begich campaign is what pushing is he's not from alaska because he came to alaska as an adult while begich is a lifelong alaskan. so that's been something that's the narrative that is then threaded throughout this campaign. >> host: one of the other key figures in alaska going into this race is alaska's other senator, lisa murkowski, a republican. here's a recent mark begich add mentioning senator murkowski. >> we have over 3000 telecommunication jobs in alaska and mark begich has fought to protect them. as ceo one of alaska's largest companies. i worked with marconi transform the economy. he has done the same thing as senator helping expand our telecom industry. i like how he works with lisa. the court one of the only states with both senators on the appropriations committee. we can't afford to lose the. i voted for lisa, now i am voting for mark.

>> i mark begich and i approve this message. >> host: liz ruskin is joining us on the phone. she is a d.c. correspondent there. how did lisa murkowski feel about being mentioned in a mark begich add? >> caller: i believe that was the second ad he used that picture, there's a picture that ran without showing the two senators smiling at each other, smiling in her office. senator murkowski issued a cease-and-desist letter to try to get the campaign not to use her image, and she said that they were implying that begich had her support when he does not. she is backing dan sullivan. >> host: anne schuchat an ad for him. talking to the camera ad, talking about her support for dan sullivan. here's that add. >> we are all tired of the negative ads and i'm especially disappointed by the dishonest

attacks on dan sullivan. i need a partner in the senate who will work to advance alaska's inches. not the obama interest. alaska needs dan sullivan. >> host: liz ruskin joining us on the phone. we have six debates coming up in nine days later this month in alaska. what are you expecting out of the debates and what issues are going to be the key issues? >> caller: it's hard to say. we haven't seen debates between them, many debates between them. i don't know. i can imagine fisheries will be a hot topic. who stands tougher against the epa, against the federal government. yeah, hard to say. we haven't got much to go on. i think they're been to debates between them so far house of representatives in terms of polling numbers also, not a whole lot to go on, a few polls and alaska. why is it so hard to pull

alaska? >> caller: there are far-flung communities, people a little bit off the grid. one conservative candidate joked that his constituents didn't like to answer the phone for for the nsa was listening in. i think he was obviously joking, but there is a little bit of, you know, not being so friendly to telephone pollsters. it's hard to say. >> host: liz ruskin is your washington, d.c. correspond for alaska public radio network, on her way back to alaska today to cover the race. takes for your time this morning. >> guest: sure, thank you. >> on c-span2 we take you like to the hudson institute for a discussion on the obama administration's strategy against the islamic militant group basis it is being moderated, a discussion moderated by the weekly standards lee smith, just getting underway live here on c-span2.

>> alliances with national insurgent groups, sunni baathist insurgent groups and go move into territory that the one thing that we served it with use policy is we immediately started spinning of advisory groups to go to baghdad, go to irbil and his operations centers to partner with the iraqi security forces. one of the things general petraeus taught you was we do not want to look like the air force with iraqi security forces when it's considered a security and iran backed shia secured apparatus. so we went into the operations and so the thing some of us who worked with iraq and definitive operations centers noticed, are cautioned against was when you put american advisers in these operations centers, even if in arabic they are not familiar with all of the nuances in arabic. there are already coots force officers in the operations centers. so these target packets will give primacy and if we were acting these target practice we

could be targets. so the one good thing is the majority of the targets that have been successful in mosul were gender out of irbil. that is courage and don't and also with embedded suing intel from the previous now dismantled iraqi national security service which was stood up with former baathist sunni intelligence officers attacks want to go after al-qaeda, the want to go after shia militia but that was replaced with ms him in a bishop who took over the structure and that became something that became part of maliki's sectarian intelligence and security apparatus. so that's the current set. u.s. airstrikes in mosul, key strategic defeat for isil windowless mosul den. our u.s. airstrikes enough? they can hurt isis militarily. they're able to take out isa positions in the mosul dam but paired with peshmerga as to move into the area, they were able to

take back territory. does the first strategic loss isis suffered. in iraq and syria. in iraq, that was huge. the lost a mosul den. he wanted to go to provide services to the mosul dam provide water and electricity to the people living in northern iran. they want to show that a better capability to provide services and iraqi services. that was taken away from them. they also lost two oilfields. part of the strategy now we need to exploit those operations, opportunities and isis loses key infrastructure, we need to be able to say that. one of the things that happen with u.s. airstrikes, before that we so you his capture the mood industry because they would face a lesser air force capability idea side regime. key leaders after u.s. airstrikes target and to coin a mosul to started moving back to syria as well in baghdad and along the baghdad bill. what was left behind was foreign fighters. these foreign fighters another

opportunity exploit isis who actually comprises isis. these foreign fighters, a lot of them came in wanting to fight beside and they were moved to iraq to do these things. you have to member what mosul is. into the back of envelope math their seven and 50,000 sunni military age males in mosul waiting to see what the central government is going to do, which is what we're going to do. anytime isis has a public demonstration there is always isis cards with ak-47s watching the crowd to the are worried about what this sunni male population in mosul is going to do. it don't subscribe to the etiology, but they're not going to kill it without some sort of concession from the central government. they will not do it without getting something for it. anything we do is part of the u.s. strategy has to put pressure on a body to the wrecks of the two divisions that they'll and put in 30,000 embedded sunnis that were part

