♪ ♪ .. ladies and gentlemen, of this concludes today's ceremony. please remain in place as the official party departs. thank you for your attendance,

and enjoy the rest of your day. [applause] [background sounds] [background sounds]

[background sounds] >> if you missed any of this ceremony it is available on our website, c-span.org. check the c-span video library. this week's newsmakers is housed by minority leader, steny hoyer.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> coming up later today we'll go to the center for american progress for discussion on defeating the caregroup ices. president obama laid out a strategy in his address to the nation on wednesday night. panelists will consider the challenge is creating a coalition of nations to fight ices. live coverage begins at noon eastern on c-span2. this week's newsmakers this house minority whip steny hoyer. the looming deadline for maintaining government funding beyond the september 30 deadline and the congressional agenda heading into the fall. you can see that on c-span. also we'll go live today, life on sunday to iowa where bill anne heller clinton are taking part in senator tom harkin's 37t37th and final steak fry. senator harkin who is retiring

at the end of year said that was c-span a talk to us about the annual event and the invitation to the clintons this year. >> well, i put in a request to hillary. i spoke to her personally some time ago, but she's getting me to do her book tour. she was just finishing a book and going to go on a book tour and she said i just don't know what that's going to be like a not so going to transpire, she said, but i would like to do it. can you just give me some time to forget what my schedule be like? i said sure. then i saw bill out in california. i was at a health care event in california and i saw bill clinton and there. and, of course, then we started commiserating about this and that, and i remember as he was kind of, he was signing some of his books for people in all the room, just two of us. so i told him i'd invited hillary to come up to speak at my steak fry, and as he turned to walk away i said you should,

too. you on both of those? we have been friends all these years. couple to couple kind of thing. i would love it. that would be great to think about that. he said i will. they did and that's just great honor to have them both. they have been good friends of ours for all these years. bill and hillary have provided i think great leadership for country in the past in their respective ways. i served on the committee in the senate under ted kennedy with hillary clinton all the time she was innocent, so we great working relationships in the senate. i think she just did an outstanding job as our secretary of state. in fact, as i've traveled around the world the last few years, it is just amazing how the stature that hillary clinton has globally among women and girls all over the globe. she has kind of lit a spark, a

fire among women and girls in different countries around the world, and they just hold her in very, very high esteem. >> and the harkin steak fry is live sunday at 3:30 p.m. you can watch it on c-span. dr. anthony fauci village the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases predicts the ebola outbreak in west africa will soon be recognized as a security issue. he recently took part in a panel examining global health challenges. this event was hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. it's about 90 minutes. >> good afternoon. thank you all for joining us the first day after labor day. summer is over, fall is beginning, and we are also often a good start here. we are really thrilled today to

come together really as a celebration of larry gostin's work, and the very important, major opus on global health law that has come out of this year. and when larry raised the idea a few months ago about having anything, having a book event, we do different kinds of book events, we were honored and delighted to be able to do that. he such a panel of our community here, and he's done so much over the years and leadership at the our new institute and at the school of medicine and prolific output, and he said so much influence over all of us in such a constructive, forward-looking, gracious way that we just thought this was a great occasion. so thank you, larry, for letting us pick this up. we're thrilled to be able to do it. we also thought let's try to do

this as a conversation around big questions and big ideas, let's try to bring in some of larry's closest friends and allies over the years who could help in the celebration in a kind of deliberate, interactive risk discussion. and so larry agreed to that and has enlisted tony fauci, you all know, and a really huge presence in our lives, in all matters pertaining global health. and will be joined in a few minutes, 10 evans from the world bank as -- tim evans from the world bank as a third party for this. the we will go about this is we'll run up to 4:30, we may even sort of trail on. we will see how things go. we will open up with larry saying a few words about his

work. it's the culmination of many years of effort. it's not just the only large, comprehensive, definitive encyclopedic, and the related -- analytic work. she done this and a bunch of other areas in the course of his career. i wanted to have them just offer a few quick reflection from his chair around the genesis common experience of building the book and what it taught him, what came out of and then we will morph from there into our discussion. the discussion be structured around to be questions. that our very future oriented. each of them very much trying to get us thinking about the future. and the first one is going to be what is the single biggest challenge or problem that we need to keep our focus upon looking it over the next five to 10 years? what will that be, and why?

we've got an international law expert. we have tony as a person coming at this from the perspective of someone involved deeply in the science, research, develop and and technologies. tim evans, someone whose life is surely centered in the science of delivery, implementing programs and organizing a large international organization to be effective in that. so we'll begin with that first question and then we will morph from there into what to believe the biggest idea would be over the same period that will spur innovation and change the calculus in this world. so welcome. thank you all for being with us. you have a be -- the short biographies our speakers but i'll not go into great detail.

larry, tony and tim are all smug to all of you as close friends and folks that we call upon consulate in debating any dimension of global health. larry, congratulations. it's a great occasion and the floor is yours a. >> it is a great occasion. i just want to start by thanking you and csis for doing this. there's no place like this in washington, in america and europe built something incredible. tony is also a long, long time friend or i feel like i'm surrounded by friends. more than that, i am surrounded by two of my hero's that have worked so hard on global health. i mean, there is no book on global health law and global health coverage. we didn't think of law as just an esoteric field, but, in fact,

the legal instrument, the governance of global health is really critical. think about the framework convention on tobacco control. think about ebola. the w.h.o. declared a public health emergency of international concern that was under formal law under the international health regulations, and it invoked various powers and the like. but what really drew me to this book was the idea of to local -- global health initiative's operating out there. one is what you hear from the really great thinkers in global health in the gates foundation and usaid, the w.h.o. and that's the story of remarkable progress in global health where we were to where we are now with some incredible achievements through the millennium development goals

through the sustainable development goals. and that's a true narrative. there's no question about it. if you look at age, child, maternal health, malaria, we have done very, very well. but i also have done work civil society, social mobilization work around the framework convention for global health, talked to people on the ground, and their experience is completely different, it's a different narrative. and mayors is a narrative of deep impoverishment. a narrative you can see in west africa today, quite frankly, as steve was saying of the food insecurity, human rights violations, ebola. a whole variety of other conditions, people are afraid to go to the hospital. so we really are facing a crisis, and that's what i fear.

and it turns out that both of global health narratives are right. you have improvements in global health but those improvements are not equitable across the board. and equity and justice is really a major theme in his book. so basically i asked three basic questions, and then i will move on. the first question is, what would a perfect state of global health look like? that is, if we could imagine something what we aspire to, what would it be? and for that i really tried to place a premium on public health, population-based health services, disease prevention and control as being really important. things like, that we don't think of as global health but it is. nutritious, clean air, sanitation, hygiene, vector

control. all of those things make life much more livable. and then the second question is, what would global health with justice look like? and the third is how we would get there. now, to do -- if you miss to pick up my book from outside, i think it's the most, the best part of it is, and the best advice i got from harvard, they said don't get somebody like bloomberg or bill gates director for. nobody cares what they think. think of something else. and so i did, and what we have in the beginning our global health narratives. they are stories from children around the world in their own words. it's really powerful. if i had time i would read you one, but it's really important for us to really capture that idea of what it's like to live in a poor country filled with injury and disease. so thank you very much, steve,

and without further ado we can get onto the important part. >> great, thank you. ate so much but i didn't mention at the outset that we are going to in the course of the discussion we're going to open things up and turned to you. so please think about your comments and questions as we move through this dialogue, and we'll get to you quickly, i promise. larry, do you want to begin by offering a few minutes of thoughts about the most important problem and most important challenge? >> hi, tim. come on a. we are just getting rolling. tim evans from the world bank, welcome. >> great to see you. >> think you. -- thank you. larry, why did you kick things off with a few things around, what is the biggest challenge that we face looking ahead over the next five to 10 years of? >> i think the biggest challenge

will is equity and justice. you know, i'm in this kind of tobacco to relive the service, very, very small, and they argue with one another. the great tobacco in the world, and i don't know how it got to be part of it but i was. they talk about ending the tobacco, you can see with aids, you know, getting 20. yet with all of these other areas, and so i decided to not -- i asked them an ethical question. i said, suppose you could get to the in game in tobacco, which means that you have a prevalence rate of 5% or less. but you still have the mentally ill, the poor, the working class with relatively high rates. would that be ethically acceptable to you?

every single zealot said yes, it was acceptable because the main goal was help improve the. i think our biggest goal is health improvement with justice. trying to look and make the world a place where it doesn't matter if you were born in kabul or new york. it doesn't matter if you're a male or a female or a child or an adult, if you are sick or your healthy. disabled or not. what matters is that you equal opportunity and to live in the conditions which are healthy. if i make him one thing that really struck me, i can back when i was in the last chapter of the book from a very typical sub-saharan africa city. and they came back and i realized that i really wasn't

feeling well. i didn't have malaria or anything like that, but i just, my throat was bad from all of the fields. my tummy was a little bit bad. i just didn't feel good and i realized when i came back from any of these lower income countries i didn't quite feel right. oslo, feeling great. berkeley, nice. that told me something, that where you live makes a lot of difference. and it wasn't that doctors i could see. it was the environment in which i live and which people live every day of their lives. >> thank you. tony? >> okay, thank you, steve. what i picked out as the single biggest challenge or problem for the next five or 10 years is one that is certainly not new or creative. but it is very, very real and it really has to do a bit with what

i am as an infectious disease person and dealing with the problem as i will state it, is the disparities in health in a developing versus the developed world, which relates very much to the justice that larry was talking about. but i'm particularly involved in this right now with what i've been doing over the last couple of months in the arena of ebola. and let me just take my two and a half minutes that i've left to go over that with you because i always talk about disparities in health. talk about malaria, you talk about malnutrition, lack of clean water, all of the things that are related to countries that are not resource rich, or put it a different way, that are limited in their resources related to health. and i've been doing this for a very long time but the thing that has impressed me like

nothing else is what i've experienced over the last couple of months with ebola. some of you may have heard me in immediate say, of course i always get asked the question, should we be worried about people here? and the answer is, well, somebody is going to get on a plane from west africa, wind up in washington or new york or paris or london, they will be well on the plane, or not, get here, get sick, go into an emergency room, get sick, maybe die and effect a nurse or a doctor and that everybody will realize its ebola. there will be isolation, the proper kinds of precautions and then the outbreak would end there. in west africa we are dealing with a situation where we are seeing an exponential increase in cases, 3000 plus now with 1500 deaths, the projections are going to 10,000 of cases is not

hyperbole, because the curb as the exponential. and the reason that that is happening is because of the disparity in health care capability. that is the only reason that's happening. because you can have a have in n controls. there's no infrastructure for isolation. there's no infrastructure for quarantine done properly, and there is no real infrastructure for the contact tracing. so if there were those first two or three cases that were in the united states, it would be very frightening to everyone but it would be all over the newspapers, but it would stop. just the way the 23, 24 outbreaks prior to the current one stop. so as i was getting prepared to give my three minutes of what i think the greatest challenge is, and we'l will get to how we can address that challenge is just bad. there would not be ebola

epidemic that might devastate countries if there weren't absolutely stunning disparities that were held in the west african countries compared to our country. so i will stop there, steve, and we will take it on later. >> thank you. him. >> great. this is going to be a repetitive theme here. there may be some selection bias at work, but let me first apologize for being late. it was something called the ebola that is consuming many of us who were either directly or indirectly involved in response, and i don't think today there's a greater challenge. because i think it is symbolic and indicative of those vast disparities that continue, and which not only threaten the country's and their economies and their stability and

security, but as serving made it clear that the west african context is increasingly shaky, with respect to containment of ebola and the rest of the continent and, therefore, the rest of the world, with respect to feeling some sense of what's involved. but i wanted to first begin by saying congratulations to larry. i don't know larry as well as many of you do, but from a distance i've always felt he has been just a massive leader and really practicing what he writes about so eloquently. and that's really bringing the discipline of law to global health, and i feel that this book which i haven't read yet but i will give it a glowing endorsement based on your

reputation, but congratulations. >> thank you spent i am delighted to be here. i was going to say, having wasted two of my three minutes now, or at least spend them on more important things, add my 2 cents on this. to me, the biggest challenge is any quoted, or in equity, and it is essentially both between countries and within countries. the fact that you have major, major gaps in life expectancy and health achievement in this country with all other means that it has to me is an assault on a fundamental sense of justice. but i think it is also one that civilizations move increasingly to valuing all lives equally, no matter where they are based. and i think that ethical principle really needs to be much more fundamentally

ingrained in everything, everything we do. the challenge of that i think is multifactorial, and i think we will have more time to chat about what are the points of entry to begin to really allow that principle to have manifested itself in a meaningful way. i would say, however, that relative to where we were 20 years ago, there's been a massive mobilization and something called global health, or around global health, which has multiple manifestations which i think embodies to a significant extent this sense of impatience and intolerance of global inequities in health, and i am personally very encouraged that we are moving, but when we look at the ebola crisis today, it's clear we could move an

awful lot faster. and i think where to look at how it is we can do that. >> thank you. when the ebola first came to our attention earlier in the spring and the initial response was that this didn't look that different from other things, and then as we move into april, may, june and perceptions begin to change, there was a certain confidence in the ability at that time to still use the tools we had to address this. and there was a recognition that the inequity, the infrastructure gaps were feeding this, along with distrust, mobility, speed of transmission that was happening. but inequity was recognized as a

fundamental part of this, and the huge gap globally in west africa. but i don't sense that people made the leap from that to say that the inequities of that time were more than consideration, that they were more than something to lament as a round of live and work normatively to fix, saying they are both something normative and ethical and what we face. but it's also something that strikes at national interest and security consideration in a way that would motivate people to see inequities in something that would require much more aggressive action. and today when you look at what's happening in this exponential leap over the last six weeks, one of the stunning things to me is that it's not registered as a security issue. it's not -- it's competing

against some pretty formidable other geopolitical crises, of which there are no fewer than three major ones at work today. so the field is very crowded. but when you all raise these issues of inequities and all reference the ebola crisis in west africa is a very poignant and really excruciating example to witness in our lifetime, against a backdrop of the dramatic gains that have been made in the last year, how do you make the case, how do you make the security case? how do you make the national interest case now that these inequities are ones that have to be addressed? because i think we are still struggling today as this crisis unfolds. we are still struggling to figure out how to make that argument at the higher levels of government. not just ours but many other

governments. >> well, i mean, i think you're very insightful, steve. you raised a lot of important questions. undoubtedly this is a geostrategic security issue. you have a whole region that is destabilized. the ebola is first and foremost a health crisis but it's also travels and cut off food security, employment, the economy, or activity. all of that is down, it's focused on a whole region of the world. there's been international spread. the international health regulations as a public health emergency, and yet w.h.o. as you say just has been basically left to itself with the u.s. government and others, but not at the higher human level that i think that we need.

so i think it is clearly a security issue. but i really worry about it. i think my worst fear is that this could be another haiti where it mobilizes a huge, hasn't yet, but hopefully it will, a huge humanitarian response. but then when the humanitarian response gets up and leaves, the same conditions on the ground exist but you still have the fragile health systems. you still have enormous deficits in doctors, nurses, midwives. already there are places like sierra leone and liberia, has something like one 20th of what they would need in terms of health workforce, and yet

there's more a lot of doctors and nurses. so what will happen we do containment? we will eventually. and then we move onto the next thing. looking at tim, i mean, this is a development asia as well as a security issue and it is an infectious disease issue. so that is my biggest fear. >> well, getting back to the point that you make about security, you said when is it going to be recognized as a security issue? soon. and it's going to be recognized soon because if you look at the curve and the projections of mathematical modeling, when you have 3000 people infected and 1500 died, that's a committed to issue that's compounded by the fact that people who don't have ebola don't go to the hospitals because they are afraid. so as many people are dying from bleeding ulcers and automobile

accidents and the need for care at birth and they don't have it because they're just not going to the hospital, so that's really compounded it. but it would be, ac could issuing a look at the models, built from 3000 to tens of thousands of in governments start collapsing at things and then all of a sudden it's going to be a security problem. i renumber back in the mid to early part of aids epidemic. in fact, it was at that early. it was into it when we became very clear that in the death of the world, take a subset africa that they were militaries at different countries of strategic interest that had 30-35% of the people were infected. and to remember because i went with vincent estate all in powell to the united nations special session on aids, and he for the first time articulated

that he considered this a serious security problem. and then all of a sudden everything opened up and people began to consider the. so steve, i think it's going to happen and it's going to happen recently soon but if you look at the curve of what is going exponentially. >> really two sets of points. one is this sort of how do you make the case. and i think that on that front, the weakest link in the chain is one that is a threat to us all globally. in 2005 when w.h.o. past the revision of internationa of thel health regulations, all countries were supposed to be, i h.r. compliant by 2012. and anybody, any expense in a low income or even middle income

country after every country signed up to that new that there wasn't this snowball's chance in a hot place for that to actually happen. because the investments were not be made. and the problem with the threat as the stimulus, when it disappears, when sars disappear, when h5n1 disappeared, when h1n1 didn't amount to the crisis that people thought it would, that countries did not make those investments in the core infrastructure. and lo and behold when you have something like this and you have nowhere near the infrastructure that you need, then you don't have that ability, which is not a complex ability which is to really snuff this out before it becomes essentially endemic instead of -- so you need, the rationale for investment needs to be strong but has to go

beyond the immediate threat, has to look at the return on investment from investments in health, and here we've got just tons of evidence. larry summers and other schemata sure this show this is one of the best investments that can be made with respect to economic growth and economy. so ministers of finance, and this is a job for the banks, really needs to understand that these sorts of investments are not the only ones to help people live and survive, but they are ones which make abundant sense in terms of prosperity and economic growth. having said that, in addition to mobilizing, as larry said, hopefully the commensurate level of the response, and i would like to make it clear that we

are about 25-30% of the mobilization necessary against the w.h.o. roadmap of 490 million, and we have not heard from the u.n. senior coordinators, david nabarro, in terms of what's required above the immediate health response to respond to the crisis. so the price tag will go up. and so it is a long way to go with respect to immediate response. the challenge is that it needs to happen tomorrow. not in three weeks, and i was listening to the president of msf at the u.n. this morning, and she said we need a search force capacity at which is paramilitary in character. and she was saying the biohazard force that many countries have has to be deployed in this

epidemic if we're going to see the rate of response necessary to get on top of it. now, this is coming from institution that has cared for two-thirds of all of the cases to date in west africa. so i think there tends to the urgency of that mobilization critical. but assuming we can do the come and that's a big assumption and i think, i making a big point of that because i think all of you in the room in addition to us on the panel have a responsibility try to make sure that that requisite mobilization takes place. but the aftermath is critical. anthen he we need to begin thinking about the investment, not only in the health infrastructure but to color area and health infrastructure is going to make sure that we don't have a repeat of this, not only in west africa and the three

infected country, but others. that's why we designated half of our $200 million response to building the medium to longer term public health infrastructure that we think would be necessary to equip countries to be able to respond to these challenges. thank you. >> someone mentioned earlier a bit of a katrina moment. when you think about where we are with ebola, you think about the moment at the end of the '90s when we approach the u.n. special sections on aids, and to think about the shock that was filled with katrina when you think about perhaps some other things where the method, the institution that came to the table initially in good faith

and with considerable courage like msf, international rescue committees, others find themselves washed out, washed over, not washed out but washed over. and now making a case for the dire need for the introduction at a much higher level of new capacity that have been absent. in a way it's a considerable reflection on how the global health institution, w.h.o. itself is falling short, considerably. and the way in which her own efforts have, national, local governments, we have 75 or 80 cpc personnel on the ground. probably 35 a. i d. personnel, and it's becoming increasingly imperative to send to protect them. it's becoming much more difficult than that. so we are active -- at this

watershed moment where the disparity, the ethical consideration, the institute, the gaps in his special capacities are now at the forefront. i hope you're right, tony, that the security reality comes on forcefully and registers at the level of world leadership. because that has been missing. over the course of this summer there was not engagement by world statement at the kind you expected when you look at the implosion across multiple sectors i was unfolding in august, in july and august from west africa. >> let's shift to a more positive outlook. what do you think, unless go back to larry, what do you think the big idea will be, the most promising idea of the next five to 10 years that could guide and drive innovation and raise hope and change the calculus of the way do we go about doing business in global health?

