greatest campaigner. i don't think there's anybody in this room that didn't work at night and i can imagine one of the school should not do this. so i'm putting it out there. you can put it on the news. i think this is what should happen. >> thank you marjorie. [applause] >> some people are talking about that. >> hello marion barry. my name is donna wood and i'm a secondary washingtonian. when i read information about being here i was just like him i had to be here. it's important to me because i want to let you know you had a great impact on my life. mainly some of the things i didn't hear about are about the defense of the demonstration project you had to put students in washington d.c.. you let them know that kids in d.c. want to go to college and i was the recipient of that. for my being a recipient of that i got paid and got through one of your programs and i graduated from howard university. [applause] >> i work for the d.c.

department of recreation. .. every student in the top 10%. were going to bring some of that back. >> we have term for one more question.

>> he started to nine sing one of the reasons you wrote the book, question springs from that what you think is the biggest misconception that people have? >> the biggest misconception is that most of my life is taken up with junk and scandals and alleged corruption. most of the no because i even in d.c. 152nd sound bite. and nationally the united states government. beset that tape to every ambassador in the world cannot to every president of every country in the world, sent it to

the other propaganda arm of the u.s. government. it ran on television. but this -- so many have contributed to it, too. and that is all part of it. i am not fazed by it. washington d.c., as long as it gives them some hope that some help. i don't care. [applause] i don't care. >> the wanted thank you so much for coming here tonight. i also wanted to give you -- this is actually a very precious object. i don't know if you have gotten one of these before, the

national press club coffee mug. >> i have two of them. >> well, now you have triplets. they do so much for coming. we will be outside signing a book. i'm sorry. right over here signing a book. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> i want to start by

thinking of a couple of people like the concord monitor for sponsoring this event a and red river theater in the venue to hold this is and i want to sink michael for making notice when you walked in and in joe will stick around so i hope you take advantage of that also to joe to talk about the main circuit of course, also coming tusis

said you have read about this in the monitor but to talk about my experience with joe when i was at the monitor. and at some point during that time she decided she wanted to leave she got a nice offer from the st. petersburg times but i have not struggled as much with that decision because she had such great loyalty because she had a wonderful time as a reporter and we were used to reporters moving onto larger papers but joe talked about this

two or three times from the st. petersburg times. in thin to a three years later after she won all kinds of awards for investigative reporting for the seat petersburg times and thought what did i think? or should she stayed? she felt terribly loyal it have gotten too many great stories to take a job at the post a couple years after that she got an offer from "the new york times" and she did not call me. and alonso way with a series

for vice president j.t. for investigative reporting with the marriage equality and i say that because all the time i have been in the news ever have seen civil rights move so fast that was

just remarkable and my job is to ask questions to get the conversation going then we will turn that over to you. so why someone with a great job at "the new york times" has time off. >> . .

and i thought to myself however ted oulson this conservative that liberals love to hate because he of course had one bush v. gore how he came to take this cause has to be a big story. i went to my editors and i said i know this is in my normal fare but i'm really interested, i would like to do it. i'm between projects anyway and besides i'm the only person that ted oulson would talk to at "the new york times" because he hates it. i had gotten to know him over the years. i covered bush v. gore and covered the "washington post" on george bush's supreme court nominee so i got to go him nor. i also figured in this interesting when the cheney series.

he was one of the few lawyers willing to stand up and tell cheney and his lawyer adding 10 that you can't go to the supreme court until the supreme court that they don't have any right to review your detainee policies and these people can even have lawyers. that was interesting to me because ted oulson was the only person who lost in that high-ranking bush administration official who lost someone. his wife was on board one of those flights. so i called ted and i said i wanted to do the story. i did the story and i couldn't let it go. it was a really audacious thing they were doing. it was a controversial thing that they did and there was a lot of people who believed at that time that the country was not ready and more importantly the supreme court wasn't ready. i describe in the book this lunch scene where they planned

this lawsuit in secret and they finally kind of let in, they invited some of the lawyers supreme court lawyers who had been wished working on this issue for many years. they kind of let them in on the plan. it was like, it was that rob reiner's house. rob reiner was part of this group that brought this lawsuit. he was instrumental in getting the funding to bring the lawsu lawsuit. the lawyers were like, you don't have two count to five and 1.1 of the lawyers threw down his dossier on the dining room table and said you know, if you do this, if you go forward with this we are going to -- this dossier on ted olson and every conservative cause he has ever champion is going to make made public. we will take it to the media. the guy who was the architect of all of us a young political consultant whose name is chad griffin, he's now ahead of the

human rights campaign and the largest group in the world but at that time he was operated in hollywood. his business partner christina, they were the ones that came up with this idea said do it. that's great because of someone like this as conservative as ted olson is willing to take this cause on, that has the potential to change the conversation. so anyhow once i started following this i wanted to know. i got to know the four plaintiffs at the heart of the book and the lawsuit and i wanted to know how this will turn out for them. >> how in the world did you ge get -- one of the amazing things about the book is how close then you are with all the major characters in the book. how did you get that access? >> i went to them after i had done the story and i said you know, writing a book is scary to

be honest. you know it's a big endeavor so i set the bar really high. thinking they would probably say no and then i would kind of be off the hook. are you still having -- sorry about that. so anyhow -- is this better? okay. we could do that. that's much better, yes. i forgot where we were. how did i get the access? i went to them and i said look i would really like to do this book. i would like to follow it, the case all the way through but you would have -- i would have to be in the room. i would have to be there as a lawyer debating strategy. i would have to be with the plaintiffs as they wake up and go to court and be in the

political courtroom. this case is litigation but it was also this accompanying public education campaign and a political campaign. i want to be in the war room while my colleagues are being pitched on stories. i thought that they would say no because it's a kind of a crazy thing. many of you are lawyers are out there and no privilege can be waived. the lawyer client privilege. if someone knew i was in the midst of all this. we didn't really announce the book. we didn't do a big fanfare announcement and the only condition was that i was not going to publish before the case had resolved itself. that was it. that was the only condition. nobody had the right to preview or detail so you sort of ask yourself, why did these people agree to that?

the answer is actually if you think back on it now it looks like and of course you know they were there with some critique of the book that is the greater glory of this group about the case but if you go back at the time there were only two states that allowed marriage equality. the majority of the country was opposed. so these guys could have been the people that invited me a reporter and a film crew because there's also an hbo documentary that came out today and to document how through sheer hubris and ignorance they set back the movement by losing the supreme court. no one had any idea how this would turn out but you know the lesson of harvey milk, harvey milk was the san francisco and i hope somebody saw the movie milk, but harvey milk last thing was come out and tell your story.

telling your story matters. telling your story can change minds. they believed and they agree to all of this because because they believed that people could get to know the four plaintiffs in that they could see what they went through over the course of these five years that win years that win or lose it would educate people. win or lose it would move people and make them see this issue in a different light. >> how hard was it for the attorneys to choose the plaintiffs in the case? >> normally you think people want to get married and they hire a firm. this idea was the opposite. you have essentially chad griffin sitting and watching the election returns come in on election night and barack obama makes history. he's the first african-american president elected. chad is a democrat and he wants to celebrate buddies watching on his computer screen as the prop aids numbers roll in.

