we have their representatives here as well. right over there and we will be hearing more from kathleen and michael and her team and we thank them very much for the support. without them we could not have made this happen.

so we thank you for the help to the public policy center. i have a mother that i lost on september 11, 2001. so it is a anniversary for me and many other 9/11 victims, many who are here in the room. my mother was lost and carol ashley is here and for us, the commission report was a bit of an end of the journey and so for the members who are in this room, their journey started in early 2003, but for the 9/11 families, our journey started sooner. i remembered distinctly. it was generally 30th, 2002, and i was returning home to boston from washington dc and we had

been advocating on behalf of other family members with lawmakers about issues related to the compensation fund and i was reading an article on the flight home and the article said that president bush wanted to only have investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding 9/11 and not anything else and i thought, ours has been average ordinary citizen who got caught up in a terrible tragedy on september 11. i couldn't understand why our government wouldn't want to investigate all that had happened or it simply to make sure that it never happened again. and so we five, the 9/11 family members, we thought for many months and we have a lot of noise about that and i think we will all remember our rally in june. we didn't know it that well.

and it was clear that they knew what they were doing and we had many meetings with many members of congress and someone while in others not so well. we were not experts in how washington works and so when we were told no, the answer was why not. and we had a conversation with one member of congress and i said i don't understand why you won't investigate my mom's murder if i pulled out a gun and shot you right now, the police would do an investigation. and that was a mistake. his staff got a little tense and i had to explain no, i'm not saying i'm going to do that, and the name you don't understand what the differences. and so i never did that again. we had meetings in the white house who i don't think

officials are being used to ask why not. i had to get used to that with us. when a member of congress hit in his office because he didn't want to talk to us, we said we that we could hear him breathing on the door. so for us, that was the process of creating this commission and you can imagine the lumley finally did create a and it was signed into law the day before thanksgiving 2002, for us that was the beginning again. and this time we had to meet the commissioner and he's like, who are these people? and there are a few bumps and bruises along the way. once we got introduced, we knew that we were in good hands, and of course, they stand behind a

report that is releasing today. and so we knew that we had a great team of people these people are still here today and they are doing whatever they can to make our nation stronger and safer and more secure and i would love to be able to introduce them all as they release their new reports. so with that, i'm going to invite the congressman up to the stage and they are going to give a few remarks and then we will open it up for all commissioners for q&a. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so much.

>> kerry terry has been the spark plug for this whole thing and thank you for making this day great. so good morning and i think all of you. i think all of you for coming this morning. we are here to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 commission report, a document that led to major reforms in the way that we do intelligence. and we come together today to present to the public a new public paper entitled today's rise and the danger to the united states amount reflections, and anniversary reflection on the 9/11 report. worse, i want to thank my company chairman and commissioners. and i'm sorry that the couple were not able to be here today.

they are a remarkable group of people come in the most remarkable group that i've ever had the chance to work with than many agree with every word that we are representing. a special thanks to julie anderson and carry us through. and we thank carrie lemak as well as the number policy center who have generously supported this project and have made important contributions along the way. michael and adam held and we are also grateful to many other former 9/11 commission staffers and we voluntarily have come a long way to make this a work possible. we want to talk about the

contributions of the families of 9/11 and we are humbled by everything you have done in the fact that here you are once again today and we used to refer to you as the wind in our sails and 10 years later you are here with us again and we are so grateful. until last fall we began to consider the 10th anniversary and then the idea that if we got ourselves together maybe we could do something useful. and so we all wanted to look back 10 years ago and we think that there could be less than. a lot of bipartisanship that has enabled us to do almost nothing in this town these days. but we think there might be less than as to how they get together to do something like they did 10 years ago.

we also believe that one area where no partisanship should exist is in protecting the country and we must have bipartisanship in that area. a paper released this morning as a result of more than eight months of thinking and studying and spirited conversation. to better inform ourselves, we have reached out to many of our countries with senior and former national security officials as responsibility to counterterrorism. everyone who reached out was cooperative and helpful and honest in their discussion with the problems that plague this country and the problems of protecting this country from the threat of terrorists abroad. and we came away from that experience with renewed admiration and very dedicated public servant. we have separate conversations with each of the leaders and yet there was a broad agreement about what the current problems

are facing the country and some of the similar solutions to talk about only hope that we succeeded in doing our part to amplify for the public that common threats or part of it and at this point i would like to ask not just my cochairman of my close friend, lee hamilton, who is instrumental in every one of these efforts, to talk for a minute and summarize what we learned and the key points to invite our fellow commissioners. [applause] >> good morning to all of you. i have always threatened to set up a hall of name for public servants. we have a hall of fame for guitar players and we should have them for public servants as