of the i.s. in the past and they can fill the ranks and that's what his advisor efforts need to be because we need to be the third party guarantor. the reason the sons of iraq was successful and the reason iraqi city force of risks asphalt in the past, they had a u.s. advice with them and they're able to collect u.s. airpower, close air support and be able to do these things. we can't simply say fill the race with sunnis because they will not trust the central government and they think will offramp them at some point. how do you get al-abadi to do that but she got to put pressure on iran if you have al-abadi to allow -- al-abadi might want to do it now. i think this is a fight enemies and the shia militias won't come especially one in baghdad along the sectarian fault lines. i think i've gone over my time. >> i've been taking notes on stuff that want to connect to lead. thank you very much, mike. hussein abdul hussein and i co-authored an article in "the

weekly standard" about a month ago and i have to say hussein did all the heavy lifting. i just added my name to get credit about the origins of isis and who is a part of, who is a part of this and with its large rebellion looks like and i think that hussein will start today by talking about that somewhat. >> thank you for having me. on september 16, chairman martin dempsey told armed services committee in the senate that the basic of one of most important facts, factors in this strategy of defeating isis is to get some modern sunni tribes to join the coalition against isis. on october 5, 3 new clients in iraq and syria pledged allegiance to isis. which tells us the tribes so far

do not seem to be betting on the united states or on its allies. since then we have seen so many reports and we are seeing so much criticism against the syrian opposition, against the tribes. we call them corrupt. we think they are not up to the fight. so the question is, how come all the tribes on our side are the losers and all the tribes to fight on iran and hezbollah side always the winners? we have spent so many years training the iraqi army at a meltdown in a couple of hours in mosul, and do you have iraq backed army with isis just fighting and winning and it takes two weeks to take most of them with u.s. a power to take most of them out of the hands of isis. the answer to this question is that we do not take the tribes.

they take us. this is very important, which is this goes back to have the tribes behave. there's a tribal code and a tribal structure. i tried is usually known by name and by genealogy. and even the horses have the genealogy. they are known for their territory is usually demarcated. so the tribes are not as ambiguous as they seem to be. there are blue blooded tribes. there are lesser blue blooded, junior ranking, second ranking. then there are strong tribes and there are not so strong tribes. what happened over the past half-century is that both saddam hussain and half of iraq, then you have to deal with these tribes in the tribal areas.

in the tribal areas that's the northeast and northwest of iraq and west and east, ma west of iraq and east of syria. they have at least four to six take tribal concentrations. the two most important of them, and these are very well connected to the saudis. to put this in perspective, the saudi royal family comes from -- the mother of the current saudi king, king abdullah, his mother comes from -- [inaudible] pics of these tribes are connected to saudi arabia. they have intermarriage. and because of this they were under pressure during the days of saddam hussain. both saddam hussain and others propped up the junior ranking

tribes. these junior ranking tribes, northeastern syria, the mosul area and these junior drives were doing really good at the expense of the blue blooded tribes. and by the way, osama bin laden's mother hails from the air. so just put this in perspective. so we have the mothers of very saudi factions coming from various stripes in the syria. so we are doing really well, and it holds areas like in the province. how iraq got changed hands from assad to the rebels visually interesting. the syrian revolution broke out on march 15, 2011, and most of the north and the north east

just lost control really fast. the only sound, and the province that kept folding annual still loyal to assad was raqqa. they remained loyal until november of 2013 your cuts almost two years. even though it is first of all assigned is 300 miles away from damascus, that's almost a six-hour drive. it means that it was thinly populated with a side security forces but it meant that a side elite forces could not defend because it's a long distance. logistics would be hard. so all these two years, raqqa remains loyal to assad because of the tribes were still loyal to assad. all of a sudden plans from different tribes pledged allegiance to isis.

answer them raqqa has become the capital of isis. this change of raqqa was nearly double. the tribal forces just switched from being pro-assad to being pro-isis. this tells us there's no such thing as modern sunni tribal radical sunni try. the tribes are not moderate or radical. when the tribes pledged allegiance to isis, that's very different from individuals joining isis. individuals join based on ideology, based on salary they receive from whichever group can tribes join for different reasons. the tribes looking for the strongest power. when the tribes of raqqa saw assad was were to fall, they changed and then the only strong power that they found was isis. of course, because we're calling

them teachers and doctors and dentists and withholding all the kind of arms. so the only strong power they could join at the time was isis. this is how these tribes he came isis. and by the same token the trib tribes, ma these tribes in the northwest of iraq join us as well of the six people who formed the military council of isis. five of them come from big tribes, the three of them were high ranking officers in assad's army. negative picture of how these tribes are fighting on the other side. one last note before i close. the reason why these tribes that

the united states got a big chance for the tribes of iraq year and even lebanon in '06 and '07, '05, '06, '07. the tribes saw we were really series in spreading democracy and giving arms and money. we saw lebanon, the jews, the sunnis join democracy. that is a preview of how the tribes -- [inaudible] joined the united states and they fought alongside their troops. the ejected al-qaeda from there. what's happened after that was very interesting. we got disengaged and the nationals good advisor to vice president joe biden was handling this. he, at the time he reasoned what's more important is for prime minister maliki to keep pumping oil and to edge iran out of the oil market. of course, this concern all

kinds of conspiracy theory that we were there for the oil and the tribes thought damascus is such as. they came, they left. we need the power that's here to stay. that is either iran or isis. i don't think the tribes will be join us anytime soon for if the ones, for the ones that were joined them will be the stronger ones. thanks. >> thanks. that's a very depressing assessment. thanks very much. that was informative and terrific. the next speaker is andrew table, a very old friend and colleague, and also one of the premier if not the premier syria expert here in washington and in the united states. that's one of the things andrew will be touching on syria as well as some of the things including the administrations larger vision of isis and the levant. we might like it all the in the introductory statements but we'll come back rent to that later. andrew? >> lee, thanks for the introduction. it's an honor for me to be a be with you all today, and thanks

for attending. i see a few of my friends in the audience as well. so in terms of the administration strategy itself to deal with isis as well as how this applies to both iraq and syria, strategy general is an iraq eccentric approach. inkblot so to speak starts there and the reason i use the inkblot and now she isn't just because of the different parallels with the font, ma the surgeon in iraq during the war but also dealing with what is, what isis calls the islamic state, this sort of map of territory between the encompasses a lot of the euphrates valley. in iraq you have the military campaign which involved airstrike support as well as farming of certain factions inside iraq.