propositon eight was the voter initiative to strip and out there with right to marry in california. they briefly enjoy the ride after the california supreme court said it was a matter of state constitutions of the voters asked to change the constitution and they did. and so a few days later chad and his partner christina and their friends who happen to be robin michelle reiner are sitting at the polo lounge in hollywood which is a very meet and greet place and they are talking about what are we going to do? if we can't win in california, we can't win here where can we possibly when? by circumstance a friend of the reiner stopped by and heard but they were talking about password says he really ought to talk to a friend of mine.

my ex-brother-in-law actually is a constitutional lawyer and i think he would be on your side in this. they said who is that? well, ted olson. rob reiner, his jaw dropped and he was with vice president gore when bush v. gore was decided. they both drove down to the supreme court and it was just this terrible light for them but they immediately kind of saw that this had game-changing potential to have someone like ted championing this cause. it had the potential to turn it from what had been a partisan fight into a debate about civil rights. so they then set out to bio. ted had wanted a different kind. he had a specific set of criteria. he wanted a bookstore owner. he wanted a cop and i forget what the other two, they wanted

six altogether because they figured out the opposition turned up something in somebody's background they wanted to have more. he didn't want any children. he thought that was a complicating kind of factor, which is of course really ironic because if any of you have followed this when justice kennedy, when these cases by mcgough to the supreme court it was the kit that's justice kennedy was focused on. what about the 40,000 children of couples in california? aren't they part of the story? i that part of the argument? why shouldn't they have the same kind of family's? but ted didn't want that so anyhow they went on this they have elaborate i describe in the book where they were telling people they were doing a public education campaign and they did a casting call. they were running out of time and when they found chris and sandy, chris perry and are now

wife sandy stier, chris worked for rob, worked for a state agency that rob reiner helped to fund her ballot initiative he had done for chad. they asked them to do it. they have four teenage boys and they said yes and they found to their realtor actually, chad's realtor suggested them. >> how about the people you couldn't talk to? how did he represent them fairly and about? not the people you couldn't talk to but the people you didn't get to spend this much time with as you did with the plaintiffs in the lawyer's? >> yeah so my biggest challenge was i went to the lawyer on the other side jack cooper and asked him, told him i was doing a book and told him right at the beginning and asked him can i hang out in your -- and he said never, that's not going to

happen but he did promise me he was a down with me after the case had resolved itself and he would explain everything that he was doing. so i did. i spent hours and hours interviewing him about what he was thinking and what he was doing. it's very gratifying to me because look, these are tough issues. and i didn't want to write a book that didn't fairly represents the arguments on the other side. i didn't want -- i didn't want to do that because i'm a journalist and i want to be fair but also because people are changing their minds on this issue. you used to have as i said when i started doing this book the majority of the country was supposed. today the clear majority of the country is in favor. and so you know one of the lessons about this and it comes

up again and again in the book is people demonize the other side. i mean it isn't effective. it doesn't change people's minds so i was really grateful to chuck for explaining what he was thinking and his reasonings. i was particularly grateful that he thinks at the end of the day he got a fair shake from me than any of the coverage of this case over five years yet it's still very clearly about two couples who are in love and you want to get married. there's no question that the book is told from their point of view but you know i felt that i had done my job. he felt that i had treated him with respect. >> what was the lowest point? >> there were a lot. this was such up and down, up-and-down kind of thing over five years. no one thought it would take that long. they didn't even know there was going to be a child.

one of the really tough moments was i was there with them when we drove to court the first day of the trial and everything that is sort of sacred in america went on trial during these remarkable weeks. the history of marriage, the history of discrimination in this country, the science of sexuality, all of these issues that had never been really put to trial essentially. not in a federal court. it was a very unusual thing. most of these cases are argued on does the constitution say this or doesn't it say it's? on the first day everybody was so nervous and that morning chris was sort of wiping the kitchen counter kind of furiously and i kind of looked at her and she said you know

this i can control. everything else is -- they are for ordinary people. one day you are two moms raising four kids or in jeff's case. he manages a movie theater and paul is a fitness instructor. the next day you are plaintiffs in a major civil rights case stepping outside the van and there's a crush of cameras and crowds and there are signs and protesters and it's scary. so you wade through all of this and you get into a freight elevator and go up to kind of a holding area. the u.s. marshal marshall comes in and says you know if you get any kind of threats, it doesn't have to be death bad but anything let us know because that's our job. their office looked stricken. sandy and chris looked at each other and all they could think about was their four boys. they were harassed and the boys

were targeted by callers who called -- spencer elliott told me he was doing his homework and a caller kept calling and calling him basically saying things like your moms are going to burn in hell and these terrible things. people would find them on facebook and say you don't have to be all right with this. what they weren't all right with was the assumption that somehow they didn't have a loving great family and both of those boys were star pupils, really well-adjusted kids. but that was really tough. the other thing that was really tough was waiting for to see whether the supreme court would grant the case. what that means is agreed to review the case. they want the federal district court level.

they won on appeal but they wanted the case to go to the supreme court even though that is counterintuitive. why would you want the supreme court to review something that you want but that was the whole point of this to take it to the highest court in the land. so we would gather, the court has something called conferences and they basically put out a list and they say we could decide any of these cases today. we would gather and everybody would furiously go to scotusblog and that it was like okay it's not today. at one point chris said grade my hair looks like you know not nice. he didn't use that word, but you know they kept trying to get their boys -- if the supreme court denied cert and did not take the case they would be getting married right away. they want to be the first to be married in the state. that was part of the a public

education campaign component and so they would have to send out save the dates and say to your family are not getting married. there was a lot of ups and downs for these guys over the course of it and also listening, even the archivists listening and i describe about what they are feeling and thinking as the justices are debating. and talking about at one point justice scalia talks about well you know i will tell you, he says to cooper i will tell you one reason why it's rational for a state to discriminate and its oh so can adopt. there is spencer elliott and just saying the children of a couple and they weren't adopted. they were in vitro but it was just, i tried very hard in the book, i wanted people to come away from this really understanding the legal arguments, really getting, if

you are into, i had this thought if you are into legal thrillers i wanted you to read it without reason and to watch the best lawyers of their generation put together a major civil rights case. i also wanted always to try to find a way back to the personal areas i talk a lot about for instance some of the lawyers in the case and the special burden that they carried with them. there is a wonderful moment where they have their lawyer hats on all day and they put the witness and the witness was there to talk about stigma and what he was there to talk about was how discrimination affects people and place out in their everyday life. the lawyers got them ready and everybody kind of testifies and everybody went to a bar after court and i went with them. they were sitting there and one of the young lawyer said it was like listening, she tells the

others there are, it was like being on a therapist's couch. i had to have my lawyers have gone but then listening to him talk about how stigma makes people feel, the kind of diminished sense of possibility that people live with when they are part of a group that is hated and discriminated against. and she said i couldn't even call my wife. this young lawyer had married her wife in california when this was possible. she said i couldn't could call my wife, wife because, and then the expert who was also said because it felt like a word reserved for other people. she said yeah, it did and then they talked about how we have to own that language. that was where, so you sort of get to hear all of this evidence but also have this almost, like a cinematic way of telling the

story. >> so one of the things you do in the book is really give a lot of background information about olson. could you talk a little bit about the contrast between the lawyers in and their approach to lawyering? >> e, so i describe it in the book this way. ted is like a classical pianist who face with some particularly difficult concerto practices over and over and over again until he has this metronomic kind of precision. david is like a chess player like always in search of the unexpected. so they approach getting ready very differently. i think what makes david such an effective trial lawyer if he doesn't have a script. he doesn't go in and have a script.