well. when that is set up, i'm going to recommend that the is other nine commissioners go in on the first ballot. they are an extraordinary group of americans and the high privilege for me to be a part of it. i report breaks down into three parts and the first talks about the evolving threat in the second part talks about the policy challenges in the third part talks about the recommendations. and i will not go into great detail but i will hit the highlights in each of these areas. and so we begin by saying that the government has done a good job but not a perfect job over the last 10 years in protecting us from terrorist attacks. we have experienced tragedies like four to in the boston marathon bombings, but we have not suffered anything at all like 9/11 and the magnitude of

that attack. our military and intelligence forces have done great damage to the afghanistan-based horror of al qaeda most notably killing osama bin laden three years ago and these really are significant achievements. we are concerned that attention is shifting to other matters. that the country may be suffering from a waning sense of urgency with respect to terrorist attacks and a possible attack and it is imperative that we believe that we go against that. despite her achievements, the threat of terrorism is a today and al qaeda spinoffs sure the extreme ideology and hatred of the united states, which has proliferated and are now operational in more than 16 countries.

a great concern is the fanatical islamic state of islam in syria which has conquered much of western iraq, slaughtering thousands on the way. the territory it holds greatly expands the sanctuary for terrorists and increases the threat to the united state and the west. while that group has been a growing threat over the last months and years, it has accelerated advances suggest that the word has been that the world is a more dangerous place. dozens of americans and as many as a thousand europeans have traveled to join in the conflict. the danger is very real that they may redirect their battlefield skills they have acquired and return to our shores to attack us.

al qaeda in the arabian finance possesses advanced bomb making skills which have now been passed extremist in syria and iraq and that poses a serious threat to us. in particular, of course, to commercial aviation. homeland parallelism, that is terrorist attacks launched by lone wolves who have been radicalized over the internet is another rising danger. the 9/11 commission recommendations centered on how to protect this country from terrorism. our recent conversations with a large number of national security leaders have highlighted another major threat to the country and that is, of course, the relentless cyberattacks from foreign countries and criminal elements. the vulnerability of our cybersystem and the most vast

ceiling of intellectual property over the internet pose a huge national security challenge and our cyberdefenses and strategy like behind the representative that we face in the cyberrealm. and in the last 10 years the scale of government data collection has boomed. data collection and analysis are vital tools to preventing terrorist attacks. but effective counterterrorism must be balanced against civil liberties and vigorous oversight of collection activities by the congress and the court is urgently needed and it is the government's burden to explain to the public what is being done by the government and also to persuade the public that the tools being utilized are absolutely necessary and that a

balance is struck between security and privacy. and congress is committee structure for overseeing homeland security continues to be dysfunctional. we use our word in a report, it came from members of congress and key positions. this splendored jurisdiction is episodic and inadequate and threatens our national security. this dysfunction has lasted for far too long and our friends at the annenberg public policy center have run in recent days this advertisement in the news ever giving you the flowchart, if you will, of oversight, some 90 committees roughly over

homeland security. that, of course, completely unacceptable. on the positive side, the director of the national intelligence and the national counterterrorism center on ensuring that the various intelligence agencies work together and there has been real improvement there and that is progress. as noted, the report also talks about how we have done our work a decade ago and it calls for bipartisanship too often go unheeded and we hope that our actions point in the direction of our political leaders might come to agreement on the difficult terrorism challenge that we face today and in the future. surely our political leaders and political polarization to better protect the united states and all americans, in many ways we

are safer today than we were a decade ago, but the threat continues and is urgent and the generational struggle that we refer to in our original report against terrorism has entered a new days and the world remains a very dangerous place. we cannot let our guard down. i would like to turn to other members of the commission for any comments that they would like to make and i will follow them as they are ready to proceed. governor thompson. >> we thank you and first i would like to say that participating in the work of this commission has been one of the greatest honors of my public life. not only that challenge that we

undertook, but the men and women who went to work on it in an extraordinary bipartisan fashion. which leads me to sometimes a very sad place and it's appropriate that we are in washington today. as i think everyone on this stage would acknowledge, i think it is almost embarrassing to contemplate that the congress of the united states which has protected this nation sends its earth cannot seem today to protect the american people by coming together to enact those laws which everyone must include and which bear no partisan label. i accept that our nation is divided perhaps by party and

perhaps by philosophy and issues like abortion and gay rights and taxation and highway programs and all the other things which the congress deals. but surely there is no republican or democratic position in making sure that people who come to the united states with terrorist ambitions don't stay here and plot the failure of this country to have a biometric exit program so that we know who is still here in violation of the law and who may harbor feelings towards her nation. so i don't understand why the congress of the united states has not come together on the issue of cybersecurity, which we mentioned.

every american has either had an experience where they have been hacked or people with whom they deal have been hacked and we have all had to change passwords or get a new credit card and if we have not experienced it personally, we have certainly read about it. so is there any reason in the world by the congress cannot enact comprehensive cybersecurity law that protects us not only from the criminal hackers but from the terrorist hackers as well. and from nationstate to give comfort and aid to the terrorists. so i would like to see that the congress of the put aside all the nonsense and all the appeals and preening around and come

together to protect this nation. that is the first obligation of government. the first obligation. nothing else can be done for this country if we are not secure and to this point, the congress of the united state is failing us and failing us fast. >> thank you, jim. commissioner? >> i would like to say briefly three things. first of all, i would like to recognize the extraordinary leadership of tom kane and lee hamilton. from the first meeting that we had of the 9/11 commission when they pledged to do virtually everything together, never appearing on the tv show without the other one.