>> yeah, it's a good question, and you mentioned katrina, and tony and i were talking about that. this is a katrina moment. the question is who is. that is who will drop the ball on this? and i think there is some really good kind of -- so what are the big ideas? i mean, i will build off what tim said about comedy of international law and international health regulations. 172 countries signed on to the international health regulations. it requires both countries to build capacity and the international community and w.h.o. to help them build capacity. nothings happened, or very little has happened. and we haven't even begun to meet those standards.

even the debut age of own independent commission on functioning of the international health regulations following h1n1 pandemic were highly critical, and they recommended even then in 2011 a surge capacity. nobody did anything about it. so what is the answer? i mean, i think one of them is the fienberg report, get that standing surge capacity so we can go in and help workers. as tony said, really need these things in the budget. but the bigger idea, i've got a paper coming out on thursday in the atlantic where i propose a health systems funds based upon the ebola crisis. which would be have to compose. one, have these emergency component, a surge capacity if

you will, with a standing contingency spark that could be mobilized, and should be mobilized. and if that happens, perhaps the debut which you would've had an incentive to declare a global health emergency much earlier than they did. it was five months after the first international spread of ebola, international spread before they called the global health emergency. and i think that's just waiting too long. it raveled out of control. if there was a reason to call it earlier, i think they would have done it. the second thing is the longer-term health this is fun. i think that this will be a multibillion dollar investment. so i realize i'm asking a lot. but it's not really that much. people tell me, well, you can't do it. we dated for aids. we got that far -- pepfar and

global aids fund. now you have so many, w.h.o. come many others, calling for universal health coverage, health systems strengthening. the banks are onboard with that but we have no mechanism to do this. we don't have international law because everybody ignores it. we don't have a dedicated fund. we can't leave this to charity. i think the whole global health aides model is corrupt and bankrupt. aid assumes you have a wealthy the doer, philanthropist that will at their discretion give money and that you have a needy recipient wanting and that. that's not global health justice. global health justice is, what

it requires is to have mutual obligations. states themselves, even poor states, should give a certain percentage of their national budget to the health sector as african heads of states promised but never delivered. and at the same time it's very clear that in west africa, many, many other parts of the world, the health systems are broken. they don't have the capacity. we need an international fund to do that. i think it's simple, but doable, it would make a world of difference. not just for this crisis, but going forward for the future. i think. >> whenever i talk about ideas, i have to apologize to my non-communicable diseases friends because i meant infectious disease person. i recognize that there are other diseases besides infectious disease, a case in if you think i've lost sight of that, i

haven't. but having said that as an infectious disease person let me stick with that. not that i've given that spiel. one thing, it's been established a little while ago within the last year, that he think it could work in full effect would've had a major impact. because when i'm sitting down thinking people as they all the time, what can we do to alleviate all perhaps completely neutralize this disparity that i was venting about. that's a decades long job if you're talking to the issue of economies and it can build them up and get countries to be self-sufficient. but there is one idea that was implemented in a policy or an agenda that i think some of the people in this room may be aware of that if it were fully operational it may actually have had an impact on the eruption of this outbreak, and it's called the global health security

agenda. the global health security agenda was established through fundamental objectives in mind. one was spurred by the recent interest in antimicrobial existence and how that's a worldwide issue, educators tackle it in the united states. the other was the issue of biodefense because of the fact that there could be people with nefarious motives that might unleash a microbe upon us. and the other was, was the ever present perpetual challenge of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases. and the global health security agenda, because it was predicated on the concept that global health is joined to security apropos of your asking me the question, when is this going to be taken up as a security issue.

and it has nine objectives in three major divisions. prevent avoidable epidemics, protect threats early, and respond readily and effectively. and if you look at -- i do want to take a time to go through all of the objectives within those three buckets, but if they were even marginally in place, we may not be in the situation we are right now with ebola, getting back to that as our index example. particularly the area that includes and interconnected global network of emergency operations incentives. how long it took to get an emergency operations center that could essentially have a what's going on in west africa was something that if you had this in place, it would've been hitting the ground running. so that's my three minutes. my ideas be turned seven, again

implement the agenda. >> this was launched in february. a snowy day in mid-february, and has gone through several meetings outside the united states to further -- >> but it was the u.s.-led with 27 other countries. this is a very i think timely point that tony is making because on september 26 is when the summit will occur here in washington, at a much higher level to try and test how forthcoming and what level of commitment. for the usg, one of the problems has been of course making the case and a matching that with funding to make it operational. take that idea and make it operational, right now the idea, 40 or $45 million per year which means it's an idea that's being

tested, not made operational. and perhaps this moment a positive way, this crisis that we face and the fact that this new initiative is struggling to get off the ground with white house backing and the like might be able to bring this to the next stage where real money and real political wills apply. >> as a banker let me build on that in terms of real money. one of the things we noticed being involved in response since we put some money into the pot is just how difficult it is to mobilize the resources. and w.h.o. has made clear some indication, they start at 100 million, a are not half a billion. we know that's likely to double probably when david navarro gives us his estimates on what's

the minimum response needed to get on top of his and preserve, you know, the livelihoods the affected countries. however, the sobering and humbling reality is we do not have a good health security climate. we are contingent upon a very antiquated sort of noblesse each, let's hope that we can make a case of severity to those that have money and that they will ante up in a way which is commensurate with the need and timely. and so i think part of the thinking that we have at the bank is about one of the lessons coming out of this is that for the future we really have to develop some form of health security funds.

and the reason that its onboard is something that tony lake, the executor of the unicef said the other day in discussing will with the u.n. deputy secretary-general, he said the world has to wake up and realize that the viruses can be as deadly or more deadly than bullets and bombs. and what he was pointing to was that the u.n., a set of affiliated institutions all with their specialties, is virtually impotent when it comes to mounting the critical response to a health crisis. unlike a tsunami, and the tsunami we had almost a decade ago, there were warships looking for survivors off the islands

from all donated, volunteers were moving in from all over the world. but in this situation where there is a bug that is lethal, nobody is coming, okay? the u.n., nl, put out a call to 53 countries are volunteers. they had one response out of 53 countries, okay? so it gives you a sense of how -- so i think the investment side of his such that we can mobilize the requisite resources and deploy them quickly is absolutely essential, at a don't think we are anywhere close to this. and w.h.o. is chronically underfunded, has been for decades, and so everybody has an expectation that w.h.o. should be and they are the go to agency to give us advice on what to do

and how to respond, but they have no financial mobilization capability as we have seen in this setting. so i think that's the first part of the response. the second is i'd like to push into building the development agenda. because if countries were systematically toward universal health coverage in which i got adequate financing for provision for all of their citizens to access essential base of care with requisite investment in those key dimensions of global public goods dimensions of public health, we would have a capacity to respond in countries to this such that we would be much less dependent on an international response of huge magnitude. so i think that this investment which could be equivalent to, larry, your idea how systems responsibly focusing on building

the strength and integrity of those systems in a developmental center for the longer-term is the best prevention that we can prescribe. thank you. >> tony, anything more? >> no. i'm good. >> let's open things up and invite comments and questions. please put your hands up there. there are folks with the microphones, and we will bundle together a series of comments and questions. there's one here. please put your hands up and we will not get a foot in the first round but we will get several. let's start with you right there. >> ninety. i'm from enter health international. this is our music to my ears. i mean, i think a lot of us are struggling with not wanting to build on the ebola outbreak as an opportunity, at the same time it really is an opportunity to start talk about health systems strengthening and giveaway. and i would love the idea of a fund and i guess my question is,

we talked about the financial limitations of w.h.o. i'm thinking about what are the limitations in general around global health governance? and really, what structure -- w.h.o. has other limitations in addition to not having i think significant funding. how would any of you envision strengthening global health governance so that we're able to both respond to emergencies but also continue the long-term investments in health systems strengthening? thank you. >> let's hold on not for a moment. we have a hand over here. do we have just one microphone or to? can i get someone over here, please? >> please introduce yourself. >> i am a medical officer. i'm stationed -- i was stationed in iraq about a year ago and i've got to share with you my

experience about some of the shortcomings when you want to do global health and global engagement. so when i get my orders to go, my orders said to be advisor to the iraqi surgeon general. check. i go in the ground and they said your priority is to take care of all our forces to give time you would deal with the infrastructure of the iraqi security forces. so i know we don't have a doctrine to engage other nations. then a week later i got a phone call from the ministry of interior telling me they have 19,000 npt is from this current conflict, another 30,000 from the iranian were. border can you help us? okay. cycle back to my boss and said, they need help. he said this is ministry of interior. this is state department. not department of defense. authority to engage is not

there. to make the story, then a comeback, call my surgeon general here. i tell her this is what we have. you don't have a policy to engage. the bottom line, i put it together, global health engagement, we need a doctrine to engage, authority to engage and we need a policy to engage. if we combine all three to have sustainability. that's what i see the issues. all the things that you gentlemen mentioned are very important, but how to implement that? united states now has more than 100 security assistance agreements with countries. these channels global health in that context, then you have a program where sustainable issues is capacity building, education and knowledge from this great nation and many other nations to more developed countries but we don't have to wait for a crisis to mobilize all these equitable assets. i think there are more sustainable efforts like a lot

of issues can be solved. that has been my experience. >> thank you. down in front. >> i'm a global health fell liaison office. i took a class of larry. international health law. i have two or three questions. the first is -- >> please, give us one question. >> all right, one. ..

that you know that it exists. i would like to hear a little more analysis because it isn't seen as an emergency but we know that we are killing so many people and i see the emphasis but what do you see is the goal in determining health and we are

not -- we are facing huge economic enterprises that have huge power. can we conference but it's not a virus but it's really deadly? >> thank you very much. who would like to jump in? there are several issues. >> i would like to answer the gentle man's question since we contained the infections and other outbreaks why can't we learn from that and apply it here that is a good question because it gets asked frequently. in 1976, ebola was in outbreaks in zaire and since then there've been 24 almost two dozen outbreaks over the years ranging in size from two people to the last second biggest one was in uganda in 2000 that had about

425 people. the issue with all of those is that for the most part, they were in geographically restricted small village type settings where it wasn't easy but relatively to get isolation contact tracing because when you are in a village and the village is pretty isolated, the contacts are not necessarily that widespread like there was an outbreak in 1995 in uganda where it was a serious outbreak but to those people are likely not going to get on the plane and go to london the next day. what you you had in the current situation as you have multiple countries with borders that have gotten into the cities and that is the critical problem but it gets exponentially more

difficult as you get more and more people. like if you look at one contact you might have 90 to 100 a hundred people in a city where the contract trace in the small village may be three people. so, the mechanisms of what you want to do is similar. the magnitude is amplified extraordinarily so. and the longer it goes without containing it and the more exponential it gets, than the previous outbreaks are no longer meaningful. it's a different ballgame. >> i want to agree with the issue on how to implement is not simply just do it.

it's more complex than that and it's worth the articulations that you provide. i think that's the attention on how to implement is fundamental and there is a lot we can learn. >> the other point that i would respond to is part of what is going to define the effectiveness and the global mobilization and i will give you one anecdote. i went to mexico to attend a meeting on the prevention of overweight obesity and diabetes. and at that meeting i learned about mexico's policy that we had enacted about three months earlier and they launched the

policy with the head of coca-cola mexico on the stage and part of the policy was the major value added tax on the sugarcoated drinks. so i said to the minister how on earth did you get the big beverage industry to agree to be part of this and they said it wasn't that easy. they were going to beat us, but then we looked to the european union. they drew on this directive and products to mexico & if you are

able to sign onto a directive in europe, why aren't you able to sign up to a similar directive in mexico. and that is what mobilized the beverage industry in mexico to sign on by having a double standard they would let him suffer on the public side and honestly. i'm using that as an anecdote because you say what is the value of the directive. it's brussels bureaucracy. but here is the case of the value. others -- it is not only in the eu, but is arguably made a big change and the sort of challenge that you are identifying this is

what i would call soft wall and one can use both hard and soft. joseph's theory of diplomacy is not everything has to have teeth and sanctions. something i association and president can be very influential in changing behavior. and i'm not suggesting that is the only way that i think we have an instrumentation and that's when that when it comes to moving forward in the global health it's going to determine the effectiveness is our ability to think creatively about how to draw on these instruments not just a one-size-fits-all framework convention on tobacco control and tobacco consumption but rather the range of understanding what works in a different context and

recognition that there is a one-size-fits-all for anybody. >> the point about how to you get the authority to engage and the policy and the authority to engage that is one of the fundamental questions on the table today when we are talking about ebola and exceptional capacities in military character to address something that is beyond the scope of humanitarian organization. and i guess my response would be that only happens when there's a strategic decision taken by leadership and those strategic decisions haven't been taken so you put a request out in the 53 countries coming you put a request to 53 and you get one back. you're going to get deep resistance to jumping in first

into the particular situation until it's into a higher level. on the question around why didn't we learn from best in the past cases there were 24, 25 previous cases, i think it's important to point out and tony has explained this that the case in west africa pushed us into the unknown very rapidly when it jumped from one to three and then got cases began to take off it did things we hadn't seen before on the scale, speed and ross that he. we were slow to get it and come around to where it was going to take us into this next phase. in some ways we naturally fall back to go to work on the things

in the past and double that effort or to be disciplined and persevere. that is true up to a point but in this very difficult moment saying it hasn't worked at the plate about the governance of the global health institutions is i think about a similar kind of logic that who and the way that is guided and governed as an good reason to not fit this situation. >> i was going to address the issue. it is such a wonderful promise. it was the first un agency in the world where when i wrote about it occurred to me that in the 1947-49 period belmont dental things that happened, the charter, the constitution and the declaration of human rights.

this is a story that we need to learn from the shortages and announced the mass layoffs and people were so incredibly disheartened. they basically have a bowl that they try to go around to get money for. it's not the way to do business. it's not only has a problem with shortage but it doesn't control two thirds of the budget. what organization could exist when it had no control of two thirds of the budget because these are dedicated funds? the things that are worthwhile but nonetheless who can't do

anything about it. it has to change before who can even begin to meet its potential and governed the way that i would like to see and that will transition to things like universal health coverage and talking about the global health emergency and infectious diseases. but it's across-the-board and it's not just what is prominent in the news. it's not just malaria from its cancer, heart disease and things people never talk about. it's go to the developing world and see the level of injuries nobody talks about.

if you look at the global burden of the disease and to compare that to the budget it is a complete mismatch. very few resources to mental health and injuries. it is a sad situation. it's reversible, but we need the political will. >> let's take another round of questions. let's start on this side down here. take these folks right here. some of you mentioned the funds like the global health fund or after fauci mentioned the emergency kind of fund. what i was thinking about in the idea of having a pool of money

for such problems have been around for some time and there are things like the health impact fund. i guess i'm going back to a comment about the government around it. is that several different types of funds that people are thinking about and does it go back to something like the world bank where there's funding going onto the different priorities. i wonder if you can talk about the government around such funds and where the main challenges and how has this idea been around for a long time other than the financing like these ideas of the funds. thank you. >> why don't you hand the

microphone over there and a couple of rows in the front. >> excellent presentation. everybody involved in global health should hear about. you mentioned the backdrop because that is the backdrop of a lot of the capacity that you mentioned and those are matching them with the fund to be able to strengthen the broad range of skill sets to be part of the solution. but my question dealing with the governments in places like liberia and sierra leone hell do you compare the governments that are weak and ridden with her option to be able to develop the rules-based framework that can underpin access to print daycare, public health and access to basic surgical capabilities. >> think you. right here. two more comments and questions.

>> thank you for the presentation. i would like to focus on the global health law and also the international governance seems to be the key. i asked this before how do you help to build a capacity for the government to build up to a healthcare system in the country and also internationally is there a way that you can look for example vietnam is near china and many had no education,

without any follow-up or understanding that when they come and donate the kidney that they had surgery done to them, no instructions afterward and when they come home afterwards. when that happened the whole village is devastated and the government didn't seem to know. nobody seemed to care. so that is something that i think initially it hasn't been brought up but it is the legal system in many different aspects. so i call upon you to pay attention to that. not just that case but others including vaccinations and being a cheaper price.

i'm the vice president at ngo. it has to do with the use of experimental drugs, the media certainly much onto that i would like you to comment with particles could be developed to deal with this equitably. they were a supply and priority but how do you determine the priorities. >> let's take one more comment and then we will come back. >> i'm a phd student in the health care policy. when the sars outbreak had a

knife was have indicted in high school right beside the hospital for the first and all sars cases. my classmates won't stop learning so i have to work hard even if i die tomorrow. people find strength from the people around them. so i care and i wonder how are people in west africa doing. what are they thinking and how are they fighting against this disease and how are the international organizations helping them? thank you very much. there is a major misperception

that there are effect of drugs that have been given selectively to a few people and talk to us is the drugs that are in question have never shown to be safe or effective and when the drugs were given to the antibodies to the two americans that came, there was a lot of press how they are accurate as we believe -- miraculously got better and there was no difference that was made by that drug. also there was a spanish priest who died also receiving the drug was one of three of the health care providers. if you give to someone that has no other hope, you have to at

least understand the need to be safe. the difference between the drug and vaccine is another thing people do not understand. when someone is dying from a serious disease and you have a drug that is in the very experimental stage you have to make that available as quickly as you possibly can. you can do a clinical trial and randomize it and do better. it's different than when you have a whole bunch of drugs and only white people are getting it and west african and whatnot. that is in the situation because as you know, there is no drug that is actually been shown to be effective. vaccines are a different story. vaccines are paramount. you are not giving someone a vaccine to someone who needs something. you're getting a vaccine towards a normal and healthy person.

and the important principle is first do no harm when you are giving it to a known person. so, right now the only vaccine that has ever been given for this right now in the context of the epidemic is given to a patient at bethesda at about 10:25 this morning. the first time that a vaccine has ever gone to a human the first thing you do is find out if it is safe. if it's safe and induces the response that you wanted to do then you have an interesting tension. do you immediately distribute it or try to distribute it within the context of the clinical trial? and that is what you struggle with to do the ethically sound thing.

talk about how you engage and persuade the government. >> it also draws on this issue of the selling of organs. first every country in the world people do care about their health and the public sector is absent then markets will form. that doesn't mean the private sector has no role it's just the private sector needs to be regulated. if there are no regulations on the way that drugs are produced, we would have anarchy, chaos and unparalleled levels of harm when the principle is to do no harm or as little as possible.

the case of the seal in vietnam is a classic bear year of barrier of the public provision of dialysis for people who need it and perhaps if the market -- if the demand for the kidney replacement is so great and there is a market for harvesting which is a legal and dangerous and you eloquently described terrible for the communities that are affected, then the best prescription is to have an adequately funded health system but in the context of that. so this gets back into the overall question which is first

your citizens want it and if you are a smart politician you will move in that direction. and what we are seeing with respect to the universal health coverage is many women, entries and politicians are saying when we talk to our constituents, they want to have access to care and they want the whole shebang. we are getting older and we have high blood pressure. they can read and write and they are linked to the internet. so those expectations drive and if we think about that event the structure. the health systems are complex and what we have learned over time is that creating that institutional capacity.

we can learn a lot about how to deliver the infectious disease appropriately responding to epidemics and also change behaviors in the context of lifestyles and chronic disease risks so we can be able to support those countries. but from the demand and supply that is part of what we need to move forward. how are people thinking and responding and how are the people that are on the ground living with this hell are they thinking and responding today? what would what you say and what would your answer be? >> there is an aspiration for health that everybody yearns for

and it is just quite remarkable when you have people on the ground and you might have heart disease or a traffic crash and there's no one to turn to. the hospital systems collapse. they are fearful and so i think the human spirit is nothing more that they want more. if you have held you have everything. a lot of the questions are about how do you get there.

they are very fragile and the people have lost trust in their government to a large extent it is unacceptable. what we need is to have the rule of law both nationally and internationally. you can't have a health police but they are always governed. in the world trade organization we have an education and rules and norms that countries abide by. i don't see why it wouldn't be possible to do that. at the national level, issues

like corruption and transparency, accountability. all of those things are critical issues and i think that from a health perspective, they can make all the difference for the health and that's basically what the book is about to try to find a way to bring that kind of well governed society for the purposes of health. >> do you have any thoughts based on sars as well as this? >> i think the situation, i agree with everything that they said. but i think that what you experienced in china with the sars is different than what's going on right now and about people in west africa are a perfect storm of conditions against them. they are frightened and terrified. they come from a background of oppression where they don't trust authority.

the nature of the disease is that you need to cooperate with the health providers by getting into isolation by getting contact tracing. they proceeded to go into the hospital you die so you do exactly what you're not supposed to do. they bring it into the home and in fact everybody in the home. they don't cooperate with contract tracing because they are afraid of the stigma so the situation is so different. people were frightened back in china were countries in the far east by a zoo were within a pretty good infrastructure of health where your teacher was able to tell tow you listen, study and everything will be all right. it is totally different from the situation where it is terror and fear going on. it is a horrible situation.

>> we have got into the close and i know some of us have to be off for further discussions in other parts of town around many of the same issues so i would like to ask the three speakers to leave us with just a click parting thought. we will start with tim and close with larry. point your comment to this audience. what is the message that you want this audience to take away looking to the next phase? we've talked about big challenges and ideas that can gravitate to people's energy and that can channel people's thoughts and energies. what is your last word of advice

to this audience? >> i'm not sure i have any advice other than the reality in of the world we live in are such that we increasingly need to think about global health intimately linked to our health locally and that means you're not only have to be concerned with the issues that confront us directly and close to our neighborhoods but we also have to be as concerned about the conditions because they are increasingly interconnected and therefore our role to make sure that we move towards the principle that leaving the lives wherever they lived is extremely

important value to see all forms of government. >> something might seem insurmountable but don't you thought. just because something hasn't been done doesn't mean it cannot be done. i reflect often back in 2002 when the people thought that africa would just fall off the face of the earth and the program was put together and people said you could never, ever get africans to take medicines. you would never get them to be able to incorporate a medication that could save the prevention and then it is completely

transformed the lives of millions of people throughout the world. if you use the pepfar example i would encourage that it is possible. >> this is a celebration of your work and career. this is a good place to pick up on. i've been working with the civil society on global health and am just injustice so it inspired but more and more i get up and it's overwhelming. but tell myself what you've just said that her give up. we actually can do it. maybe i would end with a great

writer who i am paraphrasing but basically he says pathogens just come at us and yet when the next one comes it seems to -- we are surprised, wildly surprised. why do we jump from crisis to crisis from sars to ebola? isn't it obvious? we know how to make a population affordable. let's just do it. [applause] thank you all for joining us. i want to thank the speakers and congratulate larry. thank you. [applause]

i am the only veteran in this race, and i recall my dad is saying to me at our farm i was a young man, i was a scholar, i could have kept a student deferment for several more years. and he said to me while, you can take that deferment and scholarship and so forth but if you don't volunteer and serve, someone less able than you will have to go in your place and that might always bother you. so i volunteered for service in vietnam but i was very disappointed so i feel i can speak with authority against incumbent ground. i think we need to strike legally if someone chops off in

americans had someplace and we need to strike likely as henry kissinger said yesterday have a plan to get out. under the cover doctrine, you strike with high-technology weapons and get out. and that is what i would do. i would not have a force that would have to stay there. >> a 62nd rebuttal if you would like. >> it is unfortunate mike rounds isn't here to answer these questions. these are the kind of questions you're going to have to give answers to when you get elected to the united states senate and here we are, on the verge of another middle east conflict where we are talking about at a minimum air strikes and galvanizing the international community, you know, arming the syrian rebels and mike has decided not to be here. made the decision to take a 54 day vacation from all these public debate between now and

the 23rd of october and i think that is unfortunate. again, isis is a threat. we need an international solution and the lead as a country. but sending our kids back over there to fight this war isn't something i can support. >> you can see all of that south dakota debate as well as all of the campaign coverage of 2014 available anytime on the website, c-span.org. american history tv is live from baltimore for the 200th anniversary of the star-spangled banner sunday morning at 8:30 on c-span three. later at 6 p.m. eastern on american history tv he will tour fort mchenry and hear how it came in a a team 14 about the british barrage on the fort and why francis scott king was there to witness the fight.

now a portion of a recent conference examining the housing needs of senior citizens trade among those the former housing and urban development secretary. we will show you as much of his

remarks as we can until the coverage of isis starting at noon. [applause] thank you very much. what an energetic presentation. it's not necessary for the secretary secretary of hud doesn't hurt. [laughter] >> thank you for your kind words about my city. i'm equally proud of his successor. it's now the seventh largest city in the country and there has never been a city larger than san san antonio who's had an african-american woman mayor which we now do so it is a very inclusive place and even though the african-american population is relatively small, taylor succeeded castro and speaks to

the kind of breath if you will of the city and i'm very proud of what we have been able to publish. you are a pioneer in your own right. lisa who has been the president of the foundation for the last ten months was previously the president of a college for 20 years, wells college in upstate new york. thank you to you and the aarp foundation for producing this and thank you to chris and the rest of the team at the harvard joint housing studies with whom i have worked over the years. really, one of the absolutely best places for analytical work on housing in the country, and i thought that chris did a great job of taking the mass information and making sense of it and e-echo here and wait. thank you very much to you and your team for that good work.