and u.s. support to try to rescue certain minorities are protected throughout the country. is gentlemen toilet can explain this a lot better than i can. that combined with an overall political strategy in that you want to try to get there any to get a more inclusive iraqi government, more permissible and can't entice some of the tribes and others, particularly from the sunni population which makes up the base of isis, back into the iraqi government so it functions again. and in this particular case, in the case of iraq, i'm not surprised the administration is starting there, u.s. has a lot of experience there, and while there have been a lot of problems over the last two years the iraqi system, at least you have the hope of some change. it might not be real change. it might not be changes fast as we would like to be a the hope of some change. prime ministers can come and go. the parties might not come and go but certain figures can. certain fixed positions can

change. it's easy for americans to relate to. and it's because of that i think you're seeing the administration's emphasis on iraq both from experience and possibilities of there. in syria, it is a completely different situation. u.s. action against isis, as far as i can tell, does not come is not part of any kind of strategy other than to degrade isis over all. there are some caveats to this. for example, trying to isis political and military facilities. so to degrade its power primarily in iraq. also did some of the rudimentary oil refineries which have been set up in the river valley. that's logical. isis themselves refined products through oil to sustain part of its operations, and that's quite

smart. but in terms of the overall strikes, the administration is in a bit of a bind. went isis is advancing, we sought uptick in strikes the lastly. that's largely reactive policy. but the overall problem in city is you don't have a hope of a political process. there isn't one, okay? the reason why there isn't one is because the war in syria and has hardened up positions among the different parties on the regime side as well as on the opposition side, and made a political outcome there really a remote possibility at best. and i think that's part of the problem that the obama administration in intervening in syria is trying to intervene so doesn't tip the balance one way or the other. of course, the united states is

a stated policy o that president assad should step aside since august 2011. in a whole slew of legal sanctions that go along with it. has been supported by not only the numbers of bureaucracy and former very prominent former members of the administration, but also on capitol hill. but over the course of this, the syria crisis, actually achieving that objective has meant increased u.s. involvement in the present himself is unwilling to put forward. hastily the president has been on the horns of a dilemma for about a year, and this dilemma is largely as follows. either the united states increases its effort with its allies to get rid of the assad regime, and there are a lot of ways you get rid of the assad regime, depends on how but generally that's what we're looking at. that would allow for some kind of a process, a transition that

they could fold the opposite if you can bring the country back together again. and the other part of this dilemma is just letting things go as they are and acquiescing to what are called cease-fires come and cease-fires with a small c. that involve smaller areas around major cities, they start the people out, cut off water, drop a barrel bombs. then they leave a little sliver of territory in the end for the fighters to run out while the regime and then moves in, activists are arrested and tortured, sometimes to death, and this cease-fire model was held out as the way the region is going to come back earlier this year. you have two tracks, one, peace talks in geneva which went nowhere and then you have the cease-fire model. a lot of people were betting on the cease-fire model.

they thought the regime had wind at its sales, and it also was libya easier and more who hear and they thought to deal with. that's because we have to be honest about this. the members of the syrian opposition also have tremendous fault and tremendous divisions that makes working with them very, very complicated. and the overall problem has been that the nature of this union battlefield and that everyone is battling against president assad, but they generally are not, groups have not consolidated. there is these have not consolidated so, therefore, you have al-qaeda affiliates fighting alongside nationalist battalions. they do this on a regular basis. they're doing it right now in southern sudan. and when they do it, when they work with a common purpose, they're very effective and they're pushing the assad she regime ushered the assad regime

back towards damascus. how to support such a chaotic and unorganized state? if not impossible, but it's difficult in that any harm or anything that's introduced into the department could fold into the hands of al-qaeda affiliates, and that would be bad. not only bad in a general sense but really bad in the legal sense. no politician wants to touch it. >> so he was betting on assad coming back and carving out as much territory as possible, eventually the rebels would give up and didn't there would be some kind of main political process at the end of this to call it a reconstituted country. that climate change to isis outbreak in june. fundamentally changed. and so now the problem that we have is that the assad regime is incredibly weakened. there are a lot of problems internally and they are losing

ground, particularly in the south but other areas of the country. they have been trying to retake the city of the level. the ability, the problem with the regime is a can go out and retake areas -- aleppo your ticket holder. this goes back to the beginning of the uprising. this means that not only are they unable to consult the power in the west where their strongest. they will not go to go out to the euphrates valley and cleanup crisis. so then the question is what can fill up that vacuum, and take into account soon aspiration in the euphrates valley where sunnis are in the majority. and it is there that, but right now we are starting from basically zero. u.s. has had a covert campaign to support the suit opposition in the country, about a year and have. we deal with about nine groups there, if not more, and the supply with weapons including antitank weapons on a regular basis.