at one point he is questioning a witness and something, it was a witness put on by the other side. he is cross-examining him and the guy said something about, he was questioning the expert report that he prepared in the guy said something like well its my report. it's my report and it was just something about the way the guy said it and he said, he said well how many of the experts that you list in your report how many of them actually did you find on your own? and he said well he was dancing around it, circle them. he hands them this piece of paper and it's excruciating to hear the scratches of the pencil making circle after circle after circle of the ones that the lawyers had told him versus the ones he had found on his own. that's the kind of lawyer he is.

ted is, i mean he is an amazing advocate in the sense that he is always thinking like three-dimensional chess. during the trial he was constantly looking at well do we have everything in the record that we will need on appeal because for those of you that don't know, you don't get to put on new evidence or call and a new witnesses once the case is decided at the trial level. the judges above just review the record. so he was always thinking kind of in terms of how well this sort of, mostly how will this fall on justice kennedy. both sides, chuck cooper told me the same thing. that everybody was focused on justice kennedy in making sure that they were making arguments that would have an ultimate appeal to him. in fact when i describe this early on, the lawyers came up

with a list of terms from justice kennedy had offered two other major decision lawrence v. texas in a case called rumored v. colorado. they pulled phrases about human dignity and all the phrases that he used. not just for their legal arguments that they may. they used them of course they are but they gave them to chad griffin's political war room in every press release and every statement that they made contain that language as well. >> those lawyers know the supreme court justices. as kennedy the only one? >> well i think look, david at different times said he was sure they were going to get all not. nobody thought that. i was just bravado and for the headlines. but i think everybody considered

justice kennedy is going. this is yet to be decided because for those of you that don't know the court ultimately decided this was essentially allowing marriages to resume in california. it's a huge victory but not the 50 state decision that they hoped for. and at one point, but anyway did that answer your question? i kind of trailed off there at the end there, sorry. >> at this point why don't we turn it over to the audience and see what questions they have about this issue? >> can you tell us about the judge?

>> guests. judge walker. judge walker is remarkable. he talked to me to the book which i was very appreciative of and he had, he has a very interesting story. he himself is and was not closeted but never had made a public announcement about it. he talks about how he grew up thinking and we talked a little bit early about this diminished sense of possibility. he thought i could never get a man and he reached the pinnacle of my career. that is what he thought. and so he tried to date women. he was particularly moved by a young boy which was the most touching of all of the trial who testified about how his parents upon learning he was forced him to attend what was called reparative therapy.

which is widely now condemned by every major group that forced him to attend this. it was so hard for him. he thought of killing himself and he finally ran away from home and he testified about how he struggled. he was alone and he finally rebuilt his life and found a good job. he works for the denver police department and as he is talking judge walker sort of transported back in time and he told me the story about how he so didn't want to be gay that he underwent a former prepared a therapy himself. and that the doctor that he saw told him that because he had never acted out and had never had sex with a man he was not gay and he pronounced him cured.

judge walker were they wanted to believe that was true. he told me at about the same time he saw his parents. they were kind of a close family and somehow they had a few drinks and the conversation got around to their sex life. they were remarkably candid. they had their troubles in this area. judge walker said that would have been the time for me to say well i have had my troubles in this area too because i am gay but what he said to me was, but i didn't say that because i didn't want to be one of those people. those people were deviants. that is how homosexuality was characterized. it was a mental disorder. it's hard to imagine today but he gets this case. he is literally leaping through the cases that are dropped off by the clerk and he's leafing through it all and he says is suing the governor of california and because oh no, and not

because i thought when he told me the story that it was because he was going to say my personal life is now going to become an issue. that nell, he actually does want to retire and he was pretty sure that this was not going to be -- he wanted to hold a trial and he's looking at all this casework casework and the briefs back and forth. on one side people were saying you know oh well, the reason the state decided this way because it promotes the optimal child-rearing environment. he is like welcome is that the optimal child-rearing environment? on the other side they were saying this harms, this has real impact them harm and it causes real harm to gaze and the children they are raising and civil unions are second-class, second-best and unconstitutional. so he said will prove that. what is the harm?

but he was an interesting character. he was not outed until after the trial and a columnist from the san francisco chronicle wrote a column about him. he said it's not that he hid but it's just more that he was raised at the very private person. i was really grateful because it's really so unusual to have a judge tell you what he was thinking and feeling at every moment of the trial. and if the whole thing is, i'm not sure there's ever been a reporter embedded in a major civil rights case in the same way because of the kind of privilege issues that i was racing the board. >> you kind of% ted olson as the hero in a way and i'm wondering as you reflect back on it,

because we know how they got involved in the process from the front end. was he that much of a change maker, he is a person or do you think there could have been other good lawyers who maybe weren't as conservative that could have helped the cause of move forward? >> e, so i would say a couple of things to that. there are many great lawyers who have worked, dedicated their life to these issues. at that time there weren't a lot of people who were -- the movement lawyers did not believe. as i said before it was time to bring this case or the dome a case or an tome of courses the law that was struck down in edy windsurf's case that prohibited the federal government from recognizing marriages in states where it's already legal. there weren't a lot of lawyers who worked on issues that were wanting to take this case. in fact ted, he knew that his

involvement would be greeted with great suspicion and it was. people thought he had taken it to tank it. he knew he needed someone from the other side of the aisle to be his partner. david boies who was not the first person he approached, he actually approached a guy named paul smith and paul is an openly gay attorney constitutional attorney very well-respected who had brought the lawrence fico texas challenge. he argued it in the supreme court and that struck down laws. so he went to paul and he said would you cocounsel with me on this? paul said i have course thought about bringing this case because in lawrence fico texas the judge in dissent said you are opening the door to gay marriage. paul thought maybe i should file the case that he talked to supreme court clerks is that

it's very different for justice kennedy to say on one hand the state can't criminalize private sexual conduct that is protected by the constitution. and it entirely different thing for him to say in that view in a way that the states must, must bless these deviants because justice kennedy is also a federalist meaning he thinks their rights are preserved by the state senate ought to be protected. so he said no, i wish you luck but i think this is too risky. to your point about with ted olson's involvement game-changing? i would argue that it is. i would argue that it was and here's why. it's not that there aren't any republicans out there ever whoever came out in support of marriage equality. dick cheney had, not a constitutional right but in his view that states ought to legalize same-sex marriage.

what was game-changing about olson is one he was making a legal argument and he came from -- he was a card-carrying federalist society member. these are not the kinds of arguments that most conservative lawyers make. so he was making this conservative legal case for same-sex marriage. that changed i think a lot of the conversation. one of the lawyer said, one of the lawyers on the team said her own mother hadn't totally accepted her relationship with her wife until ted olson came along. she said it was almost like if he's doing this it can't be all that bad. so not only did it garner huge amounts of headlines and there has been i think, there was at the time and there still is a lot of resentment about the

amount of attention that this case god and the fact that i want to do a book about it and hbo is doing a documentary about it. and it probably isn't fair because there are many other people who did amazing work. just south of here married but not those who brought the massachusetts challenge, the first of its kind and it didn't get the kind of sustained relentless kind of front page attention. that's probably not fair but that attention i think was very helpful in catalyzing a conversation that had been taking place in the country. i also think that ted -- ken nauman and i'll bet a lot of you know who he is, he was the engineer of bush's real act.