[applause] organizations deserving of the respective joint center for its high-quality analysis especially the annual state of the housing report. and the aa rp foundation for establishing of a lifelong sustaining programs, really iconic programs, insurance and so many other things that touch the lives of seniors across the country. and very importantly, for sounding the warning bell for decades over the work that we need to be giving as a country to support older americans. this is the most important report. it's hard to break through the clutter of important subjects at a time when the news is full of the worrisome crisis. isis advances in iraq, israel and the palestinians create blows, russia threatens ukraine and domestically we face the

unaccompanied minors in the border, va care the issues, congressional stalemate on questions to raise a subject like this to the level of attention that is deserved. but today's report on housing and supporting asian-americans addresses the set of demographic and financial dynamics that has the power to profoundly impact our nation and its people. these issues may not be in the headlines and they may be slower burning, but they have the power to profoundly impact our way of life. they may not affect all of us personally today, but they affect some of us today including people who are suffering deeply because of the way these issues come together. right now as we speak all across this country. and in time, the life of every

american including every person in this room will be touched. the challenge of housing the population are not unique to the united states. japan is the oldest country in the world, and aging the most rapidly. in fact, japan is now -- it isn't a country that has welcomed immigrants and has an aging dynamic actually losing population. some of the northern european countries like northern european countries like france, scandinavian nations and russia are on a path to declining population. spain and portugal are on the same path and china by 2040 will have more people over 65 years of age and the united states will have residents over 400 million people in china who reach 65 and the dynamic of what it means in china is impacted by their one child policy so this

interplay of demographics is huge on the world stage. our aging problem as a nation may be different. in some ways it may be more manageable because we have a growing population. we were 306 million a census of 2010 and we will be over 400 million in the million in the census of 2050. and so, in that time span, we will have not just a growing nation, but they growing workforce and that makes the problems more manageable because you have resources being generated and taxes being paid and the economy growing. it's hugely important. largely a function of the fact that we have younger populations in the minority populations and immigration. so if you think these things are unrelated, they all come together in a national debate. despite the fact it will be growing and will be able to

manage some of these issues and have the resources to do it, the absolute numbers of aging americans are stunning. chris and capsulized this morning the key dimensions but i want to reflect for a moment with some of these things might mean. this report is about housing and support systems but it is really driven by the fundamental realities. one of them is the scale of demographic change. the scale of an aging population. and second, it is about money. the personal assets that people of people have or don't have to provide for their own housing in governmental budgets. we have a big problem because the scale of the change is big. today's population of roughly 20 million americans over 65 will grow to almost 40 million by 2030. succumb our over 65 population

will double over the course of the next 20 years or so. just a massive piece and if you doubt the sense of it, then get off an airplane any day and see how many wheelchairs there are. in the size of the population that is aging and we talk about doubling the over 65 that's because the first of the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 and 18 year span turn 65 in 2011. and that was 2.8 million people turning 65 just in that year and the number grows dramatically and impacts this population. today's population of persons over 85 is 6 million roughly and that will grow to 20 million people in the same timeframe. so, the over 85 population will

triple. 85 years of age, two out of three adults say cognitive hearing mobility challenges. so the scale of the real-life impact, the scale of what this means for real people in massive numbers is huge. how do we pay for the needed housing and care. if we have the money and we knew knew the the new systems are by which we would pay for it. the market would respond with the necessary housing and would have enough money available but if you don't have enough money and the scale is huge, that doubles the impact of the problem. many don't have personal savings and governmental budgets are strapped.

in 21,213th of the persons over 50 years of age, 20 million households were cost burdened it is to say they paid 30 more% of their income for housing. they were severely cost burdened which pays more than 50% of the budgets. 70% less for health care because they don't have it. they don't have the money. there is a budget for shelter and we don't have enough left over for these other things. people over 65, of those 6.5 million households have incomes under $15,000. imagine trying to live on

$15,000. that's an increase of 37%. almost one third more in just a decade ago. and 77% of those are cost burdened at the 30% of their budget going to shelter reality. the owners and the renters we know in the country those that have invested in homeownership has network and asset. but it's hard to be me that among the elderly, those who are owners, this is people over 50 years of age, among that age group, those who are owners have a network of 44 times that of renters. that translates into realities. among the homeowners over 65,

most have enough to pay for nine years of in-home care and six and a half years i've assisted care by cashing in on the equity of their homes. but for the renters would they have available to expand on the care is not much. so the implications of those who are owners today and renters in terms of what they can translate that into in terms of their care is huge. as chris said, two out of three older adults with disabilities rely on the care from family members. at his spouses were usually adult daughters and the ratio of the family caregivers is declining. as he said from 7-1, three toko one by 2050. it is a third of personal budget. governmental budgets are just as strapped. social security and medicare already account for 41% of all

federal outlays. with the aging reality, those numbers will increasingly drive the federal budget deficit. i served on a bipartisan policy center budget deficit committee, and its abundantly clear that it is this aging dynamic and particularly health care costs that will drive the budget deficit. succumb as we confront these realities and the scale of demographics and the financial dimensions, it's clear that we will need more housing that is age appropriate for the various stages of aging. housing that is accessible, affordable, well located, linked to services with trained staff, properly accessorized a healthy and safe. we must provide it because first, it is a compassionate and responsible thing to do. it is consistent with our ideals that we don't leave people to

suffer in their most vulnerable years. we never have believed that as a country, and it's consistent with our ideals that we don't. [applause] so there is a type of principle involved. secondly, it is necessary to make our communities and our societies function or are we will be overburdened with the cost of care and people who are left behind. and because we can link housing and health to create a better sense of well-being. and every step of the type of housing that's necessary, we can do better. aging in place for the 90% of people who say they like to stay in their own home for as long as possible, new approaches to the independent living in the first level of care that people need when they realize they are not going to be in their own home. new ways to pay for assisted living for just the next level of care very costly, the more

memory care unit for the onset of the problems related to dementia in its various forms including alzheimer's where we know that it isn't keeping up with other forms of medical science and people are physically okay, but at some age and some particular point, we continue to lose cognitive capable goodies. kick of these. and then finally, we need new skills for the numbers of people who at the end of life will need that kind of care. let me just say a quick word about each of these pieces of, if you will, the spectrum as we need then over the span of life. over 90% say that they want to stay at home and in deed to something like 94% of elderly americans live at home now. it is a tight connection to

health and peace of mind for many of them that they are at home. and doctor james of stanford has put together a framework he calls compression of morbidity and if we can find ways to change the arc of the decline over time and imagine the arc that begins around 50 or so and then steadily declined over time. if we are able to change that trajectory to one that is on a plateau for a period of time and then inevitably there is a drop but it is a sharp drop at the very end, then we see not only suffering and family issues, but the cost to society because the the end-of-life costs are the most expensive, and the fact that they come much later in the process would be huge. how do we keep that trajectory if you will stronger for many of us including sickness,

eliminating things like smoking and these to the earlier debilitating in life but very importantly, providing people the physical conditions of which they can stay strong. socialized, get exercise. so that is the significance of this whole issue. it involves renovations and new prototypes of housing. renovations, fixing homes to put ramps at the appropriate time,, lower kitchen cabinets, six bathroom fixtures or put different lighting for security or accessorized with security devices by which caregivers can be called at the appropriate time. but a whole range of things related to renovations. and there are some very interesting works being done right now on prototypes in homes. a company in florida creating what is called the liberty home

that begins with zero step entrance and wider hallways and bathroom fixtures at the appropriate height and turn the handles instead of the knobs that make it hard for the elderly wrist to turn as their strength declines. if they they do that at the time they construct the home, it ends up being a lot cheaper than having to come back in and do it later. and by the way, there is no problem in having these things in place for younger generations. so we can create the life span home that lasts over an entire lifetime. and as chris said earlier, there are things that the local government and the national government can do to encourage both the renovation as well as the new prototype. the universal design features by ordinance, tax credits to developers as it is being done in ohio to encourage the inclusion of universal features.

grants and loans from state as is being done in massachusetts. and hud and the government can play a major role in community development block grant program which has a great deal of discussion at the local waffle, and i've always felt that it may be time to think about something like or even adapting the existing weatherization program which has done such a great job at which rows and columns for energy we need to begin thinking about retrofitting homes for their lifespan cheap abilities. we did it over 30 years we can either adapt the program or modify it to do the same thing to create the lifespan setting even programs like medicaid can be adapted so that the renovations are possible under it and medicare as well. ..

so-called naturally occurring retirement communities, and the new community that we built, city planners have that phrase, norc. i recognize that places like that existed when i was mayor of you to go to council meetings in the evening and everyone in that community was older, places where my mom had lived until very recently, and the neighborhood i live in now actually in west san antonio, and i recognize that listening

to people discuss the problems, the problems were different. not the same problems you encounter in a younger neighborhood. it was security and think about in a different way and the need for in home care and nutrition assistance. a different set of problems in community. we have whole communities across america. as chris said when you saw that map, 5% in 1990 of those counties, 5% in 1990 had population over 50 years of age that was at least 40% of the population of the county. 20 years later in 2010, that number was not 5% but 33% of american counties had at least 40% of the population over 50 years of age. so this is a national problem of importance. transportation is a huge issue. when we get to think about

retrofitting communities as i've done town hall meetings with elderly populations in these naturally occurring places, they cite isolation as their greatest fear, a sense of loneliness as children have moved out as there is no way for them to drive any longer and their fear of going out by themselves. so providing aging specialists were able to help -- >> see the rest of this at c-span.org. we will leave it here and go live now as u.s. ambassador to syria robert ford joins the panel discussion on his strategy for combating isis. this is hosted by the center for american progress. >> cermak we have had such a good turnout here today on an important topic, and for those watching on television.

[inaudible] we are really lucky to have an excellent panel with us today. and i'm going to briefly introduce them come safety things and then get a discussion going here that we will then engage you. first and foremost, and i'm going to introduce in the order of speaking we are very lucky to have ambassador robert ford who, after more than 30 years of service in the foreign service, resigned in february as our ambassador to syria and is well-known i think everyone in this room for his commitment and dedication to service. and we really look forward to hearing his remarks. after ambassador ford will have for my colleague hardin lang was a senior fellow here at the center for american progress and who has been a lead in some of her field research which you will describe briefly before we get to the discussion. then we'll hear some remarks

from andrew tabler, our friend at the washington institute for near east policy who is also well-known to anyone who's been paying attention to see. i think we met in 2007 and we engaged in early way back when here at the center when we, when george bush was in office. the depth of his expertise is well-known. and then last but not least is our friend doug ollivant from the new america foundation who we are lucky to have and has been part of an informal working group we've had at the center with some of our colleagues here and other institutions to try to wrestle with these tough issues. before we get underway i thought i would make just three basic points just to kick off and maybe frame our discussion. and the first i think at a policy discussion like this i think it's important for the first point i wanted to make is to acknowledge and perhaps offer some words to bear witness to the fundamental challenge,

shooting people and iraqi people are facing. we sit here and we often forget that even beneath these statistics of 3 million syrians outside of the country and hundreds of thousands killed both in iraq and syria that these are human stories. our field research i think for all of us who has had contact with this is to remember that the people who are there. i was on the border of turkey and syria and seeing a young family carrying everything they could on their backs out of aleppo. the father with a young family. i think it's just appropriate to start there because quite often you can talk about targeted strikes, diplomacy and other things. and the moral framework i think we need to keep in mind when we begin a discussion like this, the crimes against humanity both by the outside regime and by these groups like isis are

really difficult to bear for the syrian people and others. the second, i wanted to acknowledge colleagues on the cw picked up a copy of our latest reports on syria and on isis, opposition we released today, and a strategy report on isis earlier this week. these reports are the product of intense research on the ground, something new to we've kind down here at c.a.p., hardin has been part of this but we have a core team including peter chew a, -- others, been out in the field with us and anything dozens of people literally for weeks at a time. countries not only turkey but we are done studies on egypt and jordan and tunisia and the syria report is the fourth. our leadership here at c.a.p. is very supportive of the and we're grateful for senior colleagues

who have joined us as well. those intelligence are important but i think you should read these reports will be tried of us with is not just the antiseptic what does the u.s. do, but how do we understand the clinical dynamics in all of these countries including syria which is very complicated dynamic. these are longer reports what hope have a chance to take a look at them. lastly and i will shut up after this, just to keep our discussion and a framework. i think i want to offer just my own analytical interpretation what the president says and what his policies. i had my view and whether it's good or not and we can talk about that later, but i think a useful way perhaps maybe a little oversupply but what you think about about how this administration views the challenges of isis, syria and iraq and how they're going to approach it is like a star with three legs. and the first leg i think we hear about today and we've seen this week with secretary very intensely focused on it but a regional, a coalition, a

regional coalition, an international coalition and trying to do something that we all presume is different than what we tried before. that's one component. it's one i think requires u.s. leadership to construct. the second is iraq and i think it is fairly well constructed though fraught with a lot of booby-traps of trying to work with iraqi partners, trying to get them to be more inclusive in the response to the islamic state to do the sorts of things that they have an over the last 10 or 11 years but hopefully this moment the crisis with isis and other groups is a wakeup call. and then the third leg obviously isn't syria. and in my view it's the one even after what president obama's and the other night is it's still the one that needs the most development, that needs more coherence both the u.s. policy standpoint and also in terms of how we connect with these actors in the region that we're going to be working with in ever a red sort of way. and it's not last pillar that we

want to hone in on. a new report on syrian opposition. again with ambassador ford here, i separate kick off our discussion, just asking ambassador ford, your impressions about what you heard earlier this week from the president of the united states, you serve serve in his administn before you resign. are you encouraged? and a second question of this to question of the syrian opposition, the debate i think our congress is having right now, will have and will likely vote on possible additional funds for the syrian opposition this month. how do you see the president's new strategy, as they call it? and where do you see sort of the next step on the syrian opposition? >> thank you. thank you, brian. very nice to be. thanks for the invitation. my first time here. and icy to distinguished colleagues with whom i used to work and i just want to highlight them, ambassador,

great to see you, rich. i think rich is just a leading government and let me tell you that it's okay. [laughter] and then i also see colonel rob frieden berg, and rob was our defense attaché and repeatedly put himself at some physical risk in order to help us understand what was going on there. rob, it's great to see you. i'm actually a bit encouraged. i do want to overstate that, but i am encouraged. i think the administration's overall approach of lining up a diplomatic, regional that is to say above all, support for the effort against islamic state, as well as political and financial trying to get money flows into the very well-financed islamic

state. i think these are all spot on. i don't know if anybody else noticed it. i was extremely struck by the picture coming out of saudi arabia yesterday of the arab foreign ministers, and there was joffrey from iraq, the former primus of iraq, 2005-2006 from the shia gallon partner in men with whom the saudis would have nothing to do when he was prime minister despite repeated -- ricrich and i were there. we could not convince the saudis to engage with him and just take the jeff -- the saudi prime and is included in meetings and iraqis of course. we are making some progress on that. i think it's really important that the governments in the gulf work with iraq in a new and better way than they've ever done before. so i thought that was a good sign. i have three other points alike to me and i'll get to syria

specifically, and you said, brian, we need more coherence on how we're going to do this with the syrians, i completely agree because it is going to be extremely hard not going to be easy. three points them. first, i keep seeing in the press that there really is very little left of the syrian moderate armed opposition and i'm just here to tell you, please check it out, get on the social websites and get into the arabic press and check it out. a moderate armed opposition is fighting right now friday, september 12, fighting the islamic state. it's interesting their fighting there. islamic state is thinking about for armageddon is going to come based on some statements from chronic teachings. but there's a big battle going

on right now over the border area with tricky because the free syrian army depends on supply lines that come down from turkey. so not surprisingly there's a sharp confrontation going there, on their around a little. there's not a competition any longer to the west of that because the free syrian army military defeated the islamic state and kick them out some months ago. their fighting them right now. also farther to the south on the south side of aleppo, and a moderate armed opposition is very much fighting the regime in places, and north western syria, as well as around damascus and around -- you would have noticed the fighting going along to go along. i think andrew was just there and can talk about it. it is a hodgepodge but to safety are not there, there is much to work with the i just think completely wrong.

it's a bad analysis. -- golan. that said, they are there and on the ground but their number one priority is not the islamic state. the islamic state has killed thousands of people in syria as well as in iraq. it killed two very brave american journalists, but the bashar al-assad regime has killed tens of thousands, if not more than that we just saw pictures of victims of the military intelligence facilities brought by a guy named caesar was just in washington a month ago, six weeks ago. just that part of with the assad regime has done, killed 55,000 people and we have photographic evidence. that's more than the islamic state has killed. i do not for a minute justify what the islamic state is doing, not at all but i think as we try

to work with the syrian opposition we must understand that today the syrian regime was barrel bomb in the suburbs of damascus. shows right there they don't control it. and they were barrel bomb in debt and the south and the north and dozens of civilians were killed. so their priority is not the islamic state. it is the bashar al-assad regime. we need to understand that going in. but that said, they are fighting the islamic state and so we can work with and against islamic state but we need to understand going forward that tactically on the ground as the free syrian army in this three sided civil war, regime, free syrian army our modern armed opposition, call them what you want, and the islamic state with the al-qaeda link new storefront is maybe a variable out there. they're going to be -- turn 11.

between the modern opposition at the nusra front that will make me very uncomfortable. they're going to make everybody in washington very uncomfortable but they're there because of a tactical necessity not an ideological affiliation. i think that's really important to understand. the only way we're going to be able to avoid that is if we flood the zone so much that there help no longer becomes important. but i'm not sure that's what the administration is thinking. it's not clear to me. we are going to have to understand going in this is going to be a very hard process. it's not going to be smooth, going to be very bumpy, a turbulent ride. and the only way to make this work is to be patient and keep our eye on where we are trying to go, which is the destruction of an incredibly vicious and

ideologically rabid and also ideologically extreme and a marginal force in iraq and in syria. thanks. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. hardin, as i mentioned briefly, you have done these four countries days and get i encourage you to look at. we went into looking at the first strands of islamic and especially the muslim brotherhood in egypt, tunisia and jordan and into syria. so when we did our fieldwork on syria, it was a hard time to figure out what our sample was because given how diverse and fractured even at the start of the spring this year, it was difficult to figure out what you want. but we came out with and i think we have a very in depth report. it's not the be all end all. i thought maybe you could walk us through specifically what we saw in terms of the main findings there, and then to the

central question which everybody i think is focused on now is, is there a syrian opposition we can work with? >> sure. the $64,000 question. brian, thank you very much for getting this started. ambassador, thank you for the overview. i think your points were spot on. >> and we didn't rehearse ahead of time. >> as brian mentioned, a report of the nature and scope of us in opposition to the report was focus more on trying to understand, as over the course of the field research trips where we find ourselves today. and what we're trying to do in the report is outline some observations that we think the admission he is going to have to take account of as they crack the strategy moving forward, particularly with getting history and opposition into position to play an effective role using the isis and i think the point ambassador makes with respect to damascus quite important.

as brian said in depth which is a polite way of saying very long, -- [laughter] three or four key finding at this stage. the first one, the point ambassador made about the syrian opposition, there's nothing left to work with. the key finding we came back with, yes, indeed, there is still something work with. it's just going to be clear this is not going to be easy by any stretch of imagination. the only point i would want to build on it is there is a sense of urgency getting increased levels of assistance into the forces of a moderate what remained of the moderate opposition in aleppo and other areas and in trying to fight this three sided war. isis and the assad regime have been squeezing these people, the source of for quite and the situation while not existential at the moment is quite dire.

the president has put forward a request so much ago for $500 million to get this effort started. i think we're at a point now where if we are serious about this, we need to move forward quickly. the news of the last couple of days from the hill is welcome in that regard. the other point i would make something we've heard a little bit about here in terms of the importance of the regional peace, one of the things that we found in our interviews with political and military leadership, there's this constant -- constant refrain about the difficulty of managing regional politics inside of the syrian opposition. this will not come as a surprise to anyone, that the level of discord and competition between certain states in the gulf has become a problem from the different factions that have been backed over time in syria. and so country like saudi arabia has now been battling different sides of the opposition and this

is expensive unity of effort against assad. the competition is very undertaken resources. they're not being used in the more most efficient as possible and a serious problem at this stage. we have seen some news out of the gulf recently and i agree the press conference in the communiqué out of saudi arabia is welcome news. but it's going to require as brian said u.s. leadership to maintain this overtime. we have been able to pull a group now it's looking good at the moment but this effort is going to take years. we will need to put into place some sort of mechanism to continue to ride over this process or it is likely to fall apart as time goes on. >> the third point i would say, again i don't think anyone coming into this example be an easy effort, and i think we need to moderate our expectations from the get-go. let me explain why. the first point would be that the nature of the battlefield, much of the free syrian army at

this stage is deeply granular in nature. a number of local forces that are fighting to protect their locality, it is not a great deal of tactical coordination. the strategic effort at this point is purely aspirational. so to be able to work through this point i think expecting too much too soon is a huge mistake. the second point would be there been incredibly great efforts by the opposition exile, both political and military to try to alleviate this method. there's a significant divorce we picked up in interviews between some of that leadership and those on the ground who we can get access to. and being able to bridge this gap or finding another way to mobilize and organize those fighting on the ground will be a critical part of the solution. third, there's the question of capacity. the ambassador mentioned this idea of if the u.s. were to flood the zone.

i'm not sure from our interviews that flooding the zone would help more than it would hurt at this stage. some of the groups that we met with were already using weapons from china, made it quite clear there is a limit to their capacity. how fast they can take weapons in. so if we were to proceed with pushing too much down the pipeline, the outcome wouldn't message would be a concerted effort with effecting the battlefield. there's one group, put it to is the most important thing now is if we can get a sustained pipeline that is predictable over time. and we work with this as opposed to mass influx of weapons. so the bottom line is we need to temper our expectations going forward. number four, here's a point without getting into too much sort of inside baseball, we came away with a bit of a concern about what we're going to call for want of a better term, the jihadi.