but in an overall political since they are not organized, not organized towards one end. that title 50 covert program will be folded into the train and equip program. but in the meantime we are striking these targets, and isis is not getting way and we don't have an opposition force to fill up with that vacuum. so it's not chaotic situation that we will probably see the assad regime try to lash out to try to take some areas, might see them fail, as well as tribes in the euphrates valley itself trying to assert themselves. but he noted to retake it, i think you have one force retaking and who does areas in any kind of coherent way. at this point if we keep on going in the direction we're going in terms of our syria, our approach to syria, i'm afraid that boots on the ground are probably a much more likely

possibility going forward, both in the next two years as well as the next administration. because i don't see one side or the other being able to really clean up this problem once isis is degraded from the air. i think that's going to be the main problem that this administration faces on the way out in the next administration faces on the way and. on that i will and. >> terrific. that's a terrific introduction. i want to be able to come back later to some specific issues like between isis and the kurds in cobol and he prefers would like to do is i want to fill out the more general picture which i think will be very helpful here. one of the things i believe the three panelists are saying, why this is how i would like to put it together, i believe isis is part of a larger sunni rebellion which is the function of the function of the policies of the maliki government, the function

of the policies of bashar al-assad's war, and also standing behind that is the islamic republic of iran. so the iranians have forces on the ground, the united states, after the 2001 withdrawal, as much more limited, as much more limited leverage. what i'd like to talk about this i would just like to get a sense of like what are the chances that the united states, that administration cannot address the issue which i think we all agree on that one of the fundamental problems going on here, how do we get the sunnis to buy-in, whether it's the sunni tribes, whether it's the sunnis that mike was speaking out in mosul. how to get the sunnis divide without much leverage on the ground? i'm going to ask mike to try that first. first. >> we lost a lot of leverage with the sunni population when we assured them the sons of iraq program would turn into jobs and

iraqi secret forces and other jobs within ministries. that didn't happen. a good friend of mine, p.j., who recruited a lot of these individuals was often met with hugs and kisses when he saw these guys in jordan. the last time he met him, he had one of the individuals route all of the unicorns out of his pocket from other u.s. army battalions bid worked with over the years and through them at his feet and said what good are these? these are all broken promises. we have to reestablish that leverage but how do we do that when we are now projecting that we are there, we are not taking dna, not doing it 100%. we are just doing airstrikes at night or against targets of opportunity as opposed to a concerted effort to, at this point, you're not going to take mosul with peshmerga and u.s. airstrikes. you have to take it with the sunnis were in mosul but how do you get them cut its u.s. get them to fight?

absent a protracted commitment without an end date, you're not going to give the iraqi government is, there's so much iran influence in iraqi government right now, i don't know if a lot of you know this but a package could force with an 85% shia, 45% sunni, the 95 or greater percent she get in the last four years. all the militias have been deputized. they're now part of the iraqis he could force. shia militias are now part of these national guard regional units that we're supposed to stand up and fight i suspect the problem is the militias don't differentiate between a sunni military and the insurgency. isis is counting on the. they push into baghdad in the baghdad bill. they are now legitimate iraqi security forces. so as these iraqi army division

try to reinforce the seventh iraqi army division which is primarily sunni, there's no trust. .. some of the power initially general allen was going to be the guy in charge of this. there was a slow line of

operations stemming from the threat finance and there was the coalition building where we said you don't have to provide air strikes on the ground but stop the flow in turkey into the other countries you have 2500 coming from tunisia, 2500 from saudi arabia and 1800 coming from morocco. and that's a problem. so there are things coalition partners can do but general allen is the right guy to do this. >> we have the american military that would be willing to go back right now. general allen said come back and i will do whatever you want the administration didn't allow either one of them to go forward and do this. you have to be sanctioned by the

government to be effective. so with general allen being in charge of of the scum of the country that he can do together, you have relationships with established over the years with the iraqis, sunnis, customer -- pesce murga and they want to see everybody else be part of this process. one of the things we say is we need to do the same thing isis did. we need to do the same thing to take the territory a way. if you have five guys in a room that hate each other we are going to kill the snake first and then we can go back to hating each other. then maybe if we kill the snake together we will say maybe you're not as bad as i thought you were. but we need to do things like that. the problem is that we say things that designate in that population centers. at the the end date is two months away. they will say that airstrikes

will end on this date and when that happens you will not get them to do anything difficult. and absent putting pressure on iran to get the body to absorb them into the security apparatus isn't going to happen and then again why would they trust the body in the first place? >> i want to come back to putting pressure on iran that seems to be something that the opposite is happening. but in the meantime, you ended your introductory statements very depressed, not optimistic. how could the united states put enough people in the room it looks like regarding the tribes you say that it's unlikely unlikely that with what has to happen in american military leadership as well you express the police skepticism regarding anthony. >> i completely agree with.

first with an anecdote -- and inside the region they kept sweeping through and reached the point in the advance and this talent there he met an army and there would have been a battle and then they tried to pick a winner so they tried to fight on each side and whoever wins was deemed a loser. so they need to work with the winners. it's very important for them. and in 2006 they told the "washington post" that time is the time when the berlin wall had fallen and when he said he

was ready to join the u.s. campaign to spread democracy in a year after that is when the fight swept through the area and he said i have concerns that americans are coming to the rescue. we will sway him me from here to the american destroyer. so they learned you cannot do that in the united states and this is the same bloodshed when michael says they shout a little hot that the tribal mindset that personal is very important and i know we can't keep on sending the same people over time. they have to change that we have to understand and learn from the mistakes we send anthony to maliki and to iran.

then maliki got the salaries on their own and yesterday they put out a press release saying we are sending anthony to the people who do not trust him anyway so i completely agree. i'm not saying that we should just send the same team. they have an interest in joining it and they can trust the united states in the long term. so they are taking on the capability and they will not fight if this is only for the sake of the united states they will not fight if this is counterterrorism only into vaccines they've been beating them since 200 b.c.e..