lessons to the other eight commissioners were extraordinarily profound as we had been attacked, we had lost almost 3000 of our citizens and we were going to get to the bottom of this and work across partisan lines and produce a room where that would make america safer. so all the way through we showed this great leadership for the commission and also for our country and i also want to say to my fellow commissioners that i have been blessed with a lot of different opportunities to serve our country. and i can't think of anything that has touched my heart and soul and my brain and learn more than from the people that we have worked with over the past 10 years and a loot you all and

i thank you for your leadership for our country. and also you want to recognize the 9/11 family members and the people who helped us create the 9/11 commission and looking into what happened and why. and if marian carroll and avon carry and all of you haven't been there to hold people accountable, to hold us accountable, to hold congress accountable and the white house accountable, we wouldn't be sitting here today and we wouldn't be safe. so who knows if we would've been attacked again, if it hadn't been for all of you getting on planes and tanks and literally in the middle of the night coming down to washing me from your homes in new york and connecticut and all over the country and help make this

country safer by breaking down these barriers of partisanship rather than putting our national security front and center. so i want to thank these wonderful 9/11 family members that have made extraordinary contributions to our country. second, i would like to say that the challenges that the united states of america faced today to understand and to be proactive and to be smart about the changes taking place in the world, before we are attacked again, this is one of the most important lessons. we have isys taking over large swaths of territory in the middle east, syria is an incubator for terrorist, training and hatred around the

world and people starting to come back from these training grounds and the united states, al qaeda now pre-9/11, now they are in 16 countries around the world and this is a new and dangerous phase that the united states of america is entering into. and so the congress, the white house, policymakers, they must work together to understand is very significant challenges to the safety of the united states. jim mentioned cybersecurity and how important matters. and we have a litany of different areas that policymakers must pay greater attention to. as a former member of congress who served in the great midwest for six terms, as someone who believes that those founding fathers called it the first

branch of government. sadly today it is the last branch that people in our country are looking for to solve our problems. and that cannot be the case as we see these challengers of cybersecurity and isys and al qaeda and possibly creating another 9/11 type of attack. and so we encourage congress and we'll have a panel on this to take this seriously to reorganize the massive bureaucracy that they have on the department of homeland security that is bigger oversight today of what we have are oversight for the department of defense. 500 billion-dollar defense program with a smaller number of committees overseeing and in the department of homeland security

where we have 92 different committees and of committees. fragmented, dysfunctional, potentially disruptive to our national security. with akamai look forward to the questions and answers and i appreciate the opportunity. >> thank you, jim. >> are there any other commissioners? >> let me just say one thing. i hope you get a sense of the practice grew past because everyone always asked how did you reach unanimity on a reported when you look at a commission that was basically designed to fail splitting it evenly and lectionary and how did that happen and i think that

you can get a sense of how it happened as to what comes with the universally wonderful experience and certainly one that gave us a lot of pride and also one that was very were warning and i want to mention one thing because this happened the list that we have a recommendation or is important. ..

speak up into the microphone if you could please. >> in covering this issue for the last ten years and watching sorry, wto pete national correspondent. covering this issue and watching how the world has changed since then, it occurs to me that in the last few years things are

happening faster. more things are happening faster. so the question i ask is based on the conversation with the general about a year or so ago when he told me that it doesn't apply anymore. it's protecting the u.s. against the rapidly evil thing threats and others and i take the answer from anybody. we will proceed in the rules that allow me to answer these questions and i will give the test questions out here. we will start with the commissioners here and that is a tough question.

>> the answer is you have to be moran and bolts and you've been before. the rocker sees come any governmengovernment proxies by e of that bureaucracy slow in action. that's why it's called a bureaucracy. you can't afford an it anymore d homeland security. you have to be memorable. the idea that when we wrote the 9/11 report years ago we didn't mention cybersecurity. no one even mentioned it in the deliberations. it was not a big problem. now it's a problem every single person we interviewed said should be right up front. the world is changing as we speak. if iraq became a failed state, it moved right to the top of the

problems in the last three or four months we've seen it become a failed state basically service comes right to the top. it's constantly changing. in the intelligence areas and the congressional oversight we have to be more noble here than almost any other area because it will change the time there are these groups now that didn't even exist ten years ago that we have to be concerned about. there are new weapons we have to be concerned about and explosives for the answer is we have to have the best thinkers in this area of homeland security and to be willing to use what we call in the report imagination. there can be no more failures of imagination. we have to get ahead of them. >> i would just add two points to the answer.