here are groups like the islamic front and those were fighting under the banner of the islamic front. some of the most effective fight against isis and these regimes are unlikely to fit our definition of moderate. i think this is something the ambassador made reference to, and he is the islamic front, or those groups, composed tens of thousands of conservative fighters, many of whom, one leader, one member of the leadership likened themselves to the syrian taliban. now, hopefully that is a bridge too far but it is something that gave us a little bit of policy in trying to extend what the objective was. and it would be, i would be remiss if i didn't note that at least some of these organizations in the way of which have operated next to the more moderate free syrian army has not been helpful. i know the last year we saw a

major effort where some of the islamic front went in and actually seized weapons caches, warehouses, logistical support elements for the free syrian army. or at least those operating for the supreme military council. this gives you a bit of pause in terms of think that how we're going to courtney kube effort going forward. again, let's be careful here. these groups are not like isis in the sense that they don't from what we've heard in interviews, and in the way to explain the ideology to us, they are not transnational and aspiration. but that syria that they would rule i think there's a huge difference between fat and the aspirations of -- between that and the aspirations of the moderate fighters. the beginning to suffer a bit in terms of their organization, and ability, leadership has taken a big strike results of that questions whether not they will hang together. the question for u.s. policymakers is what do you do with tens of thousands of more

conservative salafi extremist, some who might be willing to bleed over to the isis the cat or stage, and then how do we understand the role they're going to play in an effort that we're going to fund going forward, given that their aspirations are probably quite different than the ones to which we would like to ally ourselves in syria. >> thank you, hardened. if you take a look at the report but we tried to edit think it's important for the obama demonstration, it does put its shoulder, leads into this problem. is to look at the challenge of the syrian opposition on from a security standpoint but also this political standpoint. when you see often times, developed by some of our agencies, assumes we can do a tactical security assistance program. and as we see i think that lesson from iraq over the last few years is that you have to pay attention to the internal politics. who has access to resources, and

then what is your vision, political vision? that something that requires a lot of intelligence. and intelligence on the situation inside of syria which is something andrew has. is a lot of smarts and has been following it for years. not quite as long as ambassador ford. but andrew, maybe, yeah. sitting here in september 2014 and, you know, thank you for doing a preview of our draft paper before came out, how do see the situation now? are you encouraged by president obama's strategy and any reflection or criticisms of the draft report that hardin just allen? >> thank you for the invitation. not just the opportunity to read the study but also gives off a thoughtful discussions we've had over the years and that goes for hardin as well. a coast to everybody on this podium at the moment. i'm quite, i feel much better

after the president's speech. i think a lot of details that need to be worked out. clearly especially the syrian and of our attempts and hopefully successful attempt to degrade and destroy isis. the hard part is going to come in syria and that's where a lot of the hard work will come. and this study i think plots into the middle of that discussion because the moderates and particularly the opposition are key to this. in that regard i think a situation inside the country is quite dire over all. ..

remarks other evening were exactly a year from that speech. boy, what a difference a year makes. ordering it seems strikes against isis inside of syria on the side of his opponents. the, talk about the nature of battlefield what is outlined in the report. i think the report is extremely sobering and fair to the situation. i often times am caught in, lots of people, whether it is out there, who have limited amounts of time because they have families and on, and media that supports them, they want easy answers on this stuff, right? on syria there are no more easy answers because we waited.

earlier on things could have been easier, could have been addressed through state structures. we don't have options anymore. no sense we can't go back in time of the nature of the syrian battlefield harden talked about inside of this report, it's key. there are moderates. the problem is they coordinate with jihadists against the assad regime, right? coordination has been a key word throughout the syrian uprising. i think they coordinate with them out of necessity. my long experience in syria, i lived there about seven years and dealing with it for far too long, i think that the culture in the region as well as in that part of the region is primarily mercantile. i believe that the people are motivated by security, but also by the provision of basic goods. the united states has an opportunity to back moderate rebels and to work with them to defeat common enemies like isis,

as well as the assad regime. now that being said, i think the report outlines this too, the syrian moderates are extremely difficult to deal with. and i can't emphasize this enough, because of their inability or unwillingness because of the situation they're in to make clear distinctions. so i would think i would echo ambassador ford's statement, about we have a choice here. either we flood the zone and really try to back the forces buy them off to do the fighting that needs to be done, or we try to go into this piecemeal. i hope we don't do that. i hope we do something more comprehensive and i think report will help inform that strategy as it evolves. i was just on the golan heights and i had an opportunity to visit there, from an id f post, watch would conely be described as sectarian armageddon. assad regime, hezbollah backed forces, quds forces and national

defense forces trained by the ing and battling plethora of opposition groups in southern syria. they were not pulling punches. middle of a storm and going on for weeks. fortunately the other day when the nusra fighters capped soldiers and held them for ransesome they had been released yesterday. that is a step in the right direction. that doesn't mean the war ends. allies in the region, i think we shouldn't be surprised after everything happened, particularly since the red line incident, our allies hesitate to sign on to something until they see it fleshed out and what is in their security and in their interests. i think we're on the road to that, brian, and hardin outlined that as well. the smart place to start, move from title 50 program, to title 10, overt program which is before congress now. to say we don't know anything

about these groups is inaccurate. they have been vetted for years. that is the reason why president obama makes the decisions that he does. that is the reason they're extremely difficult decisions we need to tiredstart with the title -- start with the title 10 program and rather that title 50 program and move to the title 10. i think that is what we're going to do. our goal should be qualitatively and quantitatively aid moderate groups, vis-a-vis jihadists in general in syria. first isis and al news remarks the al qaeda affiliate. second, assad is not the answer. at best he is a container, along with iranians east to west of the isis outbreak. and there are at love reasons for that. ambassador ford outlined them. there is moral aspect. most importantly to anybody who follows this they have limited capacities especially since there are many iraqi shia had to be withdrawn from western syria back to iraq. the chief proponent of is this ambassador crocker who i respect

very much but i think in all fairness, i don't think that the regime he was ambassador two years ago before ambassador ford was, i don't think that regime no longer exists. it is constructed differently in terms of personnel, maybe not at very core but constellation of forces, assad regime's army inability to go on offensive and only does when it is backed up by the national defense forces and seia forces backed up by quds force. very difficult situation. third, i would urge americans trying to square defeating isis and confronting the assad regime two things seem almost incompatable at the same time. these things only seem compatible if you use the map that we have of syria and maybe by extension of iraq we have now that sites the coboundaries. those have not existed for some time. they do legally and i'm not saying this countries shouldn't exist maybe into the future but, and i wrote about this a couple years ago in foreign affairs,

the country that i lived in some years, one i've been discussing things and one ambassador ford was ambassador too it no longer exists it has been divided and partitioned into three for well over two years. we have to deal with that reality. so whatever assistance we give to the moderate opposition to defeat isis would carve a zone of influence within that sunni center. sunnies are the majority inside of syria. there i think president obama outlined the important thing is to harness sunni aspirations going forward as part of any kind of settlement. bashar al-assad and his regime are struggling in the west as well as kurds in the northeast. i think this division will continue and hopefully end of this process when isis is defeated those different parties can noth. dnegotiate. last but not least i would you and others as well to be patient. what is required is assertiveness. not aggression and not acting in haste. we need to think this through.

assertion is different than aggression. most importantly the policies of last few years showed us if we keep the rest of the worlds at arm's length, sometimes the situation doesn't get better. we're not the problem in this. i think we're part the answer. whatever the answer is i think we need to do it intelligent way. thank you. >> thanks, andrew. last but not least i want to turn to doug. in beginning of june doug and i were on a panel with our friend over at the american enterprise institute. this was before the isis blitzkrieg into iraq. if i recall the discussion, we were talking about how surprisingly good the iraqi elections were and everything was looking pretty good and things like this. we're pleased to have doug, what we wanted to do here and come back to the syria topic, but we want to look at this as an integrated problem set. this summer was a wake-up call for the world, for this administration and if i'm correct, this administration i think is doing a better job at merging how it looks at these challenges, both iraq and syria together. the start of the year, people at national security council who

dealt with iraq and syria were two different people, i think, there is a different process that is going on right now. i think that is a good thing. so, doug, i thought maybe you give us some thoughts how you see, primarily the pathway forward on iraq? because i think everybody assumes that given how difficult syria is, and i think we all agree it is probably weakest leg in that three-legged stool. there are still challenges ahead for iraq and then, we'll circle back and talk about bigger picture and open it up to questions. doug? >> [inaudible] thank you for organizing this and always great to see you, ambassador. it has been way too long. i have been working iraq almost exclusively for 10 years now as i put it, iraq hijacked my life in 2004 and never given it back but it's a rare pleasure to be on the stage dealing with easier of the two problems. this is not something i get to do very often. >> like it while it lasts.

>> exactly. talk first about iraq and very briefly the military actions we expect to see on the iraqi side of the border. once upon a time i was a military planner and strategist and spent some, a lot of time doing that and our watchword was always, you're never going to build a plan that is going to work. you want to build a plan that could work. that is always the best that you can hope for in a war in a military operation, in a world where there is fog and friction and unexpected and, no unknowns and no known unknowns. you want to build a plan that could plausibly work if things go your way and i think that where the president is. he has a plan that could plausibly work. not to say there are not all types of different cuts, there are not all types of hazards, there are not all types of ways where this could go terribly wrong but this is a plan that could work. that said it will be an

interesting plan as it unfolds. i was on television with graham allison other day and phrase i wish i come up with but did not, it is his, we should expect to see in iraq a coalition of the weird. which i think is going to be exactly right. we've seen in these earlier operation which administration probably rightfully sees as proof of principle operations. sinjar mountain, what we saw in mosul dan and the breaking of the siege at amajerli, unusual menagerie of allies putting this together. as best i piece together information from north of iraq, like in syria, information is hard to get and it is contradictory but as best we can tell, the operation at sinjar mountain seems to have done almost exclusively by the pkk. the turkish-based kurdish terrorist group which is on our state department foreign

terrorist organization list. they are a known terrorist group and, you know, for a long time we have helped the turks deal with that terrorist group. on the other hand, they're the ones that largely in conjunction with us air power, broke the siege at sinjar mountain and let the yazidis escape. that is something to note. at amerlie it appears this operation was conducted primarily by iraqi shia militias with which whom we have a very storied past. aah, the badr corps, the latest transmutation of the sadrist and significant iranian, irgc at least advisors if not shock troops in conjunction with us air power. so this is going to be, this could very well be an interesting coalition as we move forward. and i love the phrase that ambassador ford used, this is going to be done out of tactical

necessity, not idealogical affinity. that may very well be our watchword as we move forward and see these various groups start to work together in different ways. so at the same time, we have to be aware that while they're is tactical necessity, we need to be very, very aware of the politics. so there is going to be political and military tension constantly as we work through this. in a world where there was, where there were no political considerations, the fight against isis would be easy. we would grab the military force from the syrian regime. grab the military force from the iranian regime. these are two forces ives sis is most openly into killing. we would ally with them and we would all come together and annihilate isis. militarily that makes absolute perfect sense. politically there are huge issues with that. that is simply not a feasible way forward. this is tension we're constantly

going to be dealing with as we move forward, the tension between what militarily makes the most sense and what is politically feasible in the long term. if i can turn a little it about across the syrian border, where i don't have near the experiences my friend here but i have watched quite a bit, it appears to me we're going to have very similar issues as we move forward which all of our panelists here alluded to. ambassador ford is absolutely right, that the moderate syrians, the free syrian army, are there. they're not going away, they're not going to be wiped out. at the same time they are not the most powerful military force on the ground in syria and most of their action, against the islam anybody state consists of defensive operations, keeping isis from overrunning their towns because as i read in your report, they're very strongest in defending their own territory, units of 250 and 300, that defend a town and keep isis

from coming in. well, that is not nothing. and we're very, very grateful they're doing that, but they don't have the force, the military power to pick up and go attack isis. and even in conjunction with us air power, where us air power were to destroy isis positions it is not clear to me that the free syrian army has even the power to just go occupy that. so, how are we going to get them to be a plausible partner? by investing, as a friend of mine says, support is indigenous. that is what we learned about insurgencies. insurgencies doing better gain more support, if they have more resources, more success. perversely that's what we're seeing on the isis side of the equation. they're getting a lot of resources, they're having a lot of success, therefore they're getting a lot more recruits right now. i will come back to that. we will have to turn that equation on for the free syrian army but we also need to have eyes wide open what that means.

what we're going to try to do, is get groups, small bands, that have been affiliated with our syrian taliban, islamic front and or perhaps even al nusra to come over and join the free syrian army. we've seen things like this before. this is a variation on a theme, not identical but a variation on a theme to what we saw in 2006 and 2000 in iraq what we call the sunni awakening, much of which i think has been mythologized but nonetheless it happened and we did see iraqi sunnis who were fighting against us and some in whom some cases were at least very closely aligned with, if not actually a part of al qaeda in iraq, came over, and joined the other side. now, this, we're going to have be eyes wide open. that exactly what we're talking with. and as a nation, as a, as a

country, are we comfortable with these former, al nusra and islamic front fighters coming over, joining us, being trained by us, either in a covert manner or perhaps eventually overtly under title 10? are we okay with this? i suspect that if we were to do a very strict application of the leahy amendment there would be some significant problems with this. so we're just getting into a very understanding of what moves forward and how we're going to move on. the other point that the ambassador made that want to follow up on, he made a very, very clear point that attacking isis is not the free syrian army's first priority. they are first and foremost concerned about the syrian regime. that is absolutely true. but i think that point also needs to be expanded. with perhaps the notable exception of the shia leaders in baghdad, i'm not sure fighting isis is anybody's first priority

in the region. we also need to be eyes wide open about that. the kurds are willing to fight isis, however prior to the kurds taking their, you know, left hook from mosul up into eastern beale we had -- erbil, we had open statements from the leadership this is not their fight and they have their own things they're worried b. iraqi sunni who have been able to give semblance of aid and comfort to isis, at least initially moved in, saw isis as a preferred on shun to the central government in baghdad. pulling out a little bit, we saw a helpful meeting in saudi arabia yesterday, it is still far from clear these countries see isis as a greater threat to their well-being than the iranian regime. i'm not sure we're to that point. this will be interesting coalition to maintain in that

isis is enemy of everyone but not clear that it is the first tier enemy of everyone. that will make coalition maintenance very, very different. i will loop around and come back to just a quick one over the world overview. we're going to initiate the military campaign against isis in iraq. that is the right thing to do. you know, if you have someone who is bleeding first thing you do is stop the bleeding to use a medical metaphor and in this case this region is bleeding from the isis invasion and that needs to be stopped and the president is doing the right thing in taking military means to address it. however there are root causes to this group that are not going to be impacted by f-16s. we have a serious issue with salafist ideology in the region. not to say all salafists are violent but there seems to be correlation between violence in the region and salafist

ideology. thor tehran regimes. face it, this is not a region where any of the regimes are particularly laudable. even the most decent regimes in the region, iraq, the jordanians, emirates, tunisia, still have significant shortcomings in their dedication to democratic governance, human rights, liberalism, things that we hold dear. the regimes further down on any human rights report, freedom house, et cetera, this authoritarian regime that keeps their people from freely expressing themselves i think does give rise to them finding an alternative means to express their discontent with the situation, turning to isis and similarly violent groups. and finally lack of economic opportunity for the youthful in the region. so long as a young, 15-year-old man in north africa or in the gulf sees no future, no job, no

economic prospects, no possibility of marriage, no ability to raise a family, the, idealogical appeal of a group that is willing to give him a home, a purpose, a cause, and through violence allow him to achieve things that he could not otherwise get will continue to be a very, very serious problem in the region and on that note i will go back to brian. >> great, thank you, doug. before i open it up to some questions here i wanted to ask two questions. one, i mean first, on the big picture, all of the components, the regional engagement, iraq which you just talked about, syria which we'll get into a little bit more detail, what do you all see as the biggest challenge in terms of u.s. policy implementation? i would like to start with ambassador ford and doug because you two have the most experience, senior level experience in government, in the u.s. government and how it works. and when i saw the president's speech the other night and some of us were in meetings and

getting prebriefings, i want to believe it. i wrote a piece saying it's the most compelling strategy one can come up with. but i also felt like i've seen this movie before with the obama administration. that it outlines a very good speech and then the, you know the next act that everybody reacts on cnn and has their panels and everybody is tweeting about it while the speech is going on. there is a little bit of a debate on the hill. i think there will be a bigger debate this time given everything that is being asked of them, but then the buzz fades and the policy implementation actually proceeds. i suppose that this won't be the case. this will be in the spotlight for a while. but it comes to implementation as we know, any administration, including this one had challenges in implementing its stated goals. to me, my view this policy is probably the best you can come up with in a worse situation. it is the only game in town but at the same time executing and

implementing is a big challenge. so knowing what we know, ambassador ford, and doug, and andrew, and harden have thoughts on this, you all seem generally where i'm at. this seems like a decent stratbut i have to say i'm skeptical because there are some pitfalls that could happen. what do you see from our side, not the actors, what might we do wrong we've done before based on your experience? ambassador ford. >> it will be very hard to do this in iraq. i think, your points about iraq are spot on. the irony of us tactically cooperating with assad ad hoc and the mati, after all the americans they killed is something. just to narrow that down, brian, on the diplomatic track, which kind of leaps out to me as i think about john kerry visiting turkey today how hard it will be to secure turkish support on a

variety of levels. the turks have their, they are in kind of a tough spot. i think, 48, 49 of their diplomatic personnel being held hostage by islamic states. it is a lot of people. high-profile issue in turkey for the new prime minister. so, but turkey's essential. there is going to have to find a modus to bring with the turks to bring them in and being able to cooperate with them. from a diplomatic side. on the broader political side, again, i think doug touched on this and he is exactly right, the biggest problem in iraq and syria is that there is a very disgruntled sunni-arab community. minority in iraq, potent minority in iraq. a majority in syria. and, not saying that the solution is one broad solution but the islamic state problem

come out of that sunni-arab community's dissatisfaction. and so going forward, we have to be sensitive to that. i was very struck today, i don't know if you saw it, the report out of reuters, that when the shia militia went into amerlie they killed a bunch of sunnis in retaliation. that is exactly the kind of thing that will set us back. if the report is true, i don't know if it is true or not, but if it is true i certainly hope the iraqi government moves to discipline those shia militia. otherwise they will subvert the progress we're trying to make in iraq. on syria side we'll have a lost messy tactical alliances. will we be able to manage that and i think that will be difficult. >> great. i think that's great, but how our government operates in inneragency process in coordination, doug, if you have any thoughts on this, you know, i think moderate opposition is

probably one component. the so-called moderate opposition but what do you see is the biggest implementation challenges in this package? >> i think the largest implementation challenges will be -- [inaudible]. more on the hill. i think two particulars, bringing forward title tendencies stance to these groups whether we're talking about kurds, any substate actor. the kurds and krg. the moderate resistance, in syria, is by a strict reading of our export controlled laws, not permissible. had title 10 above the board rule. of course congress could pass a bills one sentence bill, that for the purposes of our export control regime that syrian moderates and krg will be treated as, you know, sovereign states but that's hard to see that happening in the near term. nor do i think are we going to see any congressional action to go on record with a vote. this is not a partisan position.

i don't think on either side of the aisle in either house of congress is anyone going to be really excited about a vote on this plan. because there are some ways in which this could conceivably go wrong. and who wants to be on record with a vote for something that went wrong? on the executive side, it is simply going to be the implementation. having to work under the, again you hate to start quoting titles, but, under the limitation that you can not get a open, above the board, military assistance, act, moving for either of these groups, either the kurds in iraq, or the free syrian army, makes implementation very difficult. it has to go through, people who aren't limited by export control acts. so, this makes things very, very difficult. i think that is going to be our largest executive branch

challenge moving forward. >> i agree with doug. i think that title tendencies stance here is key. mostly because it gets everyone sort of politically signed off on it. i think also it will allow, one of the constraints we've had in terms of policy, u.s. policy in particular, when you have a title 50 program, when you have a covert program, syrians can't understand it, because it is secret program. so, you don't know, a lot of types don't know their assistance they're receiving and they also don't know who is training them. now they might have figured it out. syrians are much, much smarter than many people give them credit for. that will be important to bandwagonning forces going forward. i think that is key. the second big thing going forward for the administration, this has been for the last year. i have noticed this, because i have been working on syrian policy with people in and around government including ambassador for several years. over the last year, decision-making on this has been incredibly send alizeed. i would recommend, and brian we

were talking about producing this report and you listed in there, there is a lot of good work out there on syria from open sources, that the board recommend that you read. there are no secrets really in the syrian war. there is contradictory information. sorting through it will require a collective effort. if we do that it will be easier to defeat isis. it will be easier to sell it politically to the american people. i think that is the smart way forward. >> i wonder whether or not to the level of coordination inside of the u.s. government can be helped by, for wont of a better term, assigning responsibility and making somebody it for getting things done here? we're beginning to see this on military side, john allen, coming up with a name that will quarterback the military effort onal side. could somebody like this help on human humanitarian piece?

u.s. put tremendous amount of money and humanitarian relief in the refugee crisis around syria. there other countries in the region that could do more on this maintaining and galvanizing that effort. having someone in charge of that would be quite helpful. i wonder how that would obtain to the diplomatic piece of this that we'll have to maintain over time. >> i've sign the reports by john allen. he's a brilliant guy. i would just worry that, if we start setting up a series of sort of, equal structures or teams or something, much better to have it integrated into one team with one leader to whom all of these different tracks, financial, political, diplomatic, military, are all fused. the relationship between that team and departments here will have to be very clear. who do they, who does that team

report to? then finally, i think andrew's point is right. it is very hard to run that kind of an operation out of washington. and one of the lessons i took out of being iraq so long, tactically much better to devolve it down to the field. i'm not sure how then you coordinate went ba is? places like baghdad and riyad and, ankara, it is hard. that is all more reasons for structure and reporting and responsibility to be laid out very clearly. not just in the administration but also to the congress and to the public? >> one other thing we need to be cognizant of, manage, what we are talking about in syria is reramping up the war. let's be candid about it. when we reramp up the war the humanitarian crisis will metastasize. i'm not saying saying that is tt the right policy or right thing to do. this reminds me of the 2007

surge. casualties down they had to go up first. but, we need to be prepared for that. we need to mitigate it as best we can. but i think we need to prepare ourselves, the american people for a increase in the, i mean it is already a catastrophe. i don't have a better word for the humanitarian situation in syria. however bad it is now and it is terribly bad it is going to be worse as this war is essentially re-energized by us in order to empower the free syrian army to take the fight to isis. and, that is going to be very painful to watch i think. >> thanks for indulging me on that question because it is, i know one that sides play over if you're in the media like this. if you're in government it is essential to have what are we doing in implementing and executing. we were out in eastern turkey and couple times and some of our friend who are inside government, one hand i would say

the state department not knowing what u.s. aid or other ages were actually doing -- usaid. lack of coordination within so-called smart power agencies. not bringing the pentagon or intelligence agencies into the mix was enormously difficult tightening up our game. that seems if we're going to be serious. one more quick question and we'll open it to journalists. the syrian opposition is key focus of our report today. we've talked a bit about it. there is a lot of understandable concern about if congress approves this. we talked a little bit about the leahy amendment and other things how do we actually, are there ways that we can purity some sort of constraint or safeguards against this going horribly wrong? when anyone bring this is up, and again understandably they say look what happened to the $20 billion plus in the iraqi security forces. doug, you worked in iraq and

were part of the surge and were a key part of that. how do you answer what i think is very smart question and important, are there ways we can safeguard that these weapons, especially looking at these images this summer, of u.s. weapons, u.s. supplied weapons in the hands of isis, how do we actually, you all, advocates or, i guess we are too here in a sense. how do we make sure, are there things in place based on your experience, ambassador ford, or andrew, start with you? are there practical things that can be done to safeguard against these weapons ultimately? it won't be perfect obviously you guys are saying but are there things we can put into play? >> there are never guaranties in these things, hundred%. we're deceiving ourselves. however if we, if we hadn't backed various factions throughout the world we would never win any kind of proxy war.