ken came out and joined this cause and then applied all of the political skill he had used giving george bush a second term to this issue. open act an enormous amount of wall street republican money for this cause. ken did that because ted olson was involved. so i think that this case had a lot of impact. [laughter] i will ask him and get back to you. >> you received a lot of flak and news corporations about the fact that you are a straight woman writing about gay issues. if how do you approach that, so how do you approach getting flak

for being a straight woman writing about a gay issue? >> i think you know, first of all i would like to say one of the harking things about this is that the book was incredibly well reviewed by "the new york times" and "washington post" and independent weekly but one of the really gratifying things for me was it's true. i think that a lot of people were close to this case. it was a controversial case to bring. i think some of the criticism about the book reflects that criticism of the case but what has been really lovely is having people like elizabeth birch who is the head of the human rights campaign step in and write -- i did not know her. she said you must read this bo book. never has tory osborne who is the head of the national and task force wrote, never has a

history of our movement been told in such compelling detail. but there are some people that think that it should be a history of the entire movement. what this is is not that. i'm a journalist. i am not an historian and what i tried to do was tell a story or a particular set of characters. i think there should be many more books written about this movement. no one movement can be captured in a single book. if you go back to the civil rights struggles of the previous century you had taylor branch wrote about martin luther king and you had a simple justice which was very focused on brown. there is room for many more books and i look forward to reading those.

i think to say that somehow this case wasn't deserving or there's too much attention to it, it really i think detracts from the enormous sacrifice that these plaintiffs put their lives on hold for four and half years. they went through these incredible ups and downs. i felt that they deserved a book and that is the book i wrote but like i said it's one chapter in a much larger narrative. i think there have been good books written and there will be more. i know there are more coming. it's becoming something of a hot agenda in publishing these days. >> i was reading in "the new york times" the fact that you focus so much on this issue and i came here. i was trying to figure out why you called this the watershed moment of the civil rights movement.

hearing your story it is one story about an entire movement. so thank you for writing the book and answering my questions. >> thank you. >> i am curious as to what your perspective is now relative to your investigative journalism and career and papers and multi-articles and the enterprise of coming up with the book, investment, time and resources and what did you discover along the way that maybe you anticipated or didn't about how that would be different than your traditional journalistic career? >> a book is very different from a newspaper story. a newspaper story even the ones i write which are always really long, they might be 5000 words that you have to keep people

interested along the way. the book is different. this is a character driven narrative so you have to find ways to invest in these characters and to be carried along with their story, to be rooting for them. i don't just mean the one side. this is a point if you book but i mean i think you will find chuck cooper is every bit as compelling a character with an incredible story. i'm not going to ruin the surprise of it that chuck cooper the lawyer who bought this case all the way to the supreme court has an amazing revolution along the way. you ask somebody else earlier, what were they worried about and what was the low point? one of them was they were so fearful of chuck cooper cross examining them but it turns out their testimony was intensely, intensely the last person on earth that they thought it would be with him personally.

you can read about that in the book but we were talking about this earlier. one of the things you do is to load up everything that you know way up high so you have the lead in any sort of say here's all the good stuff. you then slowly unpack the good stuff. in a book you want surprises. everybody knows the outcome and you know what happened in the supreme court so what has been great if these reviews. even though you know it's a page-turner you want to kind of find out. the reason you want to is because you get to know these people in a way that you didn't threw out five years he saw the headlines. you really want people to invest in the people you're writing about. you want to save some surprises for the end and you want to highlight tension. if you read the stories you would never think that david boies and ted olson had a single strategic difference. you would never know how chris and sandy and paul were -- you

wouldn't know a lot of these things. a lot of these things carry people along throughout and i tried to do that but it's like putting together a giant puzzle. i have boxes and boxes and boxes of the notes are literally for five and half years. they are trying to figure out when do i tell this one thing was a challenge but fun. i've really enjoyed it. >> i know this isn't what you are writing this book for it but it struck me listening to people asking questions about ted olson and you are very come -- your belly very compelling testimony that is evolution on at least this issue made me think about what you learned about characters. i know that you tell journalistic stories in this book as a narrative of facts and events that occurred through

time period but what about delving into the characters. seems like somebody like ted olson is a very interesting character. today you get a chance to talk with him at all about his role in bush v. gore and his outrage is taking away of our democracy is? note, i'm serious. >> it probably will not surprise you to hear that ted doesn't see it that way but david does. >> the same person doing the plaintiffs in your book would think of as horrendous things in bush v. gore is doing saintly things in this case. it's interesting and is like what you said about chuck cooper. i knew him after he clerked for judge rehnquist and was trying to subvert everything from ronald reagan. i can imagine him having any

kind of epiphany like you are talking about but it sounds like he is capable of evolving as well. some people have a great man or great woman theory of history but they are not necessarily presidential people but people like ted olson and chuck cooper who may evolve and may be good on some issues. everybody is complicated. have you learned anything in that respect and talking to these folks? >> guest: one of the themes that run throughout the book is this idea of otherness. when you don't know someone who is gay it's easy to say they want to get married for the same reasons that we do. one of the young lawyers was very conservative and clerked for judge scanlon and one of the supreme court cases and he was skeptical of ted's argument.

this was his younger wingmen but as he read the arguments and got immersed into the evidence he was convinced that this was in fact unconstitutional. but he said and it became personal as well because he got to know the clients. he got to know these four people and he said they are in love. forward ever reason he didn't quite understand how her fellow was to say you can't have marriage. you can have this other thing and there was that same breakdown of stereotypes between the democrats and republicans on the team. early on you know, one of the other young attorneys on ted's team, staunch republican walks into the war room and the lawyers and political guys are plotting about what they are going to pass to the media that day. chad griffin who cut his teeth on the clinton white house said

to matt mcgill would you please stop dressing like a young republican? overtime they all came to see each other not as people on the other side of the aisle but people who are smart people who over five years, my gosh people would become friends. so i think that's a real lesson in this to me is that the more people can see people just are who they are and not stick a label on them, i think it's realizing people are a lot more complicated than whatever the stereotypical idea that you might have about the mess. >> would you consider writing your next book on the subject like back? [laughter] >> that's a good idea. i will take that under consideration.