we didn't present a menu of things we think need to be done. right there is the reorganization of the oversight of the homeland security process. and i was general counsel at dod that chairman of the joint chiefs was any regular dialogue with the oversight committees in the house and the senate, two of them. the chairs and ranking members knew what he was thinking and they knew what he was saying in. we don't have that with regard to homeland security. you couldn't do it if you wanted to. we would have a chair to leave to chance to talk in a little while, but i think it is -- if you look at the chart we hamilton held up, it would be impossible to have a sense on the executive side of what would be acceptable in the congress in

a short period of time with the structure that we have. so the edge of the events tom talked about is critical. you need an organization on the executive branch site but also a fully armed partner on the congressional side, and i don't think we have that. >> to the rapidly evil thing technology, we all understand that an and about what is usefuy may not be tomorrow and things we cannot even imagine may be coming along i ensure they will. but what we are looking at is a framework within which the government and the private sector can accommodate each other's interests in preventing cyber attacks.

does the military of the united states or the nsa possessed knowledge, experience that can be useful to the private sector, to the utilities, all of whom can expect some kind of cyber attacks because it's happened before? the answer to that is yes. do we have a framework in the united states air the military, the nsa, other branches of government can sit down with the private sector whose interests are vital to the welfare of the united states and work together so that everybody is protected to the extent that current technology will allow the answer to that is no.

why don't we have that? there can't be a republican or democratic position on this. i can't imagine that. is something the congress is doing today more important? please tell me what it is. that is one of the answers, too your question is important. the speed of change is comparable not to a bullet train but a speeding bullet almost literally. we are seeing terrorists that ten years ago used to go to trading camps in the northwest territory of pakistan and be trained and radicalized and potentially go to their targets. today they are radicalized in months or weeks over the internet. so the speed of change and the

speed of radicalization in the cyber technology to attack the banks are f-22 programs and steal information i and the security is incredibly rapid and quick. so as tom said, we cannot afford to have rocker sees put in washington, d.c. to fight these nimble networks. we need networks to fight networks, not bureaucracies to fight that works. >> please identify yourself. >> prior to the attack on 9/11 the groups responsible had received aid from us back when the soviets were occupied in afghanistan. today we are associated with

groups of an extremist nature. look at who took over libya. probably we have facilitated the rise through our training of the sort of insurgents we hoped would take over in serious. are you concerned we are facilitating the growth of the groups that in the end will prove to be our enemy x. >> and he's sensational commissioners are reluctant on that one. >> i think if we had been born in bowling our facilities dealing with the issue in syria

we might have prevented some of the more radical anti-administration forces from gaining the strength that they had but we deliberately chose not to encourage those that we thought were moderate if you can have a force by ideology. we didn't give the weapons our military i think thought they should have so while there may be some truth in what you are saying, i don't think it is appropriate to go back to the aid that we gave in afghanistan countering the soviet threat.

my guess is that is to long ago and far away and doesn't have a lot of relevance to the challenges we are facing now. >> senator gordon. >> ten years ago this group decided that it could be a value only as it looked forward to moe than backward and in our report, we didn't criticize that individuals or administrations for what happened in the past in the use of the 2020 hindsight and i think that if you look at what we are doing today we have adopted the same philosophy. we get a good deal of credit and i think the credit is deserved through the response of the country and the administration

to 9/11 and we haven't had another. we also emphasize however the challenges changed very substantially with many on the threat of cyber security that our recommendations look forward to saying how we can be safer in the future and to deal with these challenges in the future and it is only by looking for forward rather than backward with criticism that we can be of value and we hope the congress takes our recommendations seriously and act on them seriously but it will do that best by looking forward rather than backward >> one thing to keep in mind in

the very nuanced areas is that looking forward we need to learn from history and i suppose the question of support for the mujahedin in opposing the arrival enemy in the soviets is instructed in that once the aid is given and the weapons are transferred, there is no guarantee about how they would be used in so i think that is proven to be instructed in the current situation so that letting go of and arming various factions doesn't guarantee how the training will ultimately be used in the area that is

intensely nuanced and difficult to predict. >> your question points out the complexity in the middle east. there are so many different groups out there. there are so many crosscurrents taking place. so many shifting alliances that it's a very difficult thing to keep up with. there is no one in the united states government that wants to facilitate in any but your caught an eight complex world every day i pick up the paper and learn about support the opposition to syria. there are 1500 opposition groups in syria. sort through those loyal to see who's going to help you and whose products we have been doing for several years of course so it is a complexity.

i'm told we have time for one more question. the changing nature of the threat highlights the importance of information and intelligence collected domestically and disseminated domestically. who is in charge of domestic intelligence and how to state, local and federal law enforcement fit into your findings? >> you raised a very good question and it's something we have talked about. there is far more sharing after the report then there has been and that is good news from all quarters that we've talked to. we hear good marks given to the integration of material and the sharing of information.