in that sense, president is right, iranians are much better fighting proxy wars than we are. our arabs allies don't have a quds force. we talked about this a number of times which is funny, this will be a fortunate time to have one, not that i'm advocating that. but what the u.s. can do is work with allies in the region to coordinate, not be the quds force but coordinate their different agencies. i think in terms of from our side, particularly training is one thing. in terms of weapons are another. this will be a real question, right? what are the weapons that are provided to this force? and will they remain light weapons or relatively light weapons or will they go into something more significant? it comes down to anti-aircraft weapons. that has been major debate. that will not be only one. antitank are going in at least covertly. i would urge people to realize that there are more than one kind of anti-aircraft weapon.

more than one way the syrian opposition can shoot down planes or shoot at isis or any kind of aircraft. doesn't have to be stingers. there are lots of other ways you can do this and i think a intelligent discussion has to be had. i think the u.s. government has looked into that significantly. our regional allies will be providing some of the heavier weapons along the way. some of which will require our permission. some of which will not. we need to keep track of that. [inaudible]. >> weapons like money are fungible and ubiquitous. they are going to flow. weapons are a form of cash in any type of war zone and if we think we'll give weapons to one group, no matter how well-intentioned and how moderate they might be and not flow across the ranges of groups involved in arms conflict, possibly including people they're fighting against we're just kidding ourselves. they are going to move. they are going to flow.

again is not to say the bulk of them will not stay with the people we want them to. and that won't give them qualitative advantage. they may trade for things more to continue to build the qualitative advantage. they may use weapons as currency to indirectly build up what we want, even if that is certainly not the means we would have chosen. but we, again, we need to be eyes wide open about all the downsides of the proposes that we're making. the increase in humidity humidity casualties and -- humanitarian casualties and flow of weapons being most notable up front. >> i have a couple of thoughts on that. specific to syria and leakage. first there is no perfect solution and, if there was a better way forward, it would be great but, this is the, i would say the least bad of a set is of bad options. working with bashar al-assad, probably being the worst. by the way ryan has changed his

view on that. >> oh. >> that said, there are many places in syria, where there are moderate, more or less secular armed opposition groups who are not coordinating right now with the al nusra front. so to the extent we're worried about arms leaking and fighting islamic state, this is particularly true up in the north. so that if we're, concerned about stuff leaking to al news remarks i think that is the biggest risk right now, but we could start with them. but, in order for that even to work, we're going to need to have excellent information about what those groups are doing. so we're going to have to bureaucratically ramp up the effort to have that information. a lot of it is on youtube but in arabic. second, we're going to have to be very transparent with the syrian partners. that this stuff leaking, for us,

could change everything. i think a lot of times the syrians read stuff into our intentions which is not exactly right. because they have their own reality. and it is not always where the washington political reality is. in fact sometimes it is dramatically different. and so, i think explain, explain, explain. but in addition to explaining we're going to have to be agile and flex ab. if this group over here and you're right a lot of them are 300, 500 guys over there, if they're not dependable, shut them off. the message well get out pretty quick among the them that the americans are really serious about this but plus up over there. i take your point you can't flood the zone immediately. cash would be a good start to lure recruits from al nusra. that is how al nusra got them in the first place. there are steps we can take that don't make it perfect. that do not make it fail-safe.

they don't fail-safe it. but they can reduce the risks. but we have to understand going in. as i said, it will be bumpy, turbulent ride. >> last comment. harden actually worked in places like malawi and iraq and kosovo before and other places. any thoughts on this particular bit? >> just what the ambassador said with respect to the importance and significance of money. there was a consensus across awe the groups that we met and talked with. even those based out of turkey, that for them, money was, an incredibly significant thing in terms of building momentum over time. that the ability to pay some element of a salary over time, would be the thing that could perhaps build some of the greatest cohesion going forward. i don't think we underestimate the utility of that. >> in culture, andrew said, very

mercantile. very aware what doug is saying. therethere will be all kind of unintended consequences we take this forward. >> can i make a point? there ace separate problem and if we have safeguards and minimize the leakage to bad guys, we'll still have friend in the region contributing. what do you do about them? this has been a problem for years now. in syria much. so, all i can say, this is again, must be transparent and i think this is one where the president president himself will have to engage more than once, talking to, shall we say, countries, not keeping to agreed deal. but on the other hand, i think when there is american pressure what i have seen, even with the islamic front, sometimes our friend, when we press our friend, they will in turn

squeeze. >> right. >> and islamic front had been moderating its positions starting in may when they issued that statement backing off of demanding an islamic stay. -- islamic state. we want a state of law different from a state of sharia. even that can be done but i do think going forward it, this is one where i think unfortunately the president himself will have to take some of his time. he is a busy guy. it is going to take that at times. there are a lot of types you can deligate it to the secretary of state or secretary of defense but when they're not making progress, the president himself will have to pick up the phone. >> you will have to have much more engagement and time on schedule. >> it isly. >> we'll open it up to questions down here. first journalists. josh rogan. josh,. >> thanks very much. josh rogan, "daily beast." thanks for setting up this panel and ambassador ford, thank you for your service. i want to build on your point,

brian, there is skepticism on the new plan to arm moderate rebels will really be followed through on following the president's speech. i think a lot of skepticism is related to fact there is not a lot of faith in the administration's claims about where we're going because, there is some that say the administration hasn't been honest about how we got to where we are. let me read you the quote from press secretary josh earnest just yesterday where he talked about the moderate opposition aren't, why we haven't done it yet. because, quote of the support we've already provided to the syrian opposition over the last year, the capacity of the syrian opposition is bigger, broader an stronger. in orders words. not only saying that syrian opposition is much better last year, just refuted by everybody on the panel but saying obama administration deserves credit for it, and that was reason we didn't arm them before. in response to that, senator john mccain in interview with the "daily beast" said, it is unbelievable. they have been decimated. for the white house to say

they're stronger a out right lie, something i have not encountered with any president. i'm not kidding. who is right, white house or john mccain? that is my first question. lead me to the second question, do you think this is really going to happen or do you think that this is going to be another example of lucy holding the football for charlie brown and then ultimately syrian rebels will find themselves out of luck? thank you. >> well, who wants to take that one? [laughter]. go ahead. >> i will start out. first of all, i think it is important that everyone asks and follows up with president obama what he means in his decisions. he is clearly uncomfortable about this, right? even the speech that he made the other night you could still see how uncomfortable he really is with this. that being said i think that he has, i think, given what he committed the united states to i think he made the decision. in terms of lucy and the

football, i don't know how you pull the football back at this point because if, if you did, it would be, it would make the non-strike incident last year, politically unpalatable. now, first of all i would urge the administration stop spinning, okay? like digging yourself into a hole. you can't argue your way out of this one. what is accurate to say, is that a lot of american assistance has gone into syria to those in the moderate opposition. now that is one thing. a lot of that is non-lethal assistance. we've been a huge provider and bam door ford was involved in providing that assistance. we should have credit for that. a lot of syrians don't know that. that should be emphasized at this point. military, none of our allies think they're effective. go talk to the jordanians, go talk to the israelis, qualitatively and quantitatively they are weaker than last year and i don't know how anyone can

spin it that way. >> [inaudible] >> i'm not going to get into the middle of discussion between the white house and senator mccain. what i will say, first, just, for my own time in government, i think doug would agree with this. when the president of the united states gives a speech out of the white house, that is not a small thing. there is a lot of interagency coordination and meetings and, that is, when he goes in front of the nation like that, that is a pretty rare event and it is, the bureaucracy, different departments and agencies need to be lined up. so implementation i think is the question. i'm less concerned about the commitment at this point, then i am about the implementation. but the implementation need to start, congress has a busy schedule. they, a lot of people want to break to go back on, back home

to their districts. i am a little nervous and some reporting on "the daily beast" on this is quite good, they're going to leave town without voting on this then there are going to be all kind of questions, including in the region, people who don't really understand our constitution because, in their countries there is no such thing as free and independent parliament. they will think, see, the americans are conspiring again. so i really hope this congress does not adjourn before acting on the measure. that is the first step of get the votes and let's go forward on the title 10. >> if i could add, i think that is the key point. i didn't mean to -- question, i think it is a very good question but i also see in our debate and saw this over the last day or so after the speech, something about our political culture right now where the president says something and opposition has to say something and i think that's good to have democracy. what i fear quite often it is

blame came, cowed "today", cowed da, should da. these policy issues, we like to wrestle with, title 10 versus title 50. these are real issues slaving inside of the federal government with these types of constraints. these are issues, not that is unreal issue, you can learn over mistakes made over last year or so. surface level i was right, i don't think there is any fault. we're here at an ininstitute called for getting out of iraq with a deadline. i still stand by that view, but these are complicated issues. much to the chagrin of others we put out reports saying just when we were out they pulled us back in. but i think for balance of u.s. security interests it is important for us to look forward. i think, you do have a lot of people on the hill doing that right now. i think that is one positive

thing. >> if i can just jump in, i think a lot of our problems in syria over the years have been because we have searched for the perfect solution which is not there. let's go for a good solution, and start with that. there is no perfect solution now >> question? >> thank you, leanne bernstein. we talk a lot about our credibility with allies and, there is also issue of our credibility in the international community. i would agree with the statement that the map that was drawn, question its legitimacy right now but the fact is those are state borders. so when the, when the president talks about being willing to strike in syria, and prime

minister cameron talks about strikes in syria as perfectly legitimate because the government of assad is illegitimate, that, regardless of our credibility with our arab allies, what about the credibility in the broader international community, as far as respect international international law? >> that is a key question. i could have a long list of questions. i could have talked with these guys forever but on this, because i think it is a controversial issue and very difficult the issue of legitimacy, not just efficacy but legitimacy of strikes with inside syria and president talking openly with u.n. and others. harden, you want to take a stab at it? >> point you raise, the question you ask is, is something we spend a great deal of time wrestling with and we have to work out or work through the

legal authorities question here in the united states. but if we overgoing to build a regional, international coalition to get this done we'll have to spend a fair amount of time at the united nations looking to build the political support that with allow us to maintain this over time. we're getting close to a moment in terms of our international position where questions will be raised about about what is you're doing now any different been done in other historical examples we're not as proud of? i think it is important we do spend the time at the u.n. and other bodies to develop some elements of consensus moving forward on this the question of actually getting authority from the united nations will be difficult in a sense i don't think anyone knows how to write that resolution yet but definitely there are some people who are working on it. the other thing i would say we are at the moment we'll have to look quite closely how far we want to spend in that effort, in

the sense that, a number about our diplomats to spend a tremendous and heroic effort trying to deal with this, with other members of the p 5. we know russia and, this isn't going to go as smoothly as we would like. so we need to make the effort but at the same time i don't think we can be fully constrained by that. >> i mean i could just add, we're hoping for the end of this month as well, beyond international considerations just the domestic. our constitution and we as progressive institution, we want it to figure out and we actually had some invitations to make this a bigger event, we want to bring people from the hill because, it is, i think, a hard topic, i don't have expertise, i don't think all of us do, we're not lawyers, to deal with this issue of u.s. congressional authorization but we feel strongly that in general this framework and how we're talking about it, is pretty shaky and

that having buy-in and i get i think what andrew said, congress down want to vote on this, there is very few profiles in courage it seems but we want to invite some of those voices who are and actually have the discussion. i hope we can have that even. part of it they're back for two weeks i think it is. getting them to a think tank while they're doing everything else. i just wanted to add to the international dimension. we're deeply concerned about the framework which we put in the paper too, that there needs to be broader discussions. i think, pragmatically the american public is different compared to where it was a year ago on this. and, for obviously and i think understandable reasons but having a national consensus on that, through our institutions i think would be essential as well. next question. >> frank oliver from washington analysis. i wanted to ask the question

related to iran. talked about quds force. so on. december 21 rolling in on us pretty quickly. that is deadline for extension on talks on their nuclear program. how will this play out in terms of this. have you gamed that out at all and what disit mean? >> i will take the first shot. important i think, number of us mentioned, so, for, way it has been sort of staked out for the american people, we're fighting against isis. meanwhile in the region, there is huge regionalized sectarian war going on in syria and iraq between iran and arab countries, sunni countries specifically not

only if you have turkey. sunni, shia war. how do these negotiations impact that? if the negotiations go well, i think that will, that would perhaps make the, encourage the iranians be more useful but iranians, moderates in iranian regime don't have control of portfolio to deal with iraq and syria. very important. they openly admit that. you will find a couple people who try to say it is otherwise. not true. -- and company and so, those are two things, you know, the way iranian regime is structured, you have the moderate, figure leaf and sword. -- fig leaf and sword is going out in region waging war, iraqi and most importantly the assad regime. if it goes badly, i don't think that region fall, i think that we can say that everything will, any kind of cooperation with the iranians we do share some interests with them.

particularly in iraq. i think that will be maintained. i think also we can see there could be these talks are just postponed again and that's another real possibility. other than that, it is heart look into crystal ball on this one. >> if i could just add, somebody, we talked about this before but at the white house has to be air traffic controller on all of these pieces. perhaps it is president himself. if you hear him talk about iran or you heard him talk recently about syria, he really steeped into the details of this. somebody needs to figure out how the pieces fit together. sometimes we in think tanks have fan tagsical or academic notions we're doing talks with iran and talk to them operationally strategically on iraq and other things. on the ground it is harder probably actually to do that. my main point being, back to sort of this regional coalition that we're building, it is hard for me to see, when people like

andrew and others are asking me, do you think this administration will align with assad or iran when there was some whispers earlier this year, i thought, no way. doesn't make any sense, to solve the syria problem. in part because of the regional coalition that me need to build and they are building right now. look back to november, december, last year. and, all of the erratic public protests from saudi arabia officials and others about the iran deal. and the need to, for the administration to go out with secretary hagel and other things, bill burns gave a speech, to embrace. gulf states. look we're here and with you. that times 10 i think, is if we were to open up the door without consultation like we're working with iran and, beyond that i just, see it as a very, almost academic, nice idea but very hard to implement. perhaps one more question before we close? i have ignored this side of the room.

sort about. that. >> in today's discussion and. >> who are you? >> jared mark, i work with the palestinian delegation. >> okay. >> i was curious, seems to be elephant in the room is assad regime. i seem to see, as major, major attracttor and reason of metastasis of islamic state. what is your take of your role of the assad regime because if it is excluded, it could cause problems for u.s. strategy in syria. and also continuing its attacks and diverting attention from the syrian opposition, from attacking islamic state. so, i was just kind of curious if you could kind of touch on that element? >> my position on regime is pretty well-known. there are deputy foreign minister again, said they would like to work with us.

problem is, that, working with them just inflames the arab opinion i was talking about before. that is the big strategic picture. tactically you don't have anyone to contribute on the ground. north central syria. they're struggling to maintain their last military base in the east. so, but, what i do, will try to play spoiler. will try to inject themselves. they will expend the bulk of their military effort, especially remaining air power. hitting not islamic state, but most of their efforts, even today friday, september 12th we're not against islamic state. they were in suburban damascus and up around hamas, where they're fighting elements of the armed opposition. that's why i say we have to understand when we go into this,

point of this, syrian opposition. syrian opposition is fighting two-front war. islamic state on one side. assad regime on the other side, it is a tough, tough hard fight and till will be messy as we try to channel our assistance just to that one front but not to the other front. and but assad will do everything he can to make that messy. >> good. we're come together end of our time. two things, first, for those of you in tv land, get our report. get one now. get 'em online. selling like hotcakes, supporting syrian opposition. then yazidi and isis of the we put a lot of work into this. as i mentioned my colleagues really respeak and value their work. it has been team effort. to our audience, thank me and our esteemed panel here for a great discussion. [applause]

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>> sectors state john kerry will also testify next thursday before the house foreign affairs committee on the administration's strategy and combating crisis. we will have cameras there. >> coming up this weekend on newsmakers we speak with house minority whip steny hoyer about congress' plan for being with isis. also a look at funding the government passed the end of the fiscal year in september. we also talked midterm election. newsmakers airs sunday at 10 a.m. and again at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span. we will take it live this sunday to iowa where bill and hillary clinton are participating in senator tom harkin's 37th and final steak fry. senator harkin who is retiring at the end of the recently sat down with us at c-span and talk

to us about the annual event and his invitation to the clintons. here's a look. >> well, i put in a request to hillary. i spoke with her personally sometime ago, when she was getting reticular book tour. should just finish your book and going to go under book tour and she said i just don't know what that's going to be like and how it's all going to transpire. she said, that i would like to do it can you just give me some time figure out what my schedule is going to be like? i said sure. nice. isobel out of california and health care in in california and also bill clinton and there. and, of course, then we start commiserating about this and that and i remembe remember as n walking, even signing some of his books for people in a little room, the just the two of us. cyclone i had invited hillary to come out to speak at my steak fry. and as he turned to walk what i said you should come. he said you're both of those?

i set up both of us. we have been friends all these years. just couple to couple cutting. i would love it, i would agree. think about that. he said i will. they did and it's just a great honor to have them both out. they have been good friends of ours for all these years. bill and hillary have provide i think great leadership for our country in the past and the respective ways. i served on the committee in the senate under ted kennedy with hillary clinton all the time she was in the senate. so with great working relationships in the senate. i think she just did an outstanding job as our secretary of state. in fact, as i've traveled around the world last few years, it is just amazing how the statue that hillary clinton has globally among women and girls all over the globe. she has kind of lit a fire him

and women and girls in different countries around the world, and they are just holding them in very for harvesting. >> join us sunday from iowa for senator harkin's annual steak fry. live coverage at 3:30 p.m. eastern time over on on our companion never come c-span. >> here are just a few of the comments we've recently received from our viewers. viewers. >> c-span is the only news outlet in america that's telling 90% of the truth. other outlets either are in debt with corporations or they are dumbed down. so keep it up. >> yes come c-span i just watched three hours. it's very depressing, and not one mention, not one mention of -- [inaudible] white and hispanic 20 year-old shot dead, unarmed by a nonwhite

police officer as he was described to they wouldn't even say a african-american. they wouldn't say black. they said nonwhite. that was from the police chief. there are no riots in salt lake city. there are no lootings, but you have three hours of stories of 50 years ago about dead racists from the south that are either dead or dying now in their 80s. next time you want to talk about race, have three preachers get on there, you know? because i didn't hear a word about forgiveness. i didn't hear a word about love. all heard about was pathetic stories about the past. and racism is not going to change unless we look forward. >> i just watched quickly to spend. i've been watching, calling into c-span for the last i guess 35 years. and, of course, people calling

in has changed a lot with twitter, all this stuff, but i'm just amazed at the way people are not familiar with our history. and the way they twist it. but i want to say is i think that's one of the best autobiographer's ever. he is so fair-minded. so i could. i just listen to doug brinkley. i fault in a long time. i wish we could see more of him. i thank you very much. >> continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at (202) 626-3400, e-mail us at comments@c-span.org, or the send us a tweet at c-span hashtag comments. joined a c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow was on twitter. >> next u.s. solicitor general donald verrilli reuters legal affairs editor joan biskupic and several attorneys who have

argued before the supreme court preview the upcoming term and current dynamic of the roberts court. that's the sony associate hosted us to our discussion. >> i want come for those of you to spend the money of the court, welcome back and for those of us for joining us for this afternoon we're glad to have you with us. this is the portion of the program were legal experts debate critical issues, raised in some cases the cour court wil hear. before we begin may i ask you that you please silenced your cell phones. also, if you can hold your questions to the end, we'll try to get through as many as we can but would like to give them the opportunity to get to as many of the cases as they can first. if you all want to sit up straight and smoker i want to look into c-span is her tapings we want to look good in case you're in the picture. i've given your hand out with the speakers bios and ordered to leave them as much time as possible to discuss the cases until a time at and for your questions. but i do want to welcome them today. our panel includes and i'm going

to go in order from left to right, kannon shanmugam, heads -- and avoids until the supreme court and output. willy jay come a partner in goodwin procter's litigation department co-chair of its appellate litigation practice. general donald verrilli who represents -- no, joan biskupic, editor in charge in the legal affairs division at reuters. general donald verrilli who is oher solicitor general donald verrilli represents the united states before the supreme court. and lori alvino mcgill who is a partner in quinn emanuel urquart and sullivan, and previous law clerk to justice ruth bader ginsburg. so please join me in welcoming them and enjoy the program. [applause] >> great. thank you very much. as ruth said, my name is kannon shanmugam and a partner specializing in supreme court

and appellate litigation at williams and o'connell is here in washington but it's my great pressure to moderate today's program that i'm going to try to speak as little as possible during today's program so you can hear from really fabulous group of panelists who were put together to talk about the upcoming supreme court term. while we have advertised this as a preview of the upcoming supreme court term, i think quite frankly that that was false advertising to some extent because we're going to talk more broadly about the supreme court. in particular i think we're going to start by talking about the roberts court. because as hard as it is to believe we're about to start the 10th year of the roberts court of the supreme court under the chief justice ship of john roberts. i suspect for many of you, lisa of a certain generation, you remember where you were when president kennedy was shot but i

think for many of us who are supreme court lawyers we remember where we were when we heard that very sad news that william rehnquist, the previous chief justice of the united states, had passed away. i was actually watching college football at my parents house when they broke into the football game with the news that the chief justice passed away. i think for all of us in many ways it feels like it was just yesterday and yet it is now more than nine years ago. john roberts had of course already been nominated to join the supreme court as a replacement for sandra day o'connor who had retired but president bush probably turn around and renominate him to become the chief justice. and so i thought we would really start with general observations about the roberts court, talk a little bit about the supreme court term that ended in june before we transition into talking about the upcoming supreme court term. i would want to start this discussion with the solicitor