>> i assume you've thought about how one becomes one doesn't but there's also another side and i'm curious if it was ever considered? we read a lot in the monitor about marriage being for one man and one woman but no state has defined the concept as far as i know and biologically it's pretty tricky to do. did they ever consider using that? >> i think the evidence in the trial was very much centered on is this a choice because if it's not a choice, then constitutionally it becomes much more problematic. the evidence you know was pretty clear and both judge walker and the appeals court above him essentially judge walker said the evidence is clear that this is not something that can be readily changed. so that is what was particularly relevant to this particular

issue. and it's important and it's interesting that too is the number. the majority of americans now pretty clear consensus that is not a choice. >> you mentioned about the case going to trial. i followed your book and there were some of that on television when it was actually taking place or soon after. can you explain how that happened and whether that was to the advantage ultimately without trial taking place? >> actually the argument in the ninth circuit which is kind of a dryer of pellet argument was televised that the trial itself

was not. judge walker had a plan to broadcast it by youtube and chuck cooper when all the way to the supreme court before the trial even got underway. on this issue could the trial be televised in the supreme court ultimately decided in cooper's it could not be. it was interesting chris and sandy, really for the team bringing cases was a real blow because they really have this idea that it was going to be like a scopes kind of trial of evolution. and how were they going to speak to the american public if the american public couldn't even hear the evidence? so that was tough. and ultimately you know there was a moment actually when it was going up and ted olson kind of like the idea of kennedy

getting an early preview of this case and so we were talking about that. chad griffin one of the main characters of the book said kind of like a ps. are you down with being one of the five you know? by e it was a tough blow to them that it was not televised. >> so anyway in the last year or so since the decision came down both in the prop a case and oma or the winter case you know there has been a wave, at least similar if not not more at the state-level challenges to marriage laws in the states and in most of the states they have been overturned. this is more for the benefit of the audience i guess i'm most of

the time when these bands are challenged and they are overturned the case that is actually being cited by the state level is windsor. it's not the case. the winter case you talked about a little bit which is overturning the federal dilma laws so at a certain level if you compare the case and windsor in many ways at this point winter has had a lot more impact. did you feel some way that may be covered or were focused on the wrong case? >> noah because i focused on them both. the case again this is kind of the tale of a group of people who decided to kind of upset the status quo and what they did was really an insurrection. this was against the wisdom of

the entire bulgy bt establishment. i think you now, i love being windsor and her lawyer. there are amazing chapters about that case as well including this wonderful scene where the obama administration had decided to switch. they had been initially defending it. kohl ..

because prop 8 was decided on a technicality, essentially, it doesn't have precedencal value. so you can't cite it, this is the reason. the winsor case -- doma was decided on the merit, the decision, anthony kennedy wrote the decision. it took all of the arguments that roddy had made and talked about the importance of marriage and why marriage is important, which was very much an argument

in the prop 8 case, and so when -- i think it's every ban now. it's under challenge, either at the state or federalle level, so of course the cite to winsor, and in every federal case the judges have cited the perry, the prop 8 -- i'm pretty sure every ever case -- cited to the prop 8 trial record and making judgments whether sexuality is a choice or the harm it's done to gays and lesbians and their children by telling people that you can't get married. and i think that both of those cases have been hugely beneficial, and we'll have to see what the supreme court decides to do in the end. >> one second. you touched on it briefly about the fact that the entire lgbt movement was behind the fact

they were bringing it to the supreme court. what your thoughts on that? even princeton's -- the former bishop robinson was against the fact it was going to the supreme court. he thought it was too early. in the case of the simple rights movement they didn't push to the supreme court level until the majority of the country was for it. do you think it was too early? >> i think you have to play the what-if game. i thought it wases a great story and i wanted to follow it and rite -- write a book, but what it ted olsen got his right. he didn't want a trial. that trial slowed things down. also didn't want a bunch of things that happened to slow the case down when it was in its middle phase, the appellate case. so what itself got to the supreme court asaphia as he wanted, would the outcome be the same? the concern was not that everybody didn't share the goal.

the concern was that five justices of the united states supreme court would vote and say, these bans are in fact constitutional. and enshrine that into legal precedent, and the worry was, people remembered what happened. bowers was a case that preceded lawrence v. texas. the beauers case was a challenge to georgia's sod my statute -- sodomy statued, and the cop census was it was brought too fast and the supreme court doesn't like to reverse itself. so how much longer could this wait? on the other hand, let's talk about this who-ifs on the other side. the people bringing this thought was that this wasn't just about marriage. that it wases about when a state says that certain kinds of relationships are worthy of something, but others are not, that has consequences going far

beyond the able to not to walk down the compile call yourself married. it's -- in chad griffin's view, it drives things like bullying in school. it drives things like the fact that gay and lesbian teenagers have a higher suicide rate. it drives things like the higher rate of gay and lesbian homelessness, and so from their point of view, it's like, what if another generation or five grades of kids grow up and are still being told this, chris perry touched -- it's bans like proposition 8 did not exist when she was growing up in bakersfield, california, that her entire life would have been lived on a higher aac, and from their point of view, there was no more time to waste.

and what if mitt romney had been elected instead of president barack obama. that was a distinct possibility, and close to happening, and one of the older liberal justices were to die and be replaced by a mitt romney, would there be even a possibility of five votes at that point? and then how much longer would you have to wait then? so, that's the kind of neat thing about history. you can't predict it going into it, and it's hard to know how things would have turned out if it didn't lay out the way it did. >> what really legalized gay marriage around the country, and was it a case? and i know -- kind of the

question you always -- well, is it brown or was it the civil rights movement that changed things in this country, and so i'm asking you that question. i know you focused on that, for one thing you have to write three books at least. but i'm almost hearing your answer, both are important, but i want to put you on the spot a little bit and really want you to choose. was it just some people deciding in a room, deciding a case or was it's movement? >> it is a movement. it's so many important events, right? it is what happened at stonewall

when -- are in people who don't know what stonewall is, police used to go into bars and raid gay bars. you weren't allowed to congregate in bars. so it was the stonewall riots when the police raided a bar in new york city. it was the a.i.d.s. activists who mobilized in a health crisis, and people live cleave jones, one of the main characters of my book and the creator of the a.i.d.s. quilt, it was all of the work that people like evan johnson did on the ground, on the political ground, and it was also -- i know you don't like that answer but it was also litigation. at a certain opinion -- this was in dispute but at a certain point you basically say, if this is a civil right, you can't put civil rights up to a vote. you don't get to put people's basic civil rights up to a vote.

you couldn't hold a referendum in new hampshire and say i don't want black people to attend the same school. not possible. and so i think that the debate over when was it the time to go federal and take it to the court? it wasn't that would ever not part of the movement's plan. it just was a question of when. [inaudible] the terrible crimeses that happens to gay people just because they're gay. >> yes. over the course of this reporting period, this last five years, there was a moment where one of the lawyers -- one of the young gay attorneys on the team, henry, said there are there'd been this rash of terrible teen suicides, and he was -- i don't know if mayor -- remember these but a boy hung himself after being taunted at school.