the state and local authorities are the greatest areas for enhancement for the protection. and so while there have begun to be greater efforts made to share information, more needs to be done as we say in a report to bring state and local authorities into an integrated national approach there is more to be done. stomach we will be hearing from the director of intelligence and there has been as richard says a lot of partners. the intelligence community as you all know is a very vast community. billions of dollars and many leaders and the state of

integration to last ten years has been quite remarkable so there is much more cohesion than in the previous times but it's a work in progress and we have to keep working at it. who is in charge of the intelligence community as a question that invites all kinds of answers the director of national intelligence has functioned very well and has done a lot towards integrating the community and coordinating the community and he will be speaking to us very shortly. i think that his wartime up for questions and we'll turn it to you to get moving along here. [applause] we are going to transfer into the first panel and invite all of the commissioners to please come up except for jamie since she's going to be leaving the discussion and we are pleased to

be joined by the chairman and i'm going to leave it to cheney today proper introduction but i just want to say a few words to make the transition that this panel is about the state and evolution of the threat and has many oasmany of you know the hod security project started in annual series of reports. we've released the first one who is here with us today and we are planning to release a new one this september. so based on that release today and the work in the past few years the threat is evolving. it's involving the counterterrorism measures accordingly and no group is doing that more thoroughly than the homeland security committee

and not only today are joined by the chairman for the members of the staff in the audience who want to thank them for their hard work keeping the data should dnationsafe and secure. we are glad that they are here with us today. i also want to take a quick opportunity to thank the staff here with us today. there's a large number of them and many have gone to continue serving the country in a wide range of positions and we are glad they can take the time not to be here to honor the report they worked so hard on ten years ago. with that i'm going to turn it over to the commissioner and begin the discussions on the state and evolution. >> we are honored to have mike with us and there is no one better suited to discuss the issues and the tenth anniversary report. the chairman i chair man is a tr

veteran of congress representing a really robust and interesting district in texas and he has a background that is perfect for the role at least in my view since i'm a former justice department official and he served in that department with distinction and is quite familiar with some of the mechanisms by which we keep our country safe so thank you for being here and helping us think through some of these issues today. i would like to start where the conversation just left off and put on the table this question of who is responsible for protecting us in a very complex environment. we made a couple of observations as lee hamilton just said we

talked about the success is the director of the structure finally getting to a place where there is cohesion among the agencies and we talked about the importance of the collection of information in the world in which intelligence and intelligence analysis as the best rule. we talk about that national counterterrorism center that brings together the information that is quite successful and we also talk about the modeling that the president does for his intelligence agencies and why personally calling them together on a regular basis to share information with him and each other so those are the observations in very brief -- i'm wondering if you can comment on the state of the integration and the robust ability to

protect ourselves. i want to think the bipartisan policy center for hosting this and the commission report after 9/11 for the most part it was implemented and we will talk about some pieces that were not and i want to thank the members of the commission here today i think members of congress will take back to the hill and i want to thank them for their resounding endorsement for the congress. [laughter] i also want to thank jamie for having me. she was the deputy attorney general for the united states and i was a lonely federal prosecutor at the time of the justice but i remember she was very much a force within the

department and did a great job and it's an honor to be with you today. now i guess on an even level. i was. at the bottom of the integrity section but if i could just start by saying everything that i've attempted to do in my committee and in fact everything we have done legislatively has passed unanimously and i think that is important and governor thompson made a great point this is an area that shouldn't be a partisan issue when it comes to protecting the american people and saving lives. so whether it was our cybersecurity bill that passed unanimously that hopefully will be on the floor in the next month or whether it was our border security bill which if you read the papers lately there's a bit of a crisis on going down there hopefully that will be part of our supplemental coming out that also passed unanimously and i believe that's

a very important factor because it doesn't have any partisan affiliation. they have one thing in common and that is they have a deep-seated hatred for them and they still unfortunately want to kill us. the threat has evolved. when i first got elected the chairman i lande and i landed in washington and said there has been a bombing in boston. and i think the boston accent over that illustrates the new devolving threats that we are seeing an episode of radicalization over the internet in terms of small-scale operations. the good work that the commission did i think stopped by connecting the dots and using the imagination as you either did it to its stopped a lot of the larger scale attacks like the 9/11 style that would be difficult to pull off in today's world the way the intelligence community is set up and homeland

security but i think the smaller scale are difficult to detect and to disrupt and probably more likely the evildoing threat that you're going to see and then it's been talked about extensively this marriage if you will end and manpowe the manpowe seeing in iraq and syria is a huge threat to the secretary will tell you the biggest threat threats to the homeland and the aviation sector so i think that's going to be very important for us to focus on their safe havens but people ask me army saves and in some respects we are safer thanks to the good work of the 9/11 commission. we implemented the rules of the recommendations but it's an evolving threat but in some