general who has already been introduced and really needs no further introduction but let me provide a little one anyway. the solicitor general of the united states, he is the government in some sense the government chief courtroom where but certainly the government's chief lawyer in the supreme court. i think in many ways you have a unique perspective to bring to the subject not just because you're the solicitor general. i have to admit i get a little bit of googling before i came over here and came to the realization that you're almost the same age as the chief justice. of course, you to see which result in private practice as much the same time as the chief justice was the head of hoping supreme court practice. you know the chief justice for many years in private practice and, of course, with perhaps somewhat different relationship as solicitor general to his chief justice. i'd really love to get any thoughts you might have from having argued in front of the supreme court, the roberts

court, oath as solicitor general and also in private practice and having on the chief justice many years before that. >> kannon, i delighted to start the conversation off with a couple of observations. one being that i guess i would say there are two ways in which the court, the roberts court, does reflect something fundamental about the chief justice himself. and one is, i get to see his because in my job i'm at the court for just about every oral argument session, whether i'm arguing or not, usually sold from a office is arguing that we are up to about 80% of the cases and i ago when our folks are arguing. so i'm into just about every day, just about every argument. one thing i find remarkable about that experience is to observe how extraordinarily well prepared and extraordinarily engaged all the members of the

court are in the process of deciding cases. it really is astounding, think about the day cases but even on highly technical cases, statutory instruction afraid most of you aren't paying a lot of attention to you. they are really drilling down thinking very carefully, credibly well prepared, and then i do think that the courts throughout my time in practice i think has been a very engaged and well-prepared court but if you feel like it's on another level now and i think some respects that's reflective of the way the chief justice himself approaches the law in the past and judging but the other thing i think that is emblematic of this court, added a how much of this is just circumstance and how much of this is predisposition of the chief justice and the other members of the court but from where i sit they are not afraid to tackle big issues. if you think about the last server years, the roberts court has taken on a lot of very, very

consequential issues in the law and for the country. and that doesn't show any sign of abating. i guess sort of off by saying those are two things that stand out. >> is anything in particular you can achieve that to? do you think that institutional confidence in the ability to resolve the issues, or is it something more to it? >> to me it seems like a psychological disposition, that this is their job and they're not going to shrink from it. they don't look for ways to avoid the tough issues. they may get themselves into the issues and rule narrowly, but that court and chief justice seems to me, i think they understand, they feel a responsibility to take on the big issues. >> i think it makes sense to kind of get a perspective from someone who covers the court, and we have one of the best here in joan biskupic has been covering the court now for 25 years. i also know from google is

roughly temporary chief justice the i won't say anything more than that to seen ungentlemanly. joan is currently essentially the legal editor for reuters and previously covered the course in many years or among others publications of the "washington post" and "usa today." and, of course, because joe has been covering the court now for a quarter of a century she is covered not only the roberts court but also the court and prior incarnation. and so joan, i really want, having others do and you can return the favor in ample measure i'm sure, get your sense about the roberts court really differs from its predecessors but and in particular how it differs from the rehnquist court, both in style and in practice. >> sure. and it is one of the few

instances in washington you can cover and still feel pretty young until here. [laughter] so it's great, but i'm glad you first brought us all back to the september 3 i believe when the chief justice died because i of course member were i was. i had a prime minister and it was right in the middle of hurricane katrina episode. i remember -- >> he had been sick. >> had been very sick with thyroid cancer but i' after doig that prior to read really not been able to be in very much. but i remember getting the call and it's late on saturday night when you're watching the ballgame and i was probably working on the computer. the funny thing about the hurricane katrina angle is remember one of our reporters being down there in new orleans and can across a basic and we haven't had any news for days. david chief justice really die? so anyway, he was a very different kind of man than john roberts even though john roberts

obviously is a protége of his. john roberts had clerked for the chief of the chief was still an associate judge, right after john roberts had gotten out of harvard law school he had done a lower courtship. i would say i agree with much of what general verrilli has said about the assessment of him. but i would also say that i think he's playing a much longer game that if he doesn't have to go abroad, he will. i think we've seen in many of the rulings were he builds on a. i also think most recently of the chief himself in his term the most recent and we saw him may be making a few more moves towards the senator inouye that we could've expected of anthony kennedy. i think of the abortion protest case, for example, rejoined with more liberal members on the legal rationale on the abortion buffer zone out of massachusetts. what most people will remember

him for so far is he vote in the obama sponsored health care law when he swung over with more liberal justices to uphold that in 2012. argued by donald verrilli. so i think he's moving slowly. he's only, let's see, since you mentioned -- u.s.-born january 1955, so he is 59. he's got many, many years. the last chief died in 80, 81. is a lot of years ahead a lot of years ahead of the unlike justice scalia who is sort of kind of a barnstorming everything as he did since his appointment in 86, the chief doesn't go that forcefully. is a very forceful man but he's not going to forcefully to the law. i would say one other thing about the coalition is building when he is with the justices on the right wing, which happens a lot in the most consequential cases is we've seen something really emerged with his partner

from the george w. bush appointment years, and that's samuel alito. justice alito took the lead in two very important cases since last week of the term, the hobby lobby case which i sure we will be referring to some point, the contraceptive mandate one, and also the paris of the union case. if you are the cheaper looking for a conservative rolling and you want to hold that coalition together, who are you going to go? i going to go to anthony scalia who might luger majority for you, or are you going to anthony kennedy who might move a little too far to the left for your taste, looks like he's going to sam alito because of the point i would make about about the court with george w. bush but one lesson i do want to mention that we saw most recently and again it is a dynamic that the chief is part of, and that's justice sotomayor breaking out in the michigan affirmative action case with her dissent in the case where she and the chief ashley

got into a little bit because she was dissenting from the ruling that upheld the michigan man of affirmative action practice including the higher education. if she felt she was airing too much of this trend behind the scenes in her dissent and i think we'll see more of her sort of using her first latina justice voice and i'm not sure how well that is going to play a. >> that give an opportunity to atone for embarrassing joan by pointing out that joan is about to plug a book on justice sotomayor which is entitled breaking in, the rise of sonia sotomayor, i gleefully coming out around the first day of the upcoming supreme court term. >> it's known as the first tuesday in october spent the first money is for oral arguments. the second tuesday is the release of jones book. a follow-up question, extent to which we think about the roberts court is not just about john roberts because after all we will have four new members on this court compared to the

rehnquist court including of course justice sotomayor and the one just as you did mention, justice kagan. so to what extent do you think when you think about the roberts court isn't really about the new justices more generally and not just about john roberts? >> i think justice kagan is one to watch. she's our youngest justice, born in april 1960 and she's kind of holding up the rear and she's been quite strategic i think already with some of her opinions. unlike justice sotomayor who is as i say breaking off the roof of the liberal count justice kagan has been firmly with justices ginsburg and breyer windows a 5-4 ruling. i find her to be quite an active participant during oral arguments, and so piercing with those questions. she got awakened even she's on the for intervention being able to separate into the conversation i would think -- somewhere in between there.

>> sometimes not so pleasant. >> very effective and she's there effective stylist of the rank of certainly of the chief justice. and the two of them go at it a lot in majority and dissenting opinions. something she is going to become is applicable continue to be so spent before turn to other panels let me ask you one of the follow-up question, joan. you refer to the fact the chief justice is playing the long game and that's kind of one of these bogus washington phrases. the first time was in your book on justice scalia when you talked about how justice scalia early in his career had to play the long game. what do you think that means with regard to the chief justice? after all, one thing that might mean is that he is moving along incrementally knowing he will likely have many years on the court. but, of course, is no guarantee of what the makeup of the court is going to be and whether he will find himself in the

majority are potentially interested. how do you think that that factors into the psyche of the two justices? >> i will keep you two examples but it's an excellent point. this is all very unpredictable. the chief justice rehnquist was in his 80s, had been very sick, his death was predictable but strange things can happen to all of us in our lives and we don't know, nobody can be guaranteed of the makeup of this court, or about the composition of the u.s. senate after november or who will be in the white house. and i think where the kind of incremental approach of justice john roberts will manifest itself out in cases such as voting rights. we saw first in 2009 where there was a sort of a warning shot fired by the chief in terms of intensive scrutiny for federal government voting rights policy, in terms of federal authority having to put any kind of electoral changes in

jurisdictions that have had a record of past discrimination, the chief and, frankly, the majority was on board with him on this, said be careful how this is used, we are not sure whether this is still going to be constitutional in the 2010 mature enough in 2013 in the case of shelby county versus older the chief got a five justice majority to effectively got the key provision known as section five on the affirmative action in higher education case. i think they punted in some regard in some ways and university of texas case we just saw last year also your i think people like the chief and anthony kennedy who took him a modest step in that decision knowing another one might become down the pipe at some point. so even though you can't think in another 10 years and not even 70 yet i will be able to get something. the way the cycle of cases coming before the court, it will be at least two or three years.

>> with that at the risk of seeming obsessed with age, i want to send to the younger members of the panel who happened to be two of the real up-and-coming stars of the supreme court bar, willy jay who is a co-head at the supreme court upheld the practice and glory of the mcgill who is a partner specializing in supreme court and appellate litigation at the quinn emanuel urquart and sullivan from. as it happens really in a lorry clerk at the supreme court really right around the time of the transition. lori clerk in the first year of the roberts court and willy and a lori in their careers have supreme court litigators have to like me, sort kind of primarily with the roberts court. so i think i will just throw the floor open and really ask the two of you to react to would've already been said and offer any

additional thoughts you might have on the roberts court. i will start with willy and perhaps if you have any thoughts about arguing in front of the roberts court in particular, that might be of interest. >> one changed that we see today i shall has almost nothing to do with the chief justice himself. but it's equally significant some of the developments that joan mentioned, and it is the retirement of justice stevens in particular. what struck me was joan mentioning with four new justices. in some ways we almost have five because justice ginsburg today plays a role very different and she played when she first came on the court, and even when i was a law clerk and when i first started arguing before the court. but justice stevens was very much a leader on the court of justices, not only the same justice by the justices who agreed with him on particular

issues. he, too, was as tactically savvy as justice as ever been. and i think for a time after he stepped down, there was a lot of press coverage about whether justice ginsburg would be able to step up and fill that role. i don't feel -- see a lot of news by a -- it's been interesting to see who, when she would do with dissenting opinions, which he assigned them to himself? which he assigned them to other members of the dissenting group in each individual case? i think we've seen her right more passionate dissent can deliver more of her dissents or only from the bench as a sign that this is something she feels really passionate about and she knows when she does that it gets more attention than if it's just filed in writing. that's been one of those

interesting developments. another development, and i will pass it off to lori, has been the addition to the court of a number of justices with experience standing at the lectern and arguing to the corporate justice kagan obviously have done that. but justice alito serve in the solicitor general's office. the chief justice himself as the number two person in this lesser general's office before he became a prominent member of the private bar, arguing there. i think that influences not just how to treat council and the expectations of council, which are very, very high, especially for those who wear a tail coat, lawyers and the solicitor general's office, but also the cases that they take. to just but one example on it, i think you see a lot fewer run-of-the-mill death penalty cases if you can call a death

penalty case a run-of-the-mill case. when the court takes a death penalty case now, often it is to eliminate -- illuminate an entire category from the definite rather than to reverse an out of control lower court that is set aside a death penalty. that's not true all the time, but the court takes more business a cases, fewer death penalty cases, fewer procedure cases of the kind that used to take on the rehnquist court. >> laura, would you agree with that? >> she of course this summer has been quite a few interviews which i think just talk quite candidly about her role on the court and her views on a range of substantive matters. >> not to bring this back to age again, but she has been asked ad nauseam whether she has plans to

retire given her age and some of the well-publicized health problems that she said. i think it's fair to say that in a period of speeches may be going back almost two years now, she has had every opportunity to immediately refuted any rumor that she's looking at retiring anytime soon. so i think it's fair to say that she kind of developed a stronger voice, kind of came into her own all of it more, if it even makes sense given what her position was at the time, but starting around 2006, 2007 when she started reading those dissents from the bench, that were led to better case in the companion case. it may have been the partial-birth abortion. i think they're just within days of each other and it was big news that any justice, let alone the same justice would read a dissent from the bench, you

know, just gave the part. i think she has made clear that she has taken on that role, not just as justice stevens' room, but the elder woman in the room. and i think she feels like she still has more to do. i wanted to touch on something that -- we been talk about the transition between the rehnquist court and the roberts court, and one thing i observed because i was actually in the office when willy was clicking that last year of the rehnquist regime. so i witnessed a lot of oral arguments. then i went to clerk, then it was the new chief. watching him sort of navigate how he was going to run the courtroom is interesting. he definitely made some decision to run things differently than his predecessor. and one of those things that you

pick up on almost immediately probably has to do with the history of having been behind collection. and that is when your time expires, the chief will not stare at you and to reduce it down, council. if you dare to go past the red light. he will let you finish your thought and sometimes won't even let a college finish a question and let you answer it. that's something that's very different. and i wondered as i sitting at this term which case it was, it escapes in but i wondered whether he's never regretted kind of the loosening of the normal rules or formality around argument protocol. because you do see on occasion this dynamic and particularly with justice sotomayor where you can see achieve a visibly getting upset that someone is either talking over another

question or sort of overstepping in some way, and there was at least one occasion this pastor where i felt like he visibly shut it down and away where he was trying to restore order. and i wonder if we will see this term everyone on a little bit better behavior. >> so one thing, interject on that, related point. one thing that this chief justice has done that chief justice rehnquist did only very rarely is allocating more than the normal amount of time for oral argument to usually they are 30 minutes per side. but in a significant number of cases this year, and a couple in the prior year, the chief has come us and was the chief of the court has provided for 45 for even 60 minutes per side rather than 30. from my expense that makes a huge difference because this is a very active bench, and they

all have their questions, and they can compete for airtime in a 30 minute argument. the questions are not missed a letter to the other justices questions. so what i found is when the decision has been made to extend the time to 45 or 60 minutes, the arguments go much better. the justices are a little more relaxed. the advocates get a better chance to elaborate on their points that i think that goes back to something laurie said, then think probably that does come from his experience as an advocate realizing that not every case by any means but with a situation in which just makes sense in the oral argument process will go better if you take a little pressure off by adding more time. >> the chief justice has done that on the fly on a couple of occasions. >> those are harder, because on those he doesn't say, he has a

set on going to give you five more minutes. he has said you can keep it going. that's hard when you're at the podium because you don't know when he's going to say okay, stop now. [laughter] said it's hard to get can hold this point back what should i get it out now? but in general he has been much more comfortable about letting the argument stretch on. >> one thing i think a point of commonality between the two observations is i just think in general this is a court that values oral argument as a way both of getting to the heart of what the case is about, which is not always as perfectly clear from the briefs that we and the bar might like it to be. it's our fault, but also as with communicating to each other in a way that they don't do before cases. it means they do not walk down the hall and say, so, that cases can be argued next week.

what are you thinking? and the first opportunity for many of them really is in the context of oral arguments. not all of the questions that you here are purely, i would've answer to this and we please tell me what page it's on. some of it is more pointed, more and at the weakness in this case that we are hearing is ask, what is your response? i think a lot of the justices have begin to use oral argument to identify probes and highlights weaknesses. >> i think the conventional wisdom in the supreme court in the supreme court parties or white with only rarely alters the actual outcome of the case. >> that's something people say to make the advocates feel better. [laughter] >> i heard that a lot in my last case. tell me what you disagree with that and if you don't disagree with that, i'd be interested had reckoned -- reconcile that with how the court does seem to be

more -- >> do you want -- >> anyone can weigh in on this. >> it may not flip a lot of lines a lot of the time but there's so that it is incredibly useful in figuring out the weaknesses in the case and the things that, how they intersect with the things that cases are about. sometimes the justices i think fine in the course of an oral argument that the case is about something perhaps a little bit different than they thought coming in. i do think it's pretty rare that a justice marches in thinking i'm a solid vote to affirm and marches out thinking only, thanks to our argument i am now a solid vote to reverse. >> i'm curious, don, you don't have to identify particular cases but as you're standing up to as the solicitor general, defined your usual stand after thinking boy, i have an instinct as to which way this is going to come out, or are you standing out thinking like, this case is

genuinely really hard to call? >> i think much more the former than the latter. but i think that is part of the function of the kinds of cases that an sg tends to argue which tends to be the big cases, the cases in which the justices have put in the most work and the most thought and public in many times, many instances have the most well-developed sense of where they think the law is. but i will say on this, one thing one of the benefits of getting to go every day and see the argument is i do think there are other cases that lawyers in my office have argued that may not be a super high profile cases and it may be a super technical case about the meaning of a statute or how one statute in cash to intersect with another statue but it seems at the beginning of the argument the justices are not buying what we're selling and this kind of hostile. but it's because they don't really understand the way the

statutes work, and then the lawyer in our office has been able to patiently work through with the court and the statute actually operates and how it fits together with other statutes. although you never know for sure. i have 200 instances where it seemed like minds were changed by that process of education and argument to don't know if it's true for sure. doesn't tend to happen in the real high profile cases, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if some of those outcomes change. >> i'm the one person who is working behind the scenes as a clerk but i have been able to interview all the justices over the years for various folks and projects and easy to present that it matters. they had a hard time quantifying it because it is an elusive factor. first of all, as will he just had to use oral arguments to telegraph to each other their own position with the belief they are holding as a competing position. i think we saw all a bit of what

don was referring to even a cell phone case, the most recent term where they were, they seemed quite hostile to the idea that police wouldn' would be able toh the contents of a cell phone. by the end you a little bit uncertain where they would come out and it turned out they were unanimous putting in a new requirement for cell phone searches. it is part of the whole process. they do not actually taught in any formal way, and i think you're right, willy, before oral arguments about the case and their conference on it is typically at the end of the week. they have a wednesday conference on early refunds and friday conference on the latter oral arguments and that's when they start talking about it. the conversation ask what begins way before they get to the conference it, and part of it is an oral argument.

which is what it's become so crucial for all of you who gets to argue these cases because it is so high profile. >> joan, you give me the perfect opening to start on about last terms and you mentioned the case on cell phone searches, riley versus california. as a journalist who covers the court, would you describe that as the most consequential decision from last term? there other decisions you think will have long-term consequences? >> politically anytime with any kind of ruling involving the obama sponsored health care law, that's a big deal. we're still seeing how issues of the contraceptive mandate and that are playing out. we had a unique case which could be more consequential down the road for labor issues by do think for all of us regular folks out there, the cell phone case might have been the most important because we all, you know, -- >> can you provide some backup? >> when you're stopped come with all of your stopped and arrested

as a matter of course -- >> this doesn't look like a particularly polonius crowd. >> it doesn't. to please need to get a wa wanto search the contents of your cell phone? any smartphone essentially. whether the police argued was they shouldn't have to quickly get a ward because as a general because somebody could tamper with the contents if it could be a lot of issues that would lead to destruction of it and it would be a routine, kind of a routine cursory look in with. but the justices ruled, said no, you do need in usual circumstances unless there's some sort of danger or chance that the contents would be destroyed immediately, you do need to get a ward. the interesting thing about oral arguments been during that case, you felt like the justices might not be aware of smart phones. it was a moment when the chief

justice -- [laughter] when the chief justice himself suggested at least, who would carry two cell phones unless he was a drug dealer? we know for a fact that, i know for a fact that -- [laughter] justice kagan, justice ginsburg even carries too. and sotomayor i know just to name three happened have a couple devices on them in her purse or whatever. he gets that straight pretty quickly on that, probably even in the roving room. but -- >> someone sent him a text? [laughter] and justice kennedy who was our key vote and we're always watching, many of these questions from the bench were all about police and these concerns and he seemed to be very much taking the point of view of law enforcement. so that was a really interesting ruling, and so what it means is when we all leave here today, if we get stopped for any reason

and our smartphones are confiscated, they would need a ward to search. >> -- a warrant to search. >> other cases people want to comment on? >> we saw a split decision in a case about recess appointments. that's another case i think of when i think of long-term implication for the future but anytime you have judiciary committee about the limits of executive power tends to be a big deal. it's sort of the case that even though it was kind of a compromise decision that allowed recess appointments in a narrow window of time, it is the sort of thing that can have long-term implications. >> that most of been a particularly interesting case to argue because it's a rare opportunity to argue by the constitutional provision that the supreme court had never spoken about. >> it was quite amazing.

this was the provision and we talked about here in this forum last year, before the argument, that gives the president the authority to make appointments that would otherwise require confirmation of the senate if the vacancy shall happen during the recess of the senate and the question was, there were really three questions in the case, and one was does the recess means only the recess at the end of one session congress and the beginning of the next, between those two points or is it any recess during the session of congress and the second being the vacancy have to arise turn the recess or can arise before the recess? the third, what about these pro forma sessions of the senate where they've agreed to come back every three days for a 30-second session so that the working any link the recess, at least as a tactical matter.

and really the case turned so much on the historical practice precise because there really wasn't any president from the supreme court in all of our countries history involving what the scope of this power was and ultimately the court said yes, the president can make appointments for any recess presumptively only for any recess of 10 days or longer and yes, the president can make appointments even if a vacancy arose before the recess but no, the president has to respect the cynics assertion that it's actually in session for these 30-second session. and that the court is not going to look at the time. lorry said was somewhat of a split decision, and this may just be looking at the world with rose-colored glasses but i think from the perspective from where i said representing the interests of the executive branch and the government actually there was a lot those repulsive about that decision because it set for the first of

their countries history that yes the president does have the authority in these circumstances, and that prior exercise of the authority by presidents going back a very long time has been validated and that will be there and be solid going forward for so future presence will know what the scope of their authority is. so that was quite an interesting case. >> we talked a little bit about cases the court cited last year, but in terms of the cases of interest to, for instance, the business community, one thing that came through loud and clear last year, this is a court that is very interested in resolving issues concerning intellectual property and particularly patent rights. can you comment on that? i know we'll be talking next term and cases of that variety. >> i think i have this right. last term the court took six patent cases, to copyright cases, one of them very kind of cutting edge in significant.

and to trademark or false advertising cases. it was an absurdly high slice of intellectual property on the course of doctor. the kind of thing that during the rehnquist court you never would have seen it all of those would've been replaced by cases involving an officer searching a car somewhere in california. every one of them. [laughter] one thing is significant about the patent cases in particular but i think also about the copyright case that dealt with the streaming of basically live tv over the internet. involving a startup called aero. and some of these cases the supreme court doesn't have a traditional guidance for which cases to date. usually the sort of simplest version of a supreme court victory for what cases it will here is the court looks to see if this appeals court has decided the same issue one way and that the appeals court has decided another way. all patent cases go to the same federal appeals court.

nationwide jurisdiction over patents. it's a little bit harder to figure out which cases the federal circuit which is what that court is called is not decide in the wake that this report is comfortable with. sometimes they ask of bsg to weigh in and say this is a patent case that we should take? sometimes they listen to and sometimes they don't. last term i think one of those patent cases got there because you asked them to take it. but others did not. the supreme court reversed the federal circuit in every single one of those cases but they generally don't take patent cases because they're happy with what the lower court has done. there have been a lot of reversal. what that may signal is in the cases they don't take the our final with a lower court court is doing and they choose them to take them. but it still requires the court to take and engage with a bunch of different issues of patent law which patent practitioners also pick up is quite subtle and the court has in the next term

more on the subject to the copyright case is nothing simple, where there was no circuit split over the court decided it was time for a to jump into this fairly hot, very interesting legal issue. the parties will jointly as the court to jump in and suddenly. the rehnquist court might well have said no circuit split, this is a polemic is still been litigated. go work it out in the lower court. >> just to follow up on that briefly. i actually argued a patent case in each of my three terms. i've been told by many people time the only sg to argued even one such case, much less three picks i think that's a sign about willey's point that the intellectual property docket is becoming increasingly important. >> what this reminds me of, to remove the letter ken starr wrote to "the wall street

journal" "the wall street journal" about business cases and electric property in the early 90s? >> i don't. >> ken starr had been a solicitor general, everybody knows him with the starr report with monica lewinsky and bill clinton, but relevant to this crowd he was a solicitor general at one point effort at the sg's office are immunized happened to write to pieces in "the wall street journal" about how this court was not hearing the right business cases. he didn't say what will he told us smarter, you keep hearing these cases from california for mistakes. candidates in business cases. he said he thought some of the clerks were not quite up to speed. john roberts who once was declared certainly is up to speed, issues of intellectual property and the very high-tech business cases but and i wonder, you know, it's been such a transition from the rehnquist used to nap without something the bar had been pointed to as a problem. >> let me ask something of a pointed question, is the court taking the right kind of cases

nowadays? the court of course is a court of discretion are just itching to the court only hears around 75 cases a year so does the great luxury of deciding which cases to hear. i'm just curious whether anyone on the panel has any thoughts about whether there's a particular category of cases the court perhaps should take more of or if there's a category of cases the court is taking too many of? any thoughts on that? everyone on the panel isn't practicing what was i they don't pick up my cases. >> they take almost every case that the government asks them to take. we think that's just right. been on the ip point, i guess i'm saying something obvious but intellectual property has become such an important driving force in the economy that is not such a surprise that the court has taken so many cases. it's as though, with about two the late 19th century there were a lot of railroad cases on the docket and that makes sense.