most of the fighting that you see right now between the tribes and in the isis this predates the theory and revolution and there has been tension and i think that you know this is false line has been there since before the iraqi state. so we have to get some allies. if you are a member of hezbollah , you are sitting in the road and you are getting the security. it's such a long-term thing that they do. they are still fighting and now they are fighting in syria. everyone that joined us either on the run from the shia policemen or they don't have

money or they are trying to get some support from isis. >> let me ask quickly without getting the tribes, what are the odds of success and again there are two different ways to put it, what is the odds of defeating isis and what is the odds of letting the sunnis know that in spite of tossing over saddam hussein they are still a part of iraq so what are the chances of either? >> so far isis has been in the tribal area and don't have any big wins other than those the tribal area would be the instrument of fighting force in that part. to defeat isis the have to get

the tribes who are one of the pro- end of into this eerie and ambassador davis i did early on that they wanted to join the army and the opposition and to fight. they are in open source and they know how to fight and bite i said they called them caucuses. in july when i was extending the pledge of allegiance and other tribes, in the three areas they killed 800 men. so these are the guys that are trying to join us. so, what we have to show is we have to show results long term

and then you will see the money and then you will see the tribes coming to our side and you can use them in combination with the air power and beat them in their area. stomach that is a good transition. i went to pick up on the background. how do you earn the trust of the tribe, how do you earn the trust of any of the iraq east sunnis if people would look at his hearing at and say this administration has had on its hands while more than 200,000 have been slaughtered at a jump to defend these christians and kurds however when they seem to matter nothing at all. and as he keeps saying the administration kept insulting them saying that doctors, pharmacists, carpenters. how do you get if you are looking at. and the administration policy has been to not intervene in the war, how do you get them in serious or iraq anywhere in the

region to buy in? the >> one with the first of all it's important for the administration to realize it's in a hole in this regard and to stop digging and what i need we have to understand them on strike incident of september, 2013 that got about 96 or 95% of the stockpile, not all of it. that's a good thing but it came at a tremendous political price for our relations with their reputation in the entire world but also a send a terrible message in spite of syria.

why is this a problem? >> it's easier to do this stuff when the minority, when the average the sunnis are smaller and easier to do. you can probably divide them. in the case of syria, you need to have a political and a military program. the sunnis in spite of syria would like a replacement to the minority dominated regime. they all shoot the port of iran and would like any transition away from it and i think that is one of the things we can help them with. we have a stated policy to go to direct him anyway. until now they haven't seen it. second would be in order to achieve that, but actively commit strategically and in terms of the class that is a big consideration if i understand that. you have to get the sunni powers

in the region to finance which they said they've been willing to do. but the problem is unlike the iranian adversaries, they have the cuts force and that they are good at what the president calls the proxy game. they are good at it. and the sunni allies in the region are not except for the jihad. so it's very hard to get the different powers to work together and they want the united states to step in a centrally to be the arbiter, to sort of paintings and interaction and they would be willing to finance it. until now the president has said no way. that strategy would make sense in terms of those ending the war in serious and eliminating isis and it would make more sense if

the number were smaller like 25% of the population, but it's not. it's a huge amount and we have been able to find that alternative that thinks of the consideration of the sunni aspirations or they don't join on a tactical level or strategic level and the two gentlemen have outlined and then also don't want animosity against the united states and carry out terrorist attacks. that means not only helping the fight in serious but not putting the country in a situation where it lays down a red lion and then it doesn't enforce it. that's going to lose the power all over the world and cost us tremendously & many more people over to the jihad is because they were to not steal a line from the book but a strong horse and the way to a way to solve this at the moment is very

simple. the reason why the president takes the approach he does is because it goes back when he was elected he was the reaction to what was perceived by the american people and those in the region as american aggression in the region and this is well known. it's not controversial and there was a political fallout and he was elected and because over time what's happened is we've seen that it's throwing your hands up in the air saying we can't do anything. what is required as a is a policy based on something that americans do very well and it's called assertiveness. it means working with allies in a smart way and creative way using their resources to defeat a common. we've been doing this for years and this is what is required to defeat isis and if we do not do it now, we will not defeat them

and not only in this administration that it will become even harder in the next administration. >> that's great. >> one of the things that reminds me of is this talk in the region about moderates and extremists and this is one of the things you're talking about and i want to come back to that. one of the things that strike me and the bush administration did the same to stand up against extremists however everyone has outlined here the united states united states is democratically bad job of backing the moderates in the field, to back moderates rhetorically is one thing but then to let the extremists come in whether it is isis or the republic bees are big issues to put their money where their mouth is is one of the things we are getting at that hasn't been

happening. i want to come back for a second to one of the things you were talking about saying that this divide exists isis and i want you to talk about that for a second and that i'm going to then i'm going to talk about your sense of the military capabilities and what it takes militarily to handle them. >> what we know is one of the ways is to use the same tribes to not beat them but the animosity between the two started in times over these monday -- mundane things that we know there is a line between the two and as we review the tribes to beat the kurds repeatedly come and find there was -- when the power was on the decline and that part of syria and its the

kurds do not pick up against them by the way because they just try to stay out of this whole thing. and now that you see the fighters to an extent it is not related to proper. this started on the very first thing that the power weakens the reason why they formed these is because it was formed after the revolution. not just to keep -- by the way, in the seven and 08, a sod did the same thing. so, these predate and pretend