respects we are not safer because all qaeda owns nor territory now today than it ever has and in 16 different countries as you heard all of these different affiliate, aqap. it's interesting how they say that it is too extreme. imagine they would say that it's too extreme for al qaeda. that is a tremendous threat of extent that extending the caliphate in that region. i think in my judgment it surpasses what we saw in iraq and afghanistan and pakistan in terms of the training grounds. it's that they have cleaned about legal trouble documents. they are pouring in every day

from the fight and some people tell you who they all are and i will tell you that we don't have a high degree of certainty. i can talk about cyber for 30 minutes but it's one of those things that keeps you up at night because we have a tremendous capability to shut things down. they've already tried to shut down the financial institutions that they are out there and the chinese are stealing through espionage according to the nsa director and we just picked up the billions of dollars of intellectual property theft in the united states said this is a real threat and i hope this bill we get out of the committee will

pass because it's something the country really needs right now. >> let me go back for a moment to the situation in iraq and syria where you have observed that there are probably thousands of european fighters and in the neighborhood of 100 or so fighters. if an individual in the passport or a european passport where they gain entry to the united states over the visa waiver program can travel here with impunity what are our resources for identifying those people and stopping them and do we have the legal authority that we need a. one thing you haven't seen as the 9/11 style attack because we are getting good at stopping the

enemy from coming into the united states. most people think of it as who protects the airport with tsa does a good job in the intelligence overhaul stopping threats from coming into the united states. this is going to be the key. number one how can we identify the threats and syria and iraq or it has intentions to harm the west. you have to start first with intelligence. i will be the first to leave the human intelligence is and where it needs to be on the ground in syria. we are getting better reconnaissance as to where these actors are but in terms of identifying them on a personal case-by-case basis i don't think we are where we need to be. you saw the restrictions on travel in terms of screening that's been ramped up in a certaithecertain airports the ot likely to be used by the foreign

fighters to identify a certain category that would fit the terrorist profile for the additional screening with respect to different devices that the best i can go into that subject matter. that is going to be effective but remember we can't sustain that the children's for more than several months and then we have to break things down. i'm concerned about is when we ran things down again and decide they are good at backing off and waiting and then making a move and so they can travel freely and easily get into the united states. these briefings are very eerie when you get briefed on the level of expertise they have and that they haven't given up. they haven't given up on blowing

up airplanes and it's amazing to me they have a tremendous expertise to build types of bombs that could potentially get through our screening, the nonmetallic like the underwear bomber. i think there are cautions in place now at the foreign airports but we can't keep that high vigilance forever. >> let me return to the question of organization. tom and lee showed this bewildering chart reflecting the organizational structure of the oversight of the department of homeland security. i thought he was even nicer than he needed to be on the subject because he didn't know it as the report does that we complained about the department of homeland security having 88 committees and subcommittees to oversee and

now it has 92. presumably you would be the recipient of a consolidated jurisdiction so maybe this is an awkward question to ask you but is it achievable and possible that we could have the same sort of structure from homeland security that we do for example in the sense. >> i will be speaking at the aspen institute on the topic and i appreciate the commission's leadership on this and calling attention to an issue that i honestly have to deal with every day and it's very, very frustrating as the chairman of a major committee that at th but e time to be so handicap. you showed of the chart. policy wise we know it the right thing to do but the problem.

jurisdiction is the holy grail but the right for the opportunity to have gotten this done at the very beginning and we complain about the executive branch not working together and i think the congress is just as if not more guilty of that and i will give you two examples. the cybersecurity bill has multiple referrals that are jurisdictions that requires me to negotiate with other chairman and that's fine it's part of the deal but one chair and can and did hold up the cyber bill until just recently. they did a program governor thompson referred to because they also have a referral and stopped the legislation from moving to the floor. i think it is counterproductive and dysfunctional and quite honestly that hurts the american people because we can't pass legislation that can protect them and in addition the

oversight issue with 100 committees and subcommittees how can the secretary j. johnson who had a great respect and admiration how can he do his job when he's constantly preparing for testimony and he has a very important job and the whole legislative shock us to do that. you look at the judiciary and it has the department of justice. they have the entire department of defense. why doesn't the committee on homeland security have jurisdiction over the entire department of homeland security and not have to deal with all of these offshoots? we are passing bills to demonstrate the leadership from any other committees these bills will go to and it's a spiderweb like the charts of the authorization for the cbp demonstrates this is what happens to the legislation and i want to conclude because this is

an important point if you can imagine the department has been around for about ten years. the department has never been authorized by the united states congress. every other department has been authorized by congress except for this one and i think that is shameful and embarrassing and shame on the members of congre congress. we will see how that plays out but i hope that will demonstrate the problems and i hope that you and your colleagues in the commission can help to demonstrate why this is important. it's not about me trying to have a power grab jurisdiction but it's to make things more efficient to protect the american people.