>> one issue that seems to have fallen off the agenda a little bit in the roberts court cases that involve federal claims in cases involving claims by states. that was an area that was obvious of great interest to chief justice rehnquist, but seems to be a less of a priority in terms of the court's docket with this court. >> that's true. we lost our true westerner in sandra day o'connor, and the federalism issue that state's authority in the face of some sort a mandate from washington was a big deal to are also. so both she and the chief, chief rehnquist made that a priority, especially in the '90s. >> it is interesting because justice kennedy also seem very interested in federalism but he's been unable to do with the other two were able to do which is get other people interested enough to grant in these cases.

>> let's talk about the cases the court action has granted review in the coming term. to avoid that false advertising about this program, let's talk about the upcoming supreme court term. we are really talking about the most part about half of the upcoming supreme court term because the court is to a less than half of its calendar for the upcoming year. the court will continue granting rehearing case in the coming months to allow its calendar for the coming year but we'll focus on cases that are coming up in college football season, the cases on the court's docket for october, november and december. i want to start with those solicitor general. as we are so talking about cases we're going to discuss today, we came up with probably about 10 or 12 cases, and the common thread of the cases you're going to talk about is they are cases that seem to involve the separation of powers and relationship between branches of

the committee i know you talk about a couple of cases of the first cases one have argued already. a case now called -- i think the secretary state has changed since the last time you argued the case as has the legal issues. this is a case don will be arguing in november. >> is cases back for the second time in my tenure. it is a case of separation of powers case, a recess appointment case with doctor early was a separation of powers case last term. this case is also separation of powers case and it involves a clash between the congress and the president over who has the authority under the constitution to decide whether to recognize and how to recognize a foreign country as sovereign. it's quite an interesting case. it arises out of a statue that was passed in 2002 and the

statutes title is a following, the title of the statute is united states policy with respect to jerusalem as the capital of israel. and the statute has four sections to it. the first urges the president to begin the process of relocating the u.s. embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. the second one says that united states funds can't be used to fund u.s. consulate in jerusalem anunless it is supervised by the ambassador to israel. a third says that any government document like a map that lists national capitals has to list jerusalem as the capital of israel. and the fourth says any american citizens born in jerusalem has the right to have israel listed as the country of birth on his or her passport. that statute was enacted in 2002 when president bush signed into law which was part of a big round of the statute. wendy did he said executive branch in a particular state

department which issues passports was not going to follow the fourth of those provisions. it wasn't going to allow citizens have israel listed as their country of birth if they were born in jerusalem. the reason for that is that going back to 1948 when president truman first recognized israel, the united states pass to recognize the sovereignty of any nation over jerusalem and has said that until the parties in the region work out among themselves who will be sovereign over jerusalem, the united states is going to remain agnostic about that question. and the concern about issuing passports to people born in jerusalem when israel is the country of birth would be that it would be in effect a statement by the executive branch of the united states government that jerusalem is indeed a part of israel. and president bush said that he wasn't going to enforce that decision because it infringed on the president's exclusive

authority to decide what country to recognize and what borders to recognize and countries. and president obama has continued with the same policy president bush had of not enforcing the statute. now, someone brought a lawsuit under the statute saying hey, the statute says i've a right to have israel listed of the country of birth because i was born in jerusalem. the state department has to be ordered to give it to me. that made its way through the federal courts of appeals and with the arguments the government made to the court is a, that's a political question. this is something the courts shouldn't get involved in. you ought to believe to be fought out between the president and the congress using the usual tools that each branch has to bash the other branch with last night and the court shouldn't get involved. the court rejected that any decision back in 2012 sang this is the kind of questions the court should answer on our

system because it involves the constitutionality of a statue to get sent back to the lower court and that case is now back in front of the supreme court to decide the constitutionality of the statute. the question as i guess they said is whether the statute infringes on the president's exclusive authority under the constitution to recognize foreign sovereigns, in which case the president wouldn't have to follow it, or whether it doesn't and is a valid exercise of congress' powers under article one. the problem with this case, one thing that makes it interesting, is that the text of the constitution does not at least in so many words assigned to either the president or to congress the power to recognize foreign sovereigns. and the presidents guide, the constitution and article ii gives the president the power to receive ambassadors, and starting with george washington, presidents have said, well, in order to receive an ambassador i

have to recognize the legitimacy of the country from which the ambassador hails and, therefore, i, the president have the power. .. like the recess appointments case that we talk about in that very little law and there is actually no wall addressing the

question is where the recognition power resides between the president and the congress. history will tell you that there is a very long history of presidents exercising the recognition power and the notice of congress but also there are numerous instances of congress tangling with the president over the recognition power and enough of them as a structural matter what the folks favoring the constitutionality would say as most presidential powers are subject to a check in the congress and the president can negotiate the treaty but it has to be ratified for example and it would be odd that this cover isn't subject to the check so the congress should have a role and one of the things that we will argue on the executive branch is that as an executive matter it just cannot work to

have the recognition power resided over congress because sometimes it has to be exercised for example president truman recognized his independence sometimes a very sensitive reason why you might want to delay exercising the recognition of course going back to the founding era congress wasn't around for about half of the year so it's hard to recognize were in those circumstances. it's going to be an interesting case in like the recess appointment cases where you have to dig down deep to the first principles of our constitution structure and function and look very hard at the history. >> the other case you were going to talk about involved the legislative power and the delegation.

>> this is the department of transportation versus the association of american railroads and it's also a case about the power available to the congress and the constitution. there is a different kind of question in this case particularly it is a question about whether the congress can delegate any of the government's decision-making authority, the federal government authority to the private entity that arises out of the statute the present and past in 2008 to improve the performance of amtrak. [laughter] >> it's doing better. outside of the northeast corridor, amtrak runs on tracks that are owned and maintained by the free thrill wrote. they would have amtrak have the right-of-way on the tracks and have to give amtrak a preference so that it can reach its on-time performance. before 2008, the performance was

pretty abysmal and buy lots of calculations it was costing the government a lot of money. congress passed the statute and one of the things the statute said is that amtrak stand at the federal railroad administration and the agency and the department of transportation should get together and jointly set metrics for performance. if they agreed those would be the metrics of the performance and if they disagreed, then the statute provided for the appointment of an arbitrator to make a decision. so, amtrak and the federal administration got together to leave the metrics. they published them as proposed rules and the freight railroads attract amtrak challenged them on the ground ground that they had delegated to the decision-making power through

the private entity. you're probably asking who the private entity is. amtrak is because although they are heavily subsidized by the government and have other features which might play into the case that make it seem like a government entity, when congress created amtrak on the service in this country some 40 odd years ago one thing that that statutes say this is a private company. not a government entity. and then why do they care about this and challenge this? it's because if amtrak is falling short of these metrics on the line and amtrak can show the department of transportation that it is their fault that amtrak is late and they have to pay damages the freight is complaining about that. they went to the dc circuit court of appeals in washington

and the dc circuit struck the case down on the ground under the constitution that congress cannot delegate their authority to the private entity and that's what happened here in this case. in the ruling like that that they had delegated authority to private actors hadn't occurred in this country since the early days of the new deal. one of the things that happened in the early days of the new deal or the famous case was the case in which before the switch in time the supreme court had held that one of the key provisions of the fdr because they delegated in the case in the consortium of private

entities and company officials and private citizens the power to set terms of competition and set wages and working conditions etc. to the private entity and that violated the constitution and that is one of the major flashpoint of the new deal controversy between fdr and the supreme court. what we have now is on the docket and getting a deal i think for the challengers have said and will say in the supreme court i will give you a feel for how we are defending the statute. we are trying to defend this by narrowing the scope of the issue saying that reality it isn't right to think that the statute as a delegation to the private entity because at the end of the

day and track doesn't have any final decision of already than the federal government has agreed and if they they disagreed and an arbitrator gets the point and you can come through the statute to require that the arbitrator be a government official. so the federal government official can have the last word and therefore the private entity doesn't have the last word and therefore there is a delegation. and besides it is a government, not a private entity. [laughter] >> eight of the nine members of the board are appointed by the president and the ceo of the that company whose appointed by the other eight and the supreme court has held amtrak in the first amendment therefore you want to consider so i don't take this as a case that is quite as

serious an issue of the separation of power but it is an interesting case about the authority. >> i want to put a proposition to the panel and maybe start with you. this supreme court is not at all shy about the disputes between the two political branches. i want to know whether you agree with that and if you agree with it, i want to get your speculation as to why that is true. >> i think they are not shy about it but you have to watch how they rule. the separation of powers is a very important topic and it was always a topic to the most senior conservatives that you clerked for he always talked about that part of the constitution to capture more of the imagination of the due process and equal issues but it

seems like a you are giving both of these anyway to not do anything too dramatic and that is exactly what happened. they actually rolled back the circuit limits on presidential power so that was potential but i think this this part isn't afraid to take them up i also think it isn't interested in dramatically scaling back anyone's role in the separation of power. >> justice justice goliad has been a proponent for resolving the separation of powers issues. >> also key and the the chief

justice who have been strong advocates of the limitations of the constitution places on the court's ability to referee abstract dispute. >> in other words, limits on the courts of jurisdiction. >> standing as the hitting a lot of these cases go under. >> of the supreme court in the first case asked you to brief the merit and bend it into the site and? >> correct. >> i thought it was interesting that the court having had afforded the opportunity to resolve this ultimately send it back down to the dc circuit. >> the prior year decision had been that it was a political question the court should integrate into court should integrate into when we had the oral argument that the first 15 of the 30 minutes was on the

merit and both advocates had to be forced back. >> it's a restriction the court has placed on itself and the strength used to be the reapportionment cases the courts wouldn't get into because it deemed those to be a political question. >> i do think there is generally a strong majority in the court just about whatever the issue is and it might shift with some members. a strong majority of the court would would avert the whatever the dispute is they think they can resolve it. how they might result it is a separate question. the same-sex marriage case from california being a notable exception to court decided that because there wasn't a person with standing to defend california's initiative before the supreme court that it wouldn't take that up.

>> that ruling might have been to avoid answering the question because of some principle of adhering to the limits on the court's power. >> it might have been that if you look at the alignment of the justices in that case i don't think that you could look at it and think here are five justices of data who share the same view of where the court ought to come out on this case yet the majority agreed to the case. >> turning to something completely different i wish i could come up with a common case and then redistricting none of which really had anything in common.

this case will be argued on october 7 and in some ways this involves religious rights for prisoners but it does pick up a bit where we left off with the case some of us referred to earlier in the hobby lobby case involving the contraceptive mandate of the obama health care law in which the justices narrowly ruled the closely held corporations could assert religious interests to avoid abiding by the insurance provision on the contraceptive. based on the belief of the owner and that case came to the court under the 1993 law known as the religious freedom restoration act and this new case comes to the court on a bit of a token of that law, let me get it just right because it has an unusual name. it's the religious land use institutional persons act. from the bench i'm sure we'll

hear they often engage in these awkward acronyms but in this case a prisoner who is a fundamentalist muslim wants to be able to grow a beard in prison. he's in arkansas and arkansas has a policy that says no beards allowed, not even a half an inch. and the prisoner lost in the lower courts with the judge's ruling that prison officials have great leeway for how they run their persons and that even though this law that i refer to as the religious land use and institutionalized persons act even though it says that the government cannot restrict somebody's religion unless it has a compelling interest and is exercising that interest with the least restrictive means, the lower court said prison officials have much more latitude in this area than just about everywhere else.

and the court took the case and the prisoner then appealed to the supreme court saying that okay, right. prison officials do tend to have great leeway. there are matters of security, public safety. but this rule doesn't even meet the most basic standards because 44 other prison systems in america do allow for religious reasons and as i said this one involved a half inch one so the question is how much deference to give to prison officials under the federal statute. and the prisoner's lawyer, they raised issues all the way going back to 1879 that involved a no braided hair policy is chinese prisoner was objecting to and justice wrote it violated the equal protection clause because it was so severe that at the

time the prisoners and lawyer in this new case says there was any kind of institution in this case in san francisco mandated all prisoners could find in the county jail should be sent to port even though they were jewish and made no difference in the ordinance as written that the ordinance was written in general terms were the prison officials raised concerns of health and discipline. and that's where it comes to. now, this court tends to court tends to be very careful when it comes to prisoner issues. i think it was about four years ago we had a case out of the two counties in new jersey where the justices ruled that prisoners -- people who have just been arrested that he hadn't even been charged with anything, could be strip searched if they were going to be put in the general population. that was brought by a man who was stopped in a fancy car in new jersey and suddenly put in with general population saying why should someone like me have been strip searched?

the justices ruled against him saying there should be deference towards the prison officials. so this comes at an interesting time because obviously, by different types through code for votes in just months ago, the court really took special heat of religious rights and religion is a tricky topic for them. we also saw that in the town of greece brewing up where the justices gave city council more latitude for the prayer before the municipal hearings. as i said it comes up october 7 in as you can imagine a lot of prison rights groups have come in on the side of the inmate in several states have come in on the site of arkansas saying but it's been up to the state this date even though 44 correction systems like to believe it's important to allow this kind of religious exemption for certain inmates in this case muslims

that overall should be left to the prison officials. >> there's something else going on october 7. >> let's fast-forward to november in a different context of redistricting and the supreme court is wading waiting back into that case in alabama. >> didn't didn't we recall the '90s when we had these up their? most of you are aware of the voter id cases that are under challenge out and some lower federal courts as we march towards the november midterms where the supreme court left off most recently on this is with the shelby county versus holder rulings be referred to earlier in which the justices really scaled back on the rights act and protections for individuals who might be trying to get an early challenge to the electoral changes in states where there's been a history of discrimination

and that case was from alabama and this case is also from alabama and is called the alabama legislative black caucus and then separately the alabama democratic conference versus alabama. and the question here is whether the response third -- republican sponsored plan and majority whether their new legislative plan that was drawn after 2010 and instituted in 2012 passed african-americans into a limited number of districts diluting their voting power and making it harder for democrats outside of the district to win. so that's why the black caucus and the democrats are bringing this case. the plan was clear by the justice. the justice department has come in on this case i think taking again sort of a modest step the

special three-judge panel by the vote upheld the plan in the face of the challenges from the black caucus and democratic lawmakers in alabama. they used the wrong standard under the voting rights act guarantee instead of looking at whether race was the predominant reason and the cause for packing them into the districts as a whole lower court by a lower court should have gone distracted by district and put more scrutiny on this and the issue for the supreme court what was below was the predominant factor. did the lawmakers decided we are going to consolidate in a certain way that goes beyond whatever there might be to strengthen black votes on the southern states but rather into the diluting it and also made sure that the politicians in

power could keep going. it's one of those cases that will depend on how broadly the justices go and how much it matters. it is the legislative districts and it is part of a generation of cases that will only incrementally be aggregated on the larger events like texas and voter id to be argued at the end of this week in the seventh circuit seventh circuit but it's all part of the franchise and who gets to exercise the franchise and how many elections as we now come down to just a few votes in a critical question and this will be important before the november election. >> i want to ask one question again covering the court i think there was a time when everyone thought of abortion every one thought of abortion as the third rail issue for the court as it is for politics more generally,

but it seems now that that's third issue is race. do you think that is a fair assessment? >> first he is not afraid of it. i think this is in part because of his own background. as many of you know he came to the administration at a time it was fighting a lot of racial policies thinking that the time had come to end those and that was at the 80s so he asked for a long time felt that it's important not to classify on the basis of race even when it's at the past discrimination or diversity and even before he took the lead in the shelby county case that we have referred to see road about this

business of dividing people according to race and so it's something -- very much turns him off and some of the other conservative even as someone like ruth bader ginsburg has said it's just not time to be able to say that we don't need to take these kind of steps. >> may be the third rail issues suggested the court avoided because it is the area of the law which the tension seemed to run. >> one thing you might add on the subject is one voter id case in the last decade than just redistricting cases and they have the redistricting cases every year is because they have to. when you have a challenge to the statewide districting plan or congressional districts, that is one of the very few areas the court has no control over its own document. it's heard by the special three-judge panel and then an

appeal goes to either say this is so clearly right that we are not going to hear it or they have to hear it on the merits and that is campaign finance is one area and redistricting is another where they have to have more cases on the subject than they might like. it makes sense to make some general observations about those cases as well as we talk about the specifics of the cases that are on the docket. >> is sometimes an over generalization that some people might call a business case and others might not call a civil rights case and one of the cases you asked me to talk about this term falls into that category.

until they had gotten the law wrong until back in the late 70s the supreme court was asked whether the discrimination against those benefits would set the determination. a pregnant driver for ups wanted access to the same lighter duty schedule that is made available. if you were injured on the job under the rule that they have drivers you could have a lighter duty schedule. you can have access to the schedule the statute says

basically that women who are pregnant are to be treated without regard to pregnancy, but compared to people with the same abilities and limitations. and so, basically the question before the court is going to be is this if you make it a combination available to anyone who is injured on the job, must you also make the exact same accommodation available to pregnant women who want it or is it the fact you don't make it available to everyone you only make it available in certain categories. is that under the act. the business community sees it as a business case which is already subject to the various kinds of regulations and what accommodations to offer people on the basis of temporary disability to limit life.

it's treating this as another case that could made it harder to run a workplace especially a unionized workplace where this accommodation has been carefully negotiated between the employer and the union as a way of keeping people employed by ups after they are injured on the job. the title number seven in the civil rights statute says what it says. it's a collective bargaining agreement if this is the right way of analyzing it. this is one of the cases where the justices own outlook on just statutory interpretation, that the kind of legal regulation of the workplace could have a significant difference. and i think that justice o'connor were still on the court, it would be interesting to see what she would make of it not only because she was a pragmatic justice who could balance a lot of things easily, but one thing that we have been said about the current court is

that while it is divided along there are six men and three women. >> i'm sure that changes perspective. [laughter] >> perhaps we have heard the other cases. >> we have more intellectual property on the court docket as well, and i'm going to be somewhat cursed in describing this case because i will be litigating it. but the supreme court has agreed to get a question that has bothered the patent of the appeals court for a long time, which is basically how do you

divide the work that in the trial and appeals and with the patent means? they are complicated dockets and if you've ever read one, my condolences. i feel for you. they are written not for normal people or lawyers they are written for scientists or technologists or experts or whatever the field is where the biochemistry. and the patent office encourages you not to put too much background science into your patterns but it is all deemed to be there. whether it is a valid claim on whether defendant invention and often thanks to the ruling of the supreme court had 20 yea ago.

often you have experts testified the judge decides which expert he leaves and which expert he doesn't. that kind of thing is reviewed very differentially. the patent for many years decided it's going to review everything for itself. it's not going to extend any difference to the trial courts court on the interpretation of the patent. and the principle is we are the single patent appeals court. we have to make everything u-uniform. our interpretation has to be in control. we don't want different interpretations of different district courts to survive. so, the u.s. supreme court, which is the final answer on all of these questions and we will have to decide whether they believe the federal circuit justifications are reviewing these things for itself or whether we will see a little more deference to the trial court and patent cases and a

whole host of cases involving the software and pharmaceutical industry. these could change how the patent cases are litigated because right now if you lose before the trial court, you know that the federal circuit will hear the whole thing over again. and if that option is no longer there it may change how the cases are litigated. the third case is even more difficult for me to talk about than the case i'm handling myself because canada is litigating it. those securities litigation and different areas crop up over time. in the last term the supreme

court heard a significant case in which it promised to think about changing its actions and then perhaps the biggest bust of the docket last year, but securities actions often are brought under a provision of the security law that requires you to not lie to the markets. but in this case it is under a different provision of the law which is also about the statements in the market but which usually have no -- it doesn't take account of your mental state and it's usually just strict liability. if you say something false in the registry -- registration you are liable, period. however if it is a statement of opinion, you state in the registration for the security

that we believe a certain thing to be true. we believe that our contracts are in accordance with the law. we believe that our accounting this is in the generally accepted accounting principles. and above legal question in the case is basically how do you analyze one of those statements for who is at fault and we added to that the congress in the mid-90s made it easier for the security cases to be essentially kicked out of the court based just on the complaints without the parties exchanging documents and going through the process of just discovery because that is what the case is extremely expensive to litigate. so they needed the other type of cases the first category case i either did it to easier to kick out on the pleadings especially if you did it persuasively to come in with an allegation that the defendants had knowingly in the markets. while there is no mental state requirement and the section 11

cases. well the business has been able to point to the fact that the state of the document is a statement of opinion and say you have it alleged i believe it was false or will it be something more objective point or whether no reasonable person would have believed it was false or something else more objective that doesn't require you to a ledge that he was lying and they were all a bunch of liars. >> i believe the defense for another day and turned the more lori coble to the circumstances under which the description they cause you to run a foul in the federal law. you don't have to start with fish. >> it is a security case after all. >> i will start with the fish case otherwise known as the

united states. the question considered in the case is whether he was deprived of a couple of group or would fall within a federal statute prohibition that makes it a crime for anyone to knowingly alter, destroy, mutilate, cover-up, falsified or making false entry in any record, document or tangible object such as the fish with the intent to obstruct an investigation. for context this provision is part of what is known as the sarbanes-oxley act and it is commonly referred to as anti-shredding. but in this case, the government is really creative, no offense. >> the government was very

creative to allegedly tossed three undersized grouper back into the gulf of mexico. you cannot make this up. [laughter] the fishermen said the term tangible object is ambiguous and undefined in the statute and unlike the company, the other nouns accompanied the object there is no record-keeping documentary were informational content or purpose so the argument he had no fair notice to the conduct is throwing back to the undersized grouper that was prohibited and for that would be so that would be a violation of the due process clause to convict him. so this is actually a business case for the u.s. chamber of commerce has weighed in on the support of the industry and the chamber argues in the context and legislative intent of the provision it should cover only documents, records and record-keeping devices rather

than the actual inventory of goods and the chamber is basically chamber's basically war is basically boring to the implications of the government interpretation would have serious effects on the small businesses and other legitimate business conduct such as routine maintenance and disposal. >> i think it is fair to say the government has come in for a fair amount. >> that's one side of the story. [laughter] >> here is the other side of the story. but the fishermen is a commercial fisherman out of the gulf of mexico, and he was visited by a state inspector and the state inspector looked at his fish and set you have a bunch of grouper that are below the limit that we are allowed to catch. so, i'm going to instruct you to

keep up tape up the box and when you come back we will have a proceeding to see whether you are violating the law. and with the commercial fisherman did after was to instruct one of his employees to take the creative fish and don't get overboard and replace it with those that are no longer undersized. [laughter] and he did that and then he got back to shore and he wrapped about his boss. so the boss was eventually prosecuted for the statute that we think is basically a statute that has the evidence in the investigation that certainly sounds like without fisherman did. [laughter] so, anyways the sixth >> certainly there must be a general instruction -- >> this is not a k. scott correct?