pretended that it offers an ideology. it predates what's going on. >> that's very interesting. if there's anything that you want to add but also i think that is one of the places that we have seen the military abilities come out. so if you want to talk about that. >> yes. i want to go back to the military question. with cub on the one of the things we started air strikes in serious you are only doing in the nighttime, so actually isis developed a battle where they were actually okay the u.s. airstrikes are overlooked move on. we aren't doing anything during the daytime because we didn't want to use db2 as the u.s. pilots and the keeper but he. that's a problem we allowed isis to move the captured u.s. equipment, captured syrian equipment in support of a fight and chobani. all of that equipment is already

in chobani. they had already moved and so now one of the good things about the targeting effort is the target packets are generated by the kurds and you see the fish burger move from iraq into syria and into coupon immediately to chobani to help the rival kurdish groups fighting the common enemy. i want to go back to the isis melissa repeatability. we give them too much credit for a lot of things. those -- mosul was done with the fact that the insurgent groups now are telling them what to do and they were being put in jail because of the accountability and justice law and terrorism law, that have very ambiguous language. if i know you and you know a terrorist, i go to jail. it's an easy way to marginalize

political opponents into and the amount terry commanders. so, when the shia militia fight remember it is in the broad core and we can't just give them credit that you're doing that with isis. there are temporary alliances and when we have a common enemy we fight together and have to be cautious of giving away too much credit. the fight in baghdad among the belt motor attacks it's not just isis if these other groups in the brigade and others, other units. but when they have a common enemy they will fight together. absent of the militia and the security forces anytime a isis has privacy over the groups, they'd resist. there are schisms and

opportunities to do things and a lot of the groups that had been fought with, this is right at the end of the road is a caliphate and in the middle is the return to the baptist power. these groups are going to separate isis. after that i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these affiliated groups are nationalist groups turn on it. they don't want a caliphate in iraq. they want to turn to the baptist power. they are happy happy and the courage that as long as it remains somewhat a special status and they are actually happy that it's going to responsible heads with the kurds. they don't want it all. they are happy with what they have right now. the sunnis want it all and that's the issue. this is a sunni rebellion but there are factions within the rebellion but simply want legitimacy and they want to be part of the future and they want a return to the legitimate

positions in the government so that they are actually able to hold over what's being done and defend against an external threat, that being iran. >> i'm going to come back because i have a question for him, but this explains why turkey has been behaving the way that it's been behaving. okay, though ipg is on our terrorism list and the strides we have no interest -- >> can you explain who ypg is cracked >> they are the group that is fighting that belongs to the kurdish insurgent group that has been fighting since the 1980s and they consider them as terrorists. and now the american terrorists are fighting turkey and we asked them to join us in they said no. these are terrorists as well.

so instead of striking isis, they were striking the kurds this becomes complicated but it predates the whole situation that we have. >> one of the things i want to ask you and then we are going to come back to iran one of the things i want to ask you is what right now is the administration 's campaign in syria how is that affecting the campaign regarding the rebels? my understanding is that it's opening or giving him room to attack the rebel units. but if you want to fill that out >> the american air campaign would benefit the regime because

both the regime and normally they consider isis to be an enemy. the regime is in its usual double face position in that it buys the refined petroleum products in particular because it can't refined gasoline and diesel fuel. but at the same time it does cite isis and they clash but not very well. the regime doesn't do very well in general. they don't fare that well. there are a lot of reasons for that and we can do that in another part of the discussion. so, what's happened is the a sod regime the -- assad regime of

the american jets are fighting every day over serious and serious's formidable air defense is not shooting at them. so then the question is what does the regime get in exchange for that and what they get in exchange for that is the united states is not actively trying to overthrow the regime instead, the regime now is focusing its power on the fa unit. if they are focusing their attention on them and trying to gain the ground. the regime is in the middle of the country and could try to go out to the valley to retake some of these areas but i don't think they are going to. instead it's easier for them to try to make a run and arguably in the larger city.

.. the regime forces are tire. it's very hard when -- not just psychologically, but also just militarily, for three years, for a group of minorities, to just savagely mow down a majority of the population and try to shoot your way out of it. very hard to do that.

it's very hard to convince people over and again. so, we have seen a couple of even minority factions inside of syria, say, don't want to serve in military. protests last week and they said we don't want to volunteer for death squads. and the reason why i say death squads, a very important point. this gets too the iranian suspect. look at the death toll figures inside of syria. broken down between regime and opposition. look closer, usually in the story you'll find it lower down. the number of national defense forces, which are forces trained by iran's force, all minorities, and increasingly christians, they're enrolled in this militia, and their percentage of the death toll is going up rapidly. and it's leading to a lot of communities protesting against the regime and its policies,

because they're the ones who are having to put their necks on the line, with hezbollah and others inside the country, and you see that just numerically has a real limit, because the population -- the sunni population is not only bigger, it's far younger. sunnis have a lot more kids than other minorities. well-known, statistics bear it out. and so that is the problem the regime has. and that is why they're so desperate at the moment to try and get -- to try and finesse themselves with america's current air campaign to save themselves. at least in their own areas. but the problem the united states has is, unlike this old formula we had between cease fires and trying to overthrow the assad regime, i think we're looking at a state now of just partition. i don't see the regime moving into the euphrates valley and the opposition factions getting

together and taking damascus, and that's a big problem that will take a lot more than what we're doing to solve. >> one of the -- i do want to come back to that now because you mentioned the iranian national defense forces, and you talked about -- what is the kind of pressure that we can put on iran to get the iranians to convince abasi to let the sunnis have a fuller role in their own government. this seems to be right now from reports -- seems to be the opposite, what seems to be happening is the administration may be providing certain concessions in the nuclear talks because they're eager to have the iranians buy in on isis. so seems to be going in the wrong direction. the first thing i want to ask is, want to ask you, what kind of pressure could we put on the iranians if we were predisposed to do it, and what i want to ask