>> i will make a couple of comments and moveon. every recommendation that we made was implemented by congress and in opposing a set of changes on the executive branch and we were very appreciative of that. the only ones that were not implemented it had to or would have required congress to impose similar changes on itself and that is just not right. this has real consequences. when i was the attorney justice, i knew what the chairman and the ranking member in the house and the senate of the oversight committees thought, what the reaction would be to the actions that we were taking were contemplating, and that helps with the agility that we were talking about it if it is necessary to protect ourselves. it is not possible for the

secretary of homeland security to test the waters with only the committees on homeland security and the house and the senate. as hard as you may try it is difficult to get each of the other 91 committees to see the whole and the trade-offs that occur so that the direction to move in a cohesive way. i want to turn to the data collection. we have had a period of the debate following the revelations in which the debate has been about how much should we fear the government and what it is

doing asked to be sure the report says there must be robust oversight. but it seems to me and this is a personal comment reflected in the report that it is sometimes missing is the appreciation for how much robust intelligence keeps us safe and i was wondering if you could comment on this occasion of the tenth anniversary of the report. >> thanks for the contribution of that. perhaps you want to answer that question? [laughter] >> i fear the terrorists more than the government but i know it'it's tuesday to give the government tget thegovernment t. i think as you know we stopped many terrorist plots through getting good intelligence by listening to foreign terrorists in different countries. there's been a lot of

misinformation about the data collection program that when i was on the talk shows have asked about this and i applied with the fbi and we would go through the carriers at that time i didn't envision this being warehoused under the nsa and that was sort of dust sticking point. we are putting it under the federal government warehouse and so with our reform bill he talked to how we used to do things going for the private phone carriers and i think that would give a little more eastern peoples privacy. so i think those reforms are good. with respect i can't tell you

how much damage he has done to the national security in the united states. as a classified document that i've read and it hits us on almost every level i'm not allowed to go into but it's causing billions of dollars of damage and compromising national security with respect to russia and china. so he's not a hero in my book he's a traitor and the nsa has done good work protecting americans and it's one of the reasons we haven't had a major attack but he is reformed and finally on the oversight i introduced a bill the intelligence community is one area where the government accountability office cannot really go and d in to do an independent oversight investigation. so if i want to do an investigation to the dhs, i can sit down and say i want you to look at x. y. and z. but i think

that is a missed opportunity and i can see the resistance into the reluctance of wanting to be reviewed by an independent oversight but i think that can be another step forward that can restore the american people's trust. >> i know you are having a hearing on the subject, but we said ten years ago that we were deeply worried about the nuclear threat and the highest priority had to be keeping the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the hands of terrorists. can you give a brief assessment of where we are in that effort? spinnaker think nuclear is a high damaged low probability but it's still a risk. i think what we saw in boston was probably the threat you're going to see play out for. you look at the fighters in serious trained in the bomb

making capabilities and i think that's what you're going to see. you look at the internet and inspired magazine, aqap rack lacing people to blow up things i think that's what you're going to see that we are still always concerned about a weapon of mass destruction coming into the united states. how can we stop at? ports are pretty secure the portal monitors. if all these kids are coming in and not being stopped the 60,00f them, it illustrates how wide-open it is and we don't know what is really coming through. we can't give you a case specific about a terrorist trying to get in but the fact remains a vulnerability for the united states until we get it secure. >> let's return to the lone wolf. we have the major four food

killer. how worried about these individuals are you the ticket upon themselves, how well equipped are we to find such people and to stop them? >> i think it will be a textbook case for the counterterrorism students and experts decades. when you look at the failures in that case not to point fingers because the 2020 hindsight but here they warn us if you are going to go into radicalized. i talked to the chief of the boston police and they had four boston police officers on the task force. the fbi opened up with a cold a

guardian lead investigation. yet none of the boston police officers knew about this open investigations of when asked did you know the fbi had him under investigation he said no. did you know the russians warned us about them? did you know that he left and went to dog us on the candidate with the rebels and was radicalized? no, i did not know that. when he come back to the intranet postings they had kept him out and there was a lot of state and the vocals can help us and i worked with the fbi but the state and locals are forced multipliers and they could have played a big role in the case to help stop what happened and there wasn't any difference because that case was closed. closed. that infuriated me because you know what's when they traveled overseas and met with the

chechen rebels that case should have been reopened but it wasn't so all of the work that you did and then connecting the dots i still think there is a work to be done between the fbi and the state and the local dhs. >> the one place among all of the others where we think there has not been as much progress is that vertical sharing between the federal government and state and locals. the connection of the dots across the federal agencies and the travel and the flow of information from the locals to the federal law enforcement authorities has been excellent. it's the other way around that the inspector general of the justice department and others have said has been a feeling. you work on the joint terrorism

task force in your prosecutorial days into chaired a committee that has oversight of this. what can be done? >> the boston examples stressed and i talked to the need for the fbi that did have the expertise in the counterterrorism to utilize state and local in these investigations and to help monitor people like tamerlan. the one i worked for, some things can be done through technology so that when the flag went out overseas and automatically showed through the task force with the fbi, that didn't happen. everything went in the wrong direction to make that happen in a particular case. in the most part it worked