>> moving on. while that's a pretty good rebuttal. moving on to the facebook case is my favorite in the kernel doc is because everyone and anyone who knows a teenager or other marginally irresponsible semi-adult should tell them to focus on the case and followed with interest. this is a case that comes out of the third circuit. it's at the intersection of constitutional and criminal law like the criminal cases this involves the first amendment. the case involves a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten or injure another person when you communicate that thread through interstate commerce. and the question in essence is whether threatening is in the eye of the beholder or whether the government has to prove that use objective and independent your speech to be a threat of injury or death to another

person. so, the fact of the case is pretty interesting. the alleged threats that are issued are facebook posts and the defended. his wife took their two children. he was a frequent poster on facebook that after this dramatic event in his life, he came to the facebook persona to a pseudonym and he later explained it was his aspiring rapper pseudonym. he took balearic that he had composed and sometimes the language that he used was explicit and violent not unlike balearic that some actual popular songs. apparently i entered this is kind ended this is kind of the interesting part to me, he would post disclaimers at the end of the post explaining that the mere export fictitious for the entertainment purposes only and that he viewed them as kind of

therapeutic in a way and a way to deal with his frustration of his life falling apart. but, the most interesting thing is that he referenced the first amendment over and over again. at one point, he even predicted that he would be a rested for his facebook posts and he would be laughing all the way to the bank when he won his constitutional claim against the government. you don't see many people advertising that they intend to break the law but they've got their defense already. one of them i just want to read this to get a flavor for this one of the post is directed at his ex-wife. i guess many of them were. and i will put a little ellipses around that so as not to cause problems with c-span. but here's one. did you know that it is illegal for me to say that i want to kill my wife?

it is indirect content. it's one of the only sentences i'm not allowed to say. it's okay for me to say it )-right-paren because i was telling you that it's illegal for me to say i want to tell my wife. i'm not actually saying it. i also found it is incredibly extremely illegal to go on facebook and say something like the best place to fire a mortar launcher at her house would be from the cornfield behind it because of the easy access to the gateway road and would have a line of sight through the railroad. ridiculously illegal it goes on. and another one posted right after a visit from an agent whose predictions are coming through. he is getting the attention that he was obviously looking for. he could post a little rap about her which in part is the following. sitting so close to all the

strength i had not to turn [inaudible] pull the knife, slit her throat leave for bleeding from her jugular in the arms of her partner. so this is pretty explicit and i will give you a little bit more context. at the end of the post they were often based on other performances. eminem was a favorite parody where it said, he sketches and he would post the link to the original work of art at the bottom again with these disclaimers saying this is by way of getting myself some therapy. so the basic question is whether the government has to prove that he subjectively intended to threaten or whether a reasonable person and probably everybody in this room preceded as a threat.

he argued subjective intent is required to avoid a conflict in the first amendment because otherwise the speech that is meant to be expression that is not a true threat and the question before the court is what does it take to prove a true threat? >> that is pretty colorful. >> the fact pattern is great. one of the things that makes it interesting is that it seems to me even under the standards but he's advocating, it seems like a bad vehicle. they would prove to threaten.

>> they jump into the inappropriate facebook behavior and think they could use a vehicle where the legal standard is going to make a difference it isn't nearly as interesting to me because it has fewer implications made before the average person. this case involves two men driving behind a car in north carolina with a brake light that was malfunctioning and the officer pulled him over and noticed one of the man was laying down in the backseat with a blanket over his head and even with the officer standing there asking for license and registration remains laying there and the backseat with a blanket over his head.

so, the officer thought this was a little suspicious and asked questions of both of the men and concluded the stories were not matching up. surprisingly they agreed to the search that covered 54 grams of cocaine. the grand jury indicted the guy for two counts of trafficking cocaine and he moved to suppress on the ground of not objective and we reasonable because the law only requires one working brake lights. [laughter] who knew. >> obviously the officer didn't. >> so, the officer it was really who knew because it had a more general position that sort of suggested that all the flights'

in proper working order so there is kind of a conflict in the general provision and the specific provision that makes it pretty clear that you only need one working brake lights and the state argued that the ambiguity basically means that it was reasonable and so therefore it was legitimate and reasonable suspicion standard. they've never let advised mistakes of law as justifying a reasonable system of the violation standpoint. they never said it doesn't violate the fourth amendment. you might want to get the evidence because it goes to the weather that remedy is an equitable one. obviously it's interesting to me

because of the circumstances in of the case it does seem like there is good faith and an objective reasonableness in the interpretation of the law. even if they win the question that it's a fourth amendment violation what do we get out of that? cynic if there is no issue involving the good faith exception. there is the subjective uncertainty in the law. [laughter] >> you know, the government may have a view. i've not gotten all the way through the brief were north

carolina's brief. >> of the good stuff is always in the footnotes. >> it's true in the other case about eminem. it doesn't really flush out what he was doing. >> i think that we could all agree that would qualify if not suspicious but certainly curious behavior. >> that's why i said that break light malfunction and to stop for something that maybe is not illegal to worry about as a general risk. but not too many of you probably lighting in the backseat under blankets when the police are trying to ask you questions. >> it's usually a good idea to set up. we are going to open the floor for questions.

we were going to talk about coming down the pike and maybe as moderator i will exercise martial law and to give a summary. i think that all are going to wait for the area of same-sex marriage advocates is coming out all of you will be aware to present the question of whether there is a constitutional right in same-sex marriage and it may be the end of the month whether the supreme court can decide that issue or potentially decide that issue in the coming september term. there are yet more challenges to the affordable care act that are one big their way to the supreme court, so it is uncertain whether they will get to the court this term including some cases involving the questions and turning the funding of the changes on which both insurance is now purchased as a result of the affordable care act and further issues as mentioned

concerning the contraceptive mandate and the interplay between that and the religious liberty. there are cases involving race and affirmative action and fischer versus the university of texas. the supreme court seems to be heading back in that direction. the panel has once again upheld the affirmative action program and the challengers may have to take that back up to the supreme court and there are other cases involving the availability of the so-called disparate impact liability that is viability for practices that while they do not possess a discriminatory intent having disproportionate effect on the minority groups, this has been a contentious issue that the supreme court has tried to resolve on the two occasions to both of those occasions they settle before the same court was able to hear the oral argument.

so a lot of very interesting issues that are potentially in the pipeline but it is difficult to predict what cases the supreme court might end up hearing so i think this is just a case of watch this space and at this time next year you will be hearing about the decisions in the cases. >> since we have about ten or 15 minutes left we will through the floor open for questions. it will probably be harder to see the folks in the balcony but you are welcome to ask questions as well. and i don't be weird that we have a microphone, so please just stand up and i will recognize you and i will repeat the question for the benefit of the audience and those watching on television. yes sir sir in the baseball cap. >> the question is about gun

laws and if there are any issues that are likely to end up at the supreme court. any thoughts on that? >> there are cases taken around in the court of the court of appeals that are not conceivable but i wouldn't say that with a certainty either. >> there've been a number of issues since the supreme court in the late 2000's, recognizing the individual right to bear arms. but while the court of appeals have been mixed on how to approach it, they generally have agreed that there is some kind of higher standard for most gun laws and the most research in such as and such as the ban on carrying weapons outside of the home gets scrutinized very closely but the core prohibition carrying the firearm will be interesting to see which of

those next issues beyond the court and whether there is a second amendment right at all will come back. >> other questions in the back. >> [inaudible] do you see that in the procedure? the >> yes, it is the standard at least for now in the wake of the court's decision this term there was a lot of speculation about the challenges to wiretapping and another context of the aggravation of data. you think that is the next? >> it certainly would be one of

them and i think a lot of people that have concerns about privacy in the digital age were very heartened by the ruling because the awareness of the court showed how we all expose ourselves now in the digital age through something as our smartphone but also all of the communications that emanate our homes that can be collected by the government and others are now out there. so i do think that it should at least show a sensitivity to digital privacy for individuals. >> there is a case in the 70s that said information that you share with your bank or you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy and that's been the basis about things that for example you store in the cloud, digital data that you might store in the cloud and i think one justice indicated their willingness to reconsider whether that should still be the law and occur in the digital age.

>> i think it is reserved questions about technologies. so we might see another iteration of this. >> [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> i'm going to try to transform that into a question involving the supreme court docket because i'm kind of hard pressed to think of a current case that might bear on that but maybe this is a general question for the entire panel about the fourth amendment and the current courts view of the government and law enforcement generally and whether any of you think that view may be changing somewhat. >> when the the chief justice was nominated justice o'connor he had been driven very many

opinions. the one he had written was the opinion of holding the arrest of a child for eating a french fry on a platform and i think that it was thought at the time. this is a law and order william rehnquist -- are you i think that we've not seen in his dress prevents kind of uniform sympathy for law enforcement by any stretch. even in that sort of kids are different area but i think there will probably be more zero-tolerance cases coming to the court in the future that they may be under title vi rather than under the first amendment fourth amendment and whether the school board has to have a zero-tolerance policy. >> i wonder if the fact that the chief being relatively young

influences some of his thinking in that area. there've been cases involving the restriction of speech in the context in which the court has the exception. >> c-span thinks you. they can take us off and seven seconds. other questions in the front and then we will go to the back. the changing makeup of the dc circuit court for what kind of cases will the supreme court pick up? >> the question is what impact the changing makeup they would bill the district of columbia might have on the docket.

what a difference it has made because we saw most recently last week the dc circuit announced it was going to read here another generation of the obama healthcare law case and rather than going to the supreme court i think it may be different that president obama got none because of the stalling of the senate in all of and all of the publications that were a well aware and it's making the difference in these hearings and i'm sure it will make a difference down the road. in fact i wonder if you think of as what you have now as an old case certainly decided by the republican appointees, it doesn't always break that way. but i would think that maybe there aren't going to be many appeals coming up. although that circuit no matter what it does i think it is the most exciting circuit that we have out there.

>> the number that you are seeing the separate opinions. >> i can't remember the last time other than recent history before the last couple of years when the dc circuit went. it didn't have in the year before that. >> and i believe it will be heard in the dc circuit and that one, too mac. >> it will be a shame if the legacy if the president's appointees who include some of the finest lawyers that are practiced in washington and who are a credit to the bench and end up being tarred as a political hack because this first case that draws their attention and i think that the senator in particular has done a real disservice to the country and to the bench by acting as though the outcome of the case

is ordained because of the confirmation and that is one of the things that is really upsetting about the current political environment. >> the last question was in the back. go ahead sir. >> in the coming term about the reproductive rights and particularly i'm wondering about whether this concept would be particularly antiabortion groups are trying to push to see if there's any traction in the court with respect. >> the question is about the reproductive rights and as i mentioned earlier abortion hasn't featured all of that prominently with the roberts court. do we think that will change anytime soon?

>> they will stay away from that as long as they can. >> it was a 2007 case and it does tend to fuse some of these questions on the contraceptive mandates and the abortion protest offers oh and that we have in massachusetts, but i think this would be in your category of cases that are not eager to take. >> at least on the core bike on the road be weighed. please join me in thanking the panel. [applause]

the candidates of the race in the race for the district faced off last night. here is a brief look. >> first of all coming you have to take a look at how we got there. we are not doing budgets. we are spending money and it's out of control and i've outlined some budget principles such as auditing the government so that we know the waste, fraud and

abuse so we can cut those programs. some of the legislation when it comes to the debt ceiling over 40 times in the past they've been tied to the debt ceiling and there's opportunities you could add that. maybe it's the keystone pipeline or the tax. we are seeing corporations go overseas. maybe lowering the corporate tax rate but i think it would be healthy to get something out of this for those that are not in favor of raising the debt ceiling. >> should you become a member of congress would you vote to raise the debt ceiling and is very very plain that you would say okay to credit limit has been reached and also address the issues he brings up in the debt ceiling report to other issues. >> we need to look at where the money is being spent.

i became a chair of the state government and i worked with democrats, republicans, the senate, the house, managers of the department, employees, citizens and we found ways to save. >> it sounds like you wouldn't be in favor of raising without some cost savings being in nashville. >> we have so much gridlock and people that are elected that are not working and doing their job and they need to sit down and work together and do their job so that we are not coming to a shutdown. >> all of the iowa third district debate and campaign 2014 coverage is available anytime on the website c-span.org.

a deputy director of the israel defense forces says the u.s. funded air defense system played a key role in saving not only israeli lives but also palestinians during the recent conflict. it was the featured speaker at an event hosted by george washington university's homeland security policy institute. this is 90 minutes. >> he is a senior official at the hands good for national security studies where he runs the certificate program in israel. he's had a very distinguished career with the defense forces including the deputy director

for military intelligence, and i think it is fair to say he is a scholar soldier who not only brought together the military experience with a military background but also in a way that brought together the theory with the practice. i think it is also fair to say that ins have is the premier think tank in israel for those of you that don't know them, i suggest you start reading some of their briefs and deliverables it seems like that is the cycle whenever you start to see an attack on israel and in this case she's here to talk about the operation protective edge and more importantly, some of the implications from the homeland security perspective as well as from the recently in perspective. this is a buzzword thrown around dc and lots of places but if

there is one place it is israel and if there is one person that can but all of the good thoughts together to get a sense of what it means, general, the floor is yours. [applause] >> first of all i would like to thank you all for coming and spending the time to listen to what i think might be of interest to you. psych and thing ended thing i want to thank you for hosting me it's great to be here and i am in touch. again i have to reciprocate you have been great center or institution. we also watch whatever you are

doing or listen to what you say in the different places and i think it is important that we work together and that we appreciate that because basically why i am here in the states is not only because we have close relations with you in general but within a community that is growing all the time and has a natural sense of hearing the u.s. which is in today's interesting conference and the department in the national institute for the advanced technology and they were looking at the ideas from people here in america and around the world how to promote infrastructure which is a major thing and to be interesting thing about that if

they had 13 different states around the world because it realized the collaboration is the name of the game and if we share things it is beneficial. i would like to do this morning and i understand we divide the session into two parts. one, i will say a few words about what is my understanding what has happened in israel in the summer from the point of view most land of homeland security as you suggested all kind of other political implications, economic implications etc., etc. and the

confrontations that we have. i'm going to concentrate on the act but if you wish later on to broaden the spectrum and speak with me to raise ideas about the other notions, please do not hesitate to do that. the topic is from the homefront of israel commanded and i don't have to say anything else because frank was courageous enough to say but start with a challenge. first i would like to press upon you that even though it was kind of an episode it should proceed as part of an overall rapidly

changing situation in the middle east. so many things are happening all the time they are connected one way or another or at least from the israeli security way of thinking and goes to action in the policies so we are focused on one issue like the challenge and we have to look at the same time the other challenges because one thing leads to another and if we don't see the entire picture even though sometimes it is difficult to understand all of those intricacies and then we are missing the point. the second thing i want to say is that it was a nonstate and i put it here in questions.

so all of those elements have a very meaningful manifestation of the field. it is a major political factor as far as the palestinian issue is concerned. it operates in the west bank. i don't know if you heard about the pull in the west bank and which it was found that if there were an election that was supposedly the prime minister of gaza would have gotten the majority of the votes so it is a political entity and very much an ideological entity and we have to bear that in mind

because this nature is a very important trait with its thinking and its operations and of course also a military power and if we think about that later on whether it is a state or a nonstate i would suggest that we might look at it as a state of being judged not something that is in the beginning stages. it is more than even lebanon with regards to hezbollah. even though the proximity of the entities in the state are getting greater all the time and then another thing we have to remember it's not only about

hamas but we have other actors there. most of them the more radical and many of them are hardly controlled. the corporation is very effective but with all of the problems they have in their own ranks that it also has quite a strong challenge from the other groups. to terrorize the population on the government to change its policies and issues for them the most important thing is they consider rightfully so that gaza

is controlled in a way both by israel and egypt and to gather we pose a major restriction on the capacity of the known state entity to live and manifest itself so this is or has been the goal and that is what we were facing. now, let's speak about the military buildup because it is difficult to differentiate between the terrorist aspect of hamas in the military aspect and it is becoming more and more military. if you look at the overall actions of what hamas has been doing it is more military.

even though i consider what they are doing in the population of israel as terrorism. as a military conduct it is growing in terms of its importance. there are a few elements i want to speak about in terms of the military. as you can see here i would say there is about four or four and a half major components via the developed in the last few years. many of us speak about the capacities and the offensive. everybody's talking about it in the press but if i may, i would like to emphasize or draw your attention.

in the last confrontation to have the defensive capabilities they have developed in the last few years with all due respect to the offensive capacities which are quite meaningful and we we talk about them in a minute, i would like to draw your attention that it was much more a significant overall picture towards the end of the operation. and then of course to other things are quite important in the special forces is important. mostly the air and see one way or another and also very limited and not very developed but it was interesting and it shows a figure and the entrepreneurship if you wish. the more important thing for me

and that is why i put it in the picture it is quite impressive and i want to draw your attention again to the fact that they have managed in the last 58 days they managed quite effectively from where they were hiding in the underground meeting. so they were very advanced i would say. but the command and control doesn't mind the fact that most particularly was on semi-automatically according to the three planned program of

firing and launching the rockets against israel in a timely and orchestrated manner for an organization that is rather small about 15,000 out of 45,000 people that are receiving salaries so this is a military buildup in the operation in the summer. let's speak about the rockets and the mortar threat. all in all in the numbers that are here number one, they managed to launch at an average

about less than 100 rockets. this is a lot for those that are attacked but it's not a very large number. it's much less the numbers that we experience. back in 2006 it is less than we experience from them in 2008 and 2011 and it's much less than we thought they could launch against us. so you have to make a differentiation between the harassment that is quite meaningful but you have to bear in mind that we have to think about quantitatively different pictures in the future.

the second thing has to do with the range. they were quite capable of introducing it into the picture a rocket in the range of more than 70 kilometers reaching north of tel aviv. it is basically now israel are under the rocket range fire in the times of conflict and this is very meaningful because even in this summer more than 50% of the citizens of israel so this

is really very important. as you know, and we will speak about this in a minute it's very effective in terms of damage. we will speak about the casualties the bot only the iron dome the other cycles have to be taken into consideration and for the effectiveness and one is the suppression that is why the numbers are not so large and the behavior of the population. the combination of the factors the iron dome, the civil defense and the capacity of the ideas actually made the rocket threat

in terms of damages to people and infrastructure so this is one thing. the second thing i would say about the mortar even though very short range and even more primitive than the markets they had a very important effects not of course on the population at large, but in the areas indirect proximity and they made a difference. in other words i could even say that in many ways the mortars were more effective than the rockets. also in terms of casualties, in terms of the number of casualties both the military and civilians was relatively high.

there were 35 already military servicemen. something is very, very interesting and important. the more primitive weapon system is more effective when you use it in the right manner. one of the issues is that our capacity to curtail and discover such a mortar is less than the one that we have where the rockets were concerned. here we have a slide of the members of the rockets that were launched in different places, so you can understand of course the high numbers are up 60% of the overall number that were

directed to the area within the 20 kilometers range. about 32% to the south in general and major cities were part of the man at the numbers were quite significant and in the center of israel, tel aviv, jerusalem, the area around tel aviv received almost 350, which is 8%. you have to remember for example using tel aviv was here and if you decide to 50 every day we have close to three rockets that were aimed at tel aviv and they were intercepted by the fire and

dome. the second offensive in the tunnel we have to remember that we are mostly speaking about the offensive that we call the terrorist tunnels that are going all the way to the israeli territory on the other side of the line of the border, but it's part of an extensive underground network that is used or has been used for smuggling of goods and mostly weapons. ..