you two -- we may have a few minutes for questions -- how did we get here. seems in washington the main strategic issue is isis, when in reality, the main strategic issue has been, since this president took office, has been the iranian nuclear program. iranian nuclear program. but all the concentration on isis, seems the iranians have slipped to the back of the screen, and i'm going to did -- ask you two to talk about that. mike? >> as you look at the middle east the last 20 years, russia has had a consistent strategic message when it comes to the middle east. china had a consistent strategyache message in the middle east. iran certainly has. saudi arabia to some extent. the one country that everybody is looking to fix these things has not had a consistent strategic message in the middle east. so the sunnis -- we spend -- we

ebb and flow with how much we're going to support somebody. i melt with the commander of the peshmerga in 2008 and he said better to be an enemy of the u.s. than a friend because at least you know where you stand. what he meant was, we support israel but we support them this much because this administration is in power, but we support israel this much because this administration is in power. our message needs to be more consistent. how do you put pressure on iran? do you put pressure on russia? and china and these other countries to put pressure on iran to say, listen, you need to bring sunnis into the government. is the isis threat is serious enough, we need to go after it as an international community, the only people that can kill it are the sunnies and the only people that -- the only thing that can kill the ideology of isis are sunnies and the koran. can't be westerners. one of the main things, when you talked to sunnies in iraq -- we said this over and over -- they

believe the central governments simply an iranian puppet, and we can't change that. we have to get iran to change that. we can't do that so we need to get the other powers to push that. i am concerned about the nuclear concessions. i'm concerned that we -- okay, the nuclear thing is a strategic issue we can deal with two years from now in order to kill this short tactical target. that concerns me. and when we see the administration meet with iranian officials, it's always about nuclear issues about never about, can you push for abadi to get more sunnis into the security apparatus or release sunni political rivals from detention, or release key sunnies in detention right now that could send messages to the sunni community, such as the former minister of defense, and former republican guard division

commanders. they were arrested because of their affiliation with the baath party. everyone they see a leader able to generate or have messages resonate in the sunni communities, they get detained, using the terrorism law or the accountability and justice law. if you're a bathist, affiliated so needs to go away, or simply removed from a position. >> do the iranians really care about isis? is it good for them? let the arabs kill each other. hezbollah are a bunch of arabs. let them all fight. keeps things safer one our borders. >> i think they have good excuse to deal with. sometimes they're concerned but if we think about the way we have been handling iran so far, and forget what is happening behind closed doors. just look at the public statements, and then you get

iranians saying, okay, we go to the iranians and the president says, we think you're a responsible power and we're ready to share. the iranians say, oh, great, we'll preplace you in the region, and then the iranians say, we hate you. and they say, yes, we know, we love you too. this is the dialogue we have been having with the iranians. in that part of the world you see the united states has been swinging back and forth. we gave up on our best ally, mubarak, only to replace him with a guy who is worse than mubarak and not bringing up issues of human rights in egypt. even the culture center closed down yesterday and this swinging back and forth between, case, now we're sporting democracy, now we're not. now we're talking to iran. we have to be consistent, the policy has to be consistent, and to my mind the best successful policy that we have had over the past ten years in iraq was the surge up to -- that saved iraq

from al qaeda, and that surge of troops was ordered by president bush when he was taking all sorts of political heat from both republicans and democrats. so he went against the politics and he ordered what was right and consistent, and this administration is doing the opposite. they look at the polls and say, okay, now, air power is fine. okay, we'll use air power. even if air power is only good against regular armsies. >> do you think the administration has a -- look, maybe we should have phrased it like this. does the administration actually have a real policy toward isis or do you think it's -- look, -- the messaging campaign regarding sirarch but are we talking a messaging campaign or a policy? >> i don't think they do. i think -- just ordered the building -- the leader of jews

in lebanon -- just ordered the building of two mosques, one in his home town. ordered the nonmuslim jews start paying five times and he is hedging. the thinks the sunnis are on the rise and he doesn't believe the u.s. has a viable counterterrorism or counter-isis threat. if he thought otherwise he would think that's not a threat and we can survive. >> interesting. andrew, again, i'll ask for the same question. how did we get to this place where three years ago, or a little more than three years ago, march, 2011, when the syrian rebellion started, and the strategic common wisdom was, to help topple bash shall al-assad would be a good thing because it would weaken the iranians. and now more than three years later, where we are, our concern is isis and we're protecting assad and the iranians are someone that we seek help from. how did this happen? if you want to talk about that a little bit. not just the region but what happened here in washington.

>> i think -- the best article i've ever seen summing up the administration's approach, more recent article -- there have been lots of -- light footprint, lead from behind, and then the minimalist approach. i think that's what the president is doing. he is ramping up things slowly, in a minimalist way, hoping for the best outcome. and it's hedging, right? this is not new. it's not -- i think the problem we have is that we're -- it's increasingly apparent to the american people we're not achieving our objective and that's a big problem. it's a big problem on a number of levels, particularly when you have the growing of a group like isis in a very chaotic civil war inside of syria, where we had policies and we didn't achieve

them. that's the reason isis exists there to the degree it does. i we armed the rebels earlier would we have squadists in syria? yes. would we have larger fsa factions? yes, we would. we wouldn't be starting from scratch. so, the problem i see is that the minimalist approach will not take care of isis. and that is a problem for the united states. the other problem is that our minimalist approach to syria isn't going to end the war there. the reason is -- this is the iranian part -- the iranians, and hezbollah, who they support in lebanon, and a lot of shia militias, they intervened in syria. a whole other fascinating story. they intervened to prop up the syrian arab army and develop the national defense forces inside of syria, to train minorities to kill the majority sunni population and shoot them into submission and that intervention is due to a couple of things.