pretty well. that's why we stopped a lot of things from happening but i would say in the larger cities it is enhanced in new york and boston and the main cities like washington, la coming and even houston. and i think that he is ushering a new attitude of you have to be full partners with your locals. >> one of the observations that we made in our report is that there was a failure of imagination on the part of our government prior to 9/11. the more imaginative people into government and that there was no institutionalized process for imagining what al qaeda might

do. how well have we done at institutionalizing imagine in the department of homeland security cracks >> there is no department of imagination. i do think that the intelligence service, the homeland security folks, the fbi in their own way they do a very good job day in and day out and try to incorporate thinking about it what could be the next threat. how can they apply this integrateand getit into the uni? and it's been tremendous since 9/11 but it's not institutionalized it is more of a culture and way of thinking that needs to go forward. one thing i and the report that got my attention was the

american public interest in this topic and the unwillingness to fund the counterterrorism operations and i think that would be a huge mistake that goes again on a sunday show that we spend too much money into the big monster of it's not worth it. i would argue it still is worth it and i don't want to be the fearmonger kind of guy that when i get the press briefings it's very clear that it hasn't gone away and in some respects it's become a great threat. they have more capability to bring it inside. it only takes 19 hijackers to do what they did. >> if you had to point to one

critical observatio observationa report thithereport this time, e the danger of the complacency. and that's perhaps we have been the victims of our own success and preventing another 9/11 which could lead people to believe there isn't really a threat. one of the things we tried to do both in writing this report and having an event like this one is to say let's pause over this for a moment and look at what the threat is and where we need to be vigilant. but let me put this back. we are going to go back to our jobs and our lives. having been exhumed for this d day, you live with this every

day. what is the responsibility of the national leader to fight the complacency and what are the tools at the disposal. on the commission's report thank you for that but my responsibility as i see it as the chairman of the national security committee is to first and foremost to be responsible in their rhetoric. there are a lot of members in congress to say crazy stuff to get attention. they say even crazier things and get more attention. there is an entertainment value to some of the news these days.

the sunday shows are probably still the last substantive. the question highlighting the threat in a responsible way isn't scaring people so they don't think i'm saying this sky is falling over time. what we are doing is important still. i wish of this threat was gone. but i don't think it's going to end in my generation.

i hope it ends in my children's generation that what we are dealing with is an ideology that hasn't gone away. while the strikes have been evicted at killing the high-value targets and we did take down bin laden, the strikes alone cannot kill an ideology. in my judgment this is a long-term ideological struggle that we will be in the again for my lifetime. i know at the end of the day i'm optimistic because the ideology prevails. it's the right ideology. it's not one of hatred and strapping bombs to your kids chest and blowing them up. it's like the comment until they love their own children and hate us will this ever end. and at the end of the day that is where we are with this. that is why your work is so important and i've been vigilant as the chairman.

i see this no say this not justr thinking is so low a lined with the former commission members, but because you are at it every day in a way that's hard and you have to operate in an environment of secrecy so it's very difficult for you to make the case in the way that it is made to you and that you see it and appreciate it. we have a couple of minutes i think for a minute or two. please identify yourself. thank you for coming today. getting back to the question

with other committees and whether or not it is possible to consolidate the jurisdiction under your committee i tend to agree with you other committees don't want to give it up i think it is unlikely that they will sue the two-part question is do you think there is a benefit to the competition that we have seen on the phone records issuee could also do you think it is possible for you to convince the leadership when you bring up your authorization in the next congress to put deadlines for reporting so you don't have the problem that you've had on some legislation with other committees holding up important legislation and are they committed to doing what you want to do next year? >> please give her my best. she is a real leader. to answer the question i think the reason i want to do the authorization bill.

that's where i am handicapped if i can't achieve that i will demonstrate why we need to. that's the case we take to the leadership.

those arthe illustrious and are important bills that because of the jurisdiction and no other reason than the jurisdiction. i don't galvanize the efforts of the commission and everyone in this room to help me. a very dynamic leadership. i know we are kind of a little bit obsessed with the threat in iraq and syria considering that we will be leaving afghanistan

in a year or two what do you see about the threat of al qaeda and taliban elements both to the homeland and otherwise the allies in afghanistan and pakistan cracks >> that is a great question. this commission warned becoming a safe haven ten years ago and you were spot on in your recommendations. i am concerned about the same that we saw play out in afghanistan. what happened in iraq to get to where we are i talked to a gold star mother and she said i just wanted my son's death to count for something. and now it's falling apart and i think there is a combination of factors one of which was a failure to negotiate the status oa status offorces agreement toa residual force behind and there's plenty of blame to go around and we cannot allow that to happen in afghanistan if we do not have a residual force in

afghanistan, the network will move in, the taliban will move in and it will be chaos just like we are seeing and they will revert back to the safe haven for terrorists and that is precisely what we don't want to see. now you have the confessed contt election with potential fraud but both do support that notion.