a college student at rutgers, whose roommate taped him in an intimate act, threw himself off the george washington bridge, and it was sort of this moment where this lawyer enrique said, i think we're making so much progress, i think we're doing so much good and then something like this happens, and, yeah, those -- that kind of thing shocks the conscience. >> one more? >> hi. i have a comment and a question. the comment is, i wanted to add to what you just said because i think it -- in terms of the movement, it's also been brave lgbt people coming out. i think about when i was younger, no one would have watched ellen, and now everybody watches ellen, and i think that

as more people have been out, all over the spectrum, whether it's sports person, and it just becomes part of our life and i think that's a huge issue that shifted just in my lifetime. the question i have, though, is where you think this movement is going? and where do you think the bum -- bumps are going to be? being from california, its bewilders me that so much moves to fast in the northeast and not as much in the west, and i wonder where you see us going in the next few years. >> i want to go back to your point, which is that is a number one reason -- we talk about a movement and talked about different historic moments in the movement and different people, but the bottom line is that the reason that we are where we are today is because people have come out and they've told their story, and nine out of ten people now know someone who is gay or lesbian, and that is -- and that is the none

predictor of whether you think that people should be -- that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry. so there's no question that people who have come out, who have been brave enough to face the discrimination that comes with that, and, again, tell their stories, that's all of the credit goes to them. where is the movement going? i think we're going back to the supreme court pretty quickly. the supreme court can duck if it wants but i don't think it can. right now the two cases -- there's three cases on a fast track to the united states supreme court, to ask -- so they don't do this on a technicality. one in virginia, one in utah, and one in oklahoma. they're all under challenge but those are the fastest moving. it's the appeals court judge upholds the lower court's ruling and that the utah's ban is

unconstitutional, one of the most conservative areas of the country issue can't imagine the supreme court would deny cert and not review the decision. the there's a huge challenge ahead. so those who don't know, in more than half the states you can still legally discriminate against gays and lesbians becauses there's no federal law. there's no equivalent of a civil rights act. and so you can say, i don't -- i want to fire you because your gay, or i don't want you to stay in my hotel because you're gay, and you can get away with that in the states that don't have specific protections, which are more than half. so that's a bill in congress right now, and there's a big fight over it, and there's a fight about the opponents are saying, you have to all all these religious liberty exceptions and you have bakers who won't bake cakes, you know, for a gay wedding. and you think about that, and just substitute the word, i don't want to bake a cake

because you're african-american. you couldn't do that. but you can, so i think that's going to be a big fight. as i've talked to people, too, part of it is -- i think part of it is a challenge is right now, there's so much movement, so quickly, that it's easy to forget that still there's 40% of the country that, give or take, depending on the poll, that remains to be convinced. so how do you sustain this kind of coverage, the kind of attention, and try to move those 40%. >> i want to thank you all for being such a great audience. i want to remind you that there are books for sale in the lobby and jo will be out to sign them, and i want to thank jo for a wonderful presentation. [applause]

>> if you like the book, please post a review on amazon. my colleagues at on behaf

the center, i would like to welcome all of you to this very interesting session on the situation in north warziristan. welcome the part of our audience that is not in the same room, but in another room. we will be taking questions from them, too. also welcome to the c-span audience watching us at home or in the office or wherever they are watching from. thank you all for being here. this is normally supposed to be a quiet evening in washington in august, but that is one of those yths, like a 30 minute commute everyone has. i'm delighted we are looking at this topic and delighted to experts.wo

one is a defense analyst and also chairman of a group and pakistan that is related to security. doctor was teaching at a university and has a book. he is the chair of department of regional studies at the college of international security. more details on them are available on the material that you have. i don't want to take too much time going into those. iso want to say that this really on the record, but it is also made possible by a generous grant we received on the carnegie corporation of new york for the u.s. pakistan program to focus on key issues that relate to pakistan and to the u.s.-pakistan relationship. we have been grateful to

carnegie for this excellent row graham and the support -- program and their support. evokes allristan kinds of memories, particularly the last few years. this is the campaign that never came about. theed to a break region chief of staffs and the then army chief. this was a campaign that people expect it because it was something that the united states and its allies wanted very much for warziristan to undertake even as they operated in other parts in the area. north warziristan was somehow spared a major operation hear it over the years, many deals were made and were broken, but the

key ingredient in this was the about and --he how who are seeking sanctuary. this was a topic of tension. they became famous among other things for repeated drone attack us and the frequency of the attacks would be something that would be remarked upon regularly . months, it was quite clear that the pakistan and taliban were not taking the offensive. there were attacks, including the one at the iraqi airport, .ublic opinion swung

so, the pakistan military found an opportunity and launched this operation. that is what we will discuss here at not just operation, but inside means for the war of all of anniston and what would it mean for the region, particularly the relationship knowing forward? request the major, i'm using his old military rank, for about a greeting 10 minutes on the situation there.nd take it from then we will open it up to questions and answers and take the discussion forward. >> thank you. one of the questions that was

asked of me was will the army ever go? i honestly answered, yes, it would. at that point in time, we knew something and pakistan that people did not know otherwise. arecommanders on the ground strongly urging that the that developed must be maintained. and because ,f the fact that the fighters

they decided to delay the operations. whoever, the pressure was from their own commanders. ultimately, by the time the chain of command to place, it was more or less decided that the operation would go in. in,ation was meant to go but into major phases. the first was airstrike. precisely where they that --ated in the fact they expected to catch them from position airstrikes. ae moment they had

provocation -- once airstrikes went in, they killed many in the first. the major political parties talked about cease-fire and talks. unfortunately, the ploy was only to delay. they needed to get out. they knew that they needed time, [indiscernible] intention of the --

the negotiators were talking something else. ultimately, it is fair to say the pressure was if you don't go --, you don't get a chance to clear the area. see [indiscernible] were not really fighters. they don't consider them fighters.

if you look east, you see -- if -- it is not shown on the map, but where you see [indiscernible] range.n mountain it gives you an idea of how high it is. resort.hill so the army action when in here i won't go into details. they came in from different directions. then then east and then weston

then southwest. -- and then west and then southwest. there -- the point was to dominate. why? it not joking they tell you would pale in comparison. it was a free-for-all really. economies.out the south when you see the mountain, .his is the area

both of them had signed peace treaties with pakistan in 2003. they basically said the same. as soon as they were out of the area, they took large portions of the area. other things started coming up. there was some fighting thisally for control of area. i want to clear one misperception. fighters.bout the the arab fighters. that kind of

fighter is the name from pakistan and did not go back. wrong. .et's go back and the fighters came back each of them were given $14,000 and an ak-47 to join in the jihad. to takend it convenient the $14,000 in marrying their daughters off to these militants . .hey were vexed these people are literally homeless. they have no place to go. they can't go back because they do not want their.

there backs are to the wall. they had no other place to go. the are the ones of when place. took but basically most of the people -- you been killed had ared imagine the children now in their 30's. zone, and just

one case alone just to give you discovered they bombs. 1000. hadyou imagine that they these underground hospitals? the was the intention of army? what have you achieved? maybe 500 or 600 all. what they achieved is they now dominate that area. by dominating the area, they .eny militants based on the ability to strike, but it's them -- they don't give them the opportunity to do so with the freedom they had.

now the a situation fighting is taking place in the mountains. the ground operations are proceeding there. the expected they would dominate , which is a tragedy by itself. turned out to be 1.1 million of them who were registered. and other areas of pakistan. some are in camps. unfortunately, there are logistics and we have to live with that. just before i end, i would like

to say that they were successful have notnse they -- abandoned their posts. they help these people. on the other hand, that particular freedom they had is not there anymore. the good news is they should be going back sometime in the middle of september. 80% of them should be that.

[indiscernible] this is thating on fail in will not military operations. they will fail in [indiscernible] even though the army engineer these roads,ing wide-open roads to make back to medications less difficult. something --rt is you take a person and what him across the road and it cap, you

have -- put him in a can, you have disrupted. he is not bashing put a minute camp, you him in a have disrupted. have disruption which must be addressed. the rehabilitation is something that must be worked upon. must give them a means. give them reason to protect that means. thank you. >> thank you. let's move on. forward. can take this what is the meaning? where does this put the war on

terror? >> thank you, first. i appreciate all of the different events and publications produced by the atlantic council. thank you relating that effort. whose responsibility is that? operation of what are the implications of a what will itand mean for the ordinary people and the terrorists for the implications? i would look at it skeptically. generalo add to the

view in which i think it is absolutely right. this operation is not only a major step toward defeating terrorist in that region, but it is going on for all the that ite that we have is going in the right direction. it is delayed and it is the right and to do. i was in pakistan about two weeks ago. i was told about that that it was in this operation that the

pakistan military got hold of senior leaders and had permission to come out. happenededa leader -- to be a pakistani. . he has a masters degree. he is punjabi by ethnic act grant. background. i earnestly hope that with the interrogations going on that there is an officer who is there. it is necessary in that case.

however we have seen consistent failure. action, the police political support base is missing. go to utter failure. it is important to see the overall of the context and the different stations -- stages. focused this time. they realize that the first step -- to

ttp. he was the head of a group of militants. is to go i am making to north warziristan. the first two steps began in unison in a coordinated fashion. the them full credit for success. i think that there were some successes. an second stage was operation that was quite successful in terms of pushing -- some of the i think we just cannot ignore that delay.

mention that the a qaeda leaders, when both the for [indiscernible] have the exact answers. i would like to have the answers. at what stage did he get connected with al qaeda? how were they allowed to expand into mainstream pakistan? the operation. there are different ethnic groups that lived there.

you can make up the language and the future. -- don't have their own are there check post? was there any courting nation between military intelligence and local law enforcement? indirectly -- i think it would be unfair to say it was in any way intended. ready to fly -- buy, but to say it was one man and not to delay the operation for four

years is a reflection. this leads me to my second point. i am making the case for the lessons to be learned and not always to look forward, but look into the history. the recent history, we can't just ignore. vague.wers are very it brings me to the next point. it was reluctant with a heavy advice- what was the given by the pakistan's people party? were they reluctant? now.

they were begging, but making a consistent effort, lease don't. disconnect. what were the answers given to them? in fact, there was a clear effort to show that there were some bad intentions. exposed by, he was having some soft feelings of sympathy. maybe he was making a case to negotiate. there was a different criteria to look at the issues. i can be long and some of these minor details about the military

relationships and this transition from military to democratic. the larger point is there is a military disconnect. on other issues, there was an effort to try to shift the areassibility in tribal completely to the military. you. up to they didn't want to take responsibility in case something went wrong. that disconnect, that lack of communication is most certainly at the core of this issue. lack of coordination between leadership,litary that leads to lack of cohesion, lack of planning, and such in -- it problem becomes obvious. if we had millions of dollars to

go for specific strike's and go for deployment of military that is no small job, it would take millions of dollars and lots of dedication. noould say there were civilian private sector organization. they have completely failed to realize this. this brings me to almost the end of my initial plan. on theisconnect long-term impacts. in the short run, there are those of this operation that i think is very good. -- it must'veen been planned months before. it must have some linkages. in the last two months and weeks, we haven't seen any of

that. there was a bombing of the girls school last week, but no major attacking of centers. militants are on the run. that there is a lot of evidence they are really on the run. whatever structure is being -- theird infrastructure is being dismantled. one thing that is for sure is no -- it is not being provided under the sanctions. -- whysly, they would don't you move?

you can go and be the guests. that is to the best of my knowledge in honest assessment. that is not happening. that is a good sign. groupr, the high connie has not been delicately -- ha the tactical success we have seen come there is some general criticism and skepticism about our policies, the new military leadership which is not working on one person but four five, the chief of general staff of military operations, they with the architects of the operation. i think it is very clear the they're very dedicated and the operations are in good hands.

what worries me the most is no comprehensive policy. pakistani police officers, and i share some responsibility, even leading police officers have not been given any -- they are not part of the overall operation because the consequences of this operation are in urban centers are incompetent, they should be on the same table when these things are discussed. when i mention this to my friends in government or military, very incompetent, who is responsible? are they from a different world? are we not having the same food is you are? dean lind fault them, engage them, invest in them? only then will they join hands with you. i am not seeing that trend.

the real battle against the terrorists will be fought by civilian law enforcement. will not take decades, they held to be on board and that element is not there. the pakistani religious political party, we know who was running it, producing these militants, have been dismantled. so honestly the government that needs political courage and political leadership, the political support somehow is also missing. the kind of energy we were expecting to see for support of this operation is something, the media is running programs, patriotic songs and setter but to the best of my knowledge all paid by the i s b r.

this is not something that is happening from among the people. and at the end of the day that also defines the effort which takes five or ten years when going in that direction. >> thank you very much. both of you raised some very interesting points. there may be some statements to challenge in terms of associations being made but let me if i'm a ask question to both of you. after all -- what is identified as the epicenter of this whole operation and the headquarters of the network. and the pakistan army, all these years. they were outside the city.

and these corporations take place from bases with training being provided being brought in and the photographs show heavy equipment. how is that possible that this was ignored or this happens or was it because the memo said it was confined to a ballot. or was it because there was no national strategy. >> it goes back -- several were in the forefront. of this operation from the beginning. and was headquartered and moved

out for the past ten years in the fields. >> good extradition of operational area. >> we were just discussing it before we came in to the operation. the thing is a conscious decision, there is a criminal neglect because of actual knowledge of the situation on the ground, they tell you the time it is not going on. i want to disagree on one issue, the strength of the army chief, like it or not, the army chief is an indicator. the last time there was a little bit of a collective response in the general area was holding

pakistan and even then there were generals that were hawkish and ultimately they kept on driving him and of course backpedaling on the other side he came to a decision but before that, the helicopter pilot in the eastern command so i knew firsthand was happening. so there was -- the army chief was overruled but then all the chips were down. the army chief, until the day he is the army chief he is what he is and he is. to expect the leadership to convince the army chief, i don't think is possible in the

pakistan army, from what i know about the pakistan army. this little bit of disagreement, we tend to mix conflict and controversy. what is happening in pakistan today and all these areas is counterinsurgency. terrorism within pakistan. and in pakistan, that can also become an insurgency. that could have happened somewhere. so the army is quite equipped. no army in the world, no army in world can do counterterrorism like that. you have to have a specialized dedicated forced to do that and i agreed that you have to involve the law enforcement agencies but to give an idea of

that, in pakistan, the biggest activator in the world. at that point in time the united states had set up the anti-narcotics force and today pakistan is not even in the list of popular is. for 15 years they manage it and kept it going so you set up a dedicated force and that force has to divide law-enforcement agencies, this has to be a separate force stablishing what is available from all forces, you have to give those powers, and to act like they're acting in front of the army by the way they're acting on article 245 with the high court's. so i think that is the major

issue, and he makes up counterinsurgency with counterterrorism, you have a problem. >> both of you appear to be agreeing on those points which is the point you are making is it was the absence of an agreed upon national counterterrorism strategy in and national security strategy which to give this government what they put together an initial framework which was socialized with the military or other parts of the population. but there was this one clear effort that they came up with the documents, these experts to give feedback. i am careful because i'm sitting between two leading experts of

the military. the only major economic journal which looks at the issue without doubt so to make any comment to be extremely careful, i would like to know if these experts, i have a slightly different view of this idea. and and in 1998 whether there was a military movement. and the lead lawyers movement

and political developments. not concerned with the view among experts, and the chief, there are new dynamics and the course of others overtime, no army chief to lead the military without generals on the same page. the army chief saying something which is not -- the majority of commanders on his side. i defer to what leads to his experts to say and there's a changing dynamic, there is a changing issue in government, social and political impact, societal norms that we seeing, and at times organization, based on those elements with pakistani forces as well.

and that is having an impact on the command and control system. honestly believed cohesion can be the most important factor of survival but i am seeing some changes. to complete massive security, the political leadership are not very clear, they appointed a new person as national security adviser, intelligent pakistani politician, what is the dynamic between the head of the interior ministry and in pakistan, all these chiefs of police from four provinces on one table except this one institution which is dysfunctional and never met for the last three years so with the larger point saying it was

inside -- and the incident but the largest point is not between different elements, simply no doubt about it and the unfortunate part is the recognition and realization. >> we were not going to the fine points of how decisions are made. the reality is this particular operation appeared to be the attack in karachi which change public opinion and in the last two years, suffered 270 casualties which included 90 dead and when you talk to the commanding officers in the field even when they lose one person in the regiment is a huge loss of the pressure was mounting in

the military and any small army chief has to listen to the troops. when he meets his summation commanders and corps commanders, this is something that was coming regularly. interestingly, this is not a fact that is widely publicized, the army chief and president concurrently never once visited after having sent troops to fight so there is no evidence of him having traveled to meet the troops and the civilian leadership doesn't do it either. that is up mind-boggling thing. let me open it up to the audience. let me go to the back first. if you would identify yourself, i also want to let everybody know i will take names and come back to you and keep reminding me of your interest in asking a

question. and also that the single slide you saw, which was brought with us by ikram sehgal, we will be putting the whole thing on our web site so it will be available to all of you for information. please identify yourself and ask your question. >> i am from pakistan. i have a question. i am giving this conviction, when you think about the years lost, what in those four years need to be identified? what was the army doing in those times, starting off -- the

startup operations. in between all the agencies which are spread and regularly be taken or the actions being taken so it is important to know what is going on in addition to what took place when the pakistan army was involved. also the important decision, the importance of the competition that runs -- another hot spot of the terrorists that was important for the army to take that was also affecting u.s. forces, taking the un those. when you talk about the full

use, you do have what happens within the full year under -- otherother -- other than the other things. all of a sudden it is not -- the a tiny networks for the session -- what next? what is going to happen? what is going to be the effect of the relations of the world and the region and what are we seeing because two months or a shorter time in which everything will -- it will take some time for the army and the numbers, it will drop down those numbers. that is my question.

>> the future prospects. it is very light. that should be considered -- a critique also but haqqani was engage in some of the other thing this. and development and other institutions, there is a crisis and we know one of the leading politicians was marching towards the taliban and the leadership of the army to secure the taliban. so the responsibilities, the army was stretched thin, that is an important point and i can see that. in any discussion and analysis, there should have been one or two sentences with that. un vote future my view is that several things are happening. it is no more what is happening

in their region no more debarment -- dependent on -- there is a relationship that is on the resolution and relation to interaction and engagement between pakistani and u.s. security operations at least in the securities sector, has really improved, no doubt about it. the dynamic between pakistan and india, these are three different things, not interlinked. the future, the next challenge and the next initiative are not only defined by pakistan. it will be dependent on other things where i don't see a lot of things. because the government has not been up to the mark when it comes to the afghanistan border and we know the other incursions' as well. there's not a clear understanding of coordination

and cooperation between afghanistan and pakistan and the pakistani india relationships remains the best thing to bid, and going to india. i don't know how that impacted the view from the military circle but that relationship is blocking a combination of those drops and relationships will be fine the future of the period. >> you made a fleeting accusation that the afghan security forces were providing artillery for operations in to -- is that what you are referring to or are you referring to something else? you said they were not stopping the haqqani group. that is a pretty serious allegation. is there any evidence of

shelling? >> four months ago, the number 2 was accompanied by the agents when he was caught on the way to u.s. special forces and then taken -- hamid karzai created help for the u.s. to release transparent forces and constantly supplying so what evidence can there be that the number 2 man soon after is that, so other than that, living awkwardly, the head of the tee tee pee is not accepted but if he ever shows up in this area in

this area. dep haqqanis are different, they are facially and structurally different from the other afghans. and the idbs, it was clearly evidence from what was happening on the ground. they are in camps close to the border and everytime that comes in, where exactly is coming

from. obviously the haqqanis across the border. >> i don't think the iran national army is taking them to heart. as part of the idea i am under no illusion -- i just want to go back to what was said about another factor. particularly in difficult areas and a helicopter pilot in the infantry, a helicopter pilot at some time. there was a last stage, it difficult for that to continue, and we worked well of few miles

away and coming in and also the ammunition depletion was a difficult state two years ago so a number of factors, recognition on the part of general can and to go back to what you said about the collective decisionmaking and four years ago, 100% wanted out and it was general canyon who said no, you must let democracy succeed. i give him this, he was the army chief and kept his ideas in line and did not allow that to happen. >> we have a question here and i'm going to come to the end. >> if you can stand up, i think

it would help. [inaudible] >> excellent presentation, very informative. the 1.1 million, the fact is by september, the operations came to an end. as pakistan -- the outcome of the war given what we call it to the advantage of the agenda and work nation and long term vision, comprehensive view where

is the future? >> i think the first thing i'm must answer this question is almost 3 million refugees that had to be moved in a hurry. the tee tee pee was not brokered at no stage. but they would be had them in public. so the escape of absolute anarchy, moving backward. i think the army is particularly confident that before the intersection at the beginning of november, you are thinking about

the war. pakistan army, today -- electra regularly, i will be lecturing for the next 15 years in support three year period in between. i see is the best as the senior lot. the reason is even though five generals were retired three haven't had combat experience. actors that in october there is not a single three star general in the pakistan army has not had combat experience of some kind. that is important to. unless a man is seen as being lying dead in the field he cannot understand the consequences of sending people into battle and therefore he is much more better educated,

better trained, has better experience and is committed to democracy. the days of rule are over, particularly in this day of social media you cannot rule that. that is an important development. from that point of view, even though we have difficulties and there are some other difficulties, and i agree with him and these things have to be addressed, we are going to win this war. >> for the war, you are talking about the military side. >> there should be a plan, there must be a plan but someone is keeping it very close to the chest.

we should get some confidence, i still think the military plan might be because the problem with the planning board, four months before was launched, military coming back. of further news item, when was the first time we heard people started moving out, before the operation began. people actually the militants in areas where they watch military movements. they knew there were some deployments happening close to the other areas and the militants moved out so there can be a lapse comparable to when someone in washington d.c. they had to say this and there were

complications that were difficult on that count. and the whole of pakistan related to this operation. as well as the capital area. >> in the capital area, as an identifiable issue, the military to do civilian jobs, and some they come up and clean it. says civilians have to start investing, should not have been called in to that. one economic point i say with all humility but something i can

also check, an important point, what was mentioned, i have a couple things sitting here, the word haqqani, they are different tribe but from those, in our cities, a little different but they look very similar and check if they're not to the best of my knowledge. >> looking forward to the gentleman, please identify yourself. >> the policy resolution. talking about the who and what that has been going on and underline why. to militants have any legitimate grievances with the government? if so what are those grievances? what has happened in