it's their resolve to probable up their ally, which backs up hezbollah and lebanon. part of the larger issue, you have this thing called the stability/instability paradox. a lot of nonproliferation people in the audience that know more bus but basically when a country gets nuclear weapons or approaches that capability, their relations and their ability to deter stronger nuclear powers goes up. that would be here, israel, the united states and so on, because you can't wipe occupy the regime. you -- wipe out the regime. and your real estates become suddenly stable. but your tendency to wage proxy wars in the countries around you goes up dramatically. thus the stability and instability paradox. i think that's where the iranians are. they are pushing into areas that have traditionally been arab or

arab-speaking for new jersey, and they're doing it in unbelievably strong ways. unfortunately, what they have done in this -- started out as a war between a tie -- tyrannical government. sunni countries in the region are dead set -- they are desperate to break this iranian/shia axis from iran, through syria, and then over to lebanon in a regime sense. the way to do that unfortunately is to fight them to the last dead syrian. and that's the dynamic here. >> you mean the sunni powers -- >> yes. that's the fundamental misreading of this administration, and a lot of other people in washington, too to be fair, this is not a police action or a counterterrorism action. this is a larger war in the region that we can -- we can have all the meeting with want with the saudis and turks and

everybody else about shutting off the attach to this -- the tap to the and so on. good luck. they're not about to do it. because there are a lot of other -- they don't see things the same way that we do. it's not because they're bad. it's just they see them in different ways. and unfortunately, jihaddists, who are against the united states, prop up in these ungoverned spaces and create may hem for national security. >> well, i was just going to say, it's very interesting the way your describing this. the way that the president has put it in a number of interviews, these sunni-shia conflicts are bad and proxy wars are bad, and that may be true but the people in the region have to look around, sorry, that's what we have been doing for a long time. you heard hussein talking about the conflict between the sunni arab tribes and the kurds and this is a part of kobani. this did not start with isis. it's been going on for a long time. so the administration clearly needs to get down there and address serious issues, whether

it likes it or not, it's going to have to look at it how the people -- left to address it this way but will have to understand how the people in the region see it. i'm going to open up now for ten minutes, and see if there is a question that -- if you would wait until -- do we have someone in the room with a microphone? yes, we do. thank you. this gentleman right here, sitting right there, if you would just wait. stand up, plies, introduce yourself and ask your question. >> my name is noran. thank you for the amazing presentation. i'm an american jew, and i'll ask you the question of every minority in that region. basically in the future, we're going to have u.s. troops on the ground. for obvious reasons they will definitely work with iranian affiliated groups, and this led -- i'm talking about the --

hezbollah. how does that affect the longer-term stability in the region in lebanon and in syria. >> thank you. would you like -- did you say american drews? >> yes. >> well, i think the point is, at this point, if you -- you need to hear because the surge was based on three elements, fear, hold, and transfer. now, the first two elements are missing. so -- or maybe the three of them. so we can't fear before we hand over to whether tribe or minorities or anybody else. so, i mean, talking to the iranians, yes, you know, there was a joint effort with the -- a joint effort.

the u.s. fighter jets gave the air power, air cover, and then these militias retook -- from isis, and of course, was the first to take pictures in this liberated area. at the end of the day, go to their native people, whether their drews, soup any -- sunni or shia. and then -- to my mind that should work. >> mike do you want to -- >> no. that's good for me. >> all right, okay. if you could -- the woman in the front row here. >> hi. i'm penny star with cns news. i want to ask michael, you said earlier about maliki saying to petraeus, come in and we'll do anything you want wimp heard from the obama administration for a long time the war --

wanted to end the war, was going to end it at a specific time, and even with the status of forces agreement, we couldn't stay any longer. so what you said seemed to completely contradict that. can you expand on that? >> sure. we were the only ones -- you have to remember 2008, 2009, after the summer, we went from 57 attacks per day in baghdad, in 2005/2006, to ten attacks nationwide after the surge, and after the sons of iraq were in place, and we said we're going to treat the iraqi government like an independent government. the iranians were heavily influencing maliki not to sign the status of forces agreement, but that didn't mean we couldn't have pushed harder and done more things, and we should have. the only thing you could depend upon when joe biden -- i'm sorry -- vice president biden came to baghdad there would be rocket attacks and he would show

up, wouldn't be able to good in for three hours and then would leave. and rocket attacks in the meantime. he was given the portfolio to push this, make this happen. we all knew at the time when we were there that, okay, this isn't like, how do we keep a force here? we do it by advise and assist, military equipment and military training, and we say that way. we could have stayed under the caveat of something else. but we chose not to because the protections weren't offered to american soldiers. you were going to be tried by this iraqi government. and we couldn't put any soldier in that kind of danger. but more could have been done. that's the biggest thing. 57 attacks, per day in baghdad-door. >> do you want to elaborate when you say more could have been done? week. >> we could have pushed for the status of force agreement want the f16s, artillery, special forces and intelligence, we need a status of forces agreement. otherwise you're not going to have it and then use the kurds and the sunnis that you have

leverage in both communities to put pressure on the central government to do exactly that. we relied too much on the shias in the government to make those decisions without using leverage. and we literally took our hands off and said, this is a sovereign government. let's see what it does. and it basically had a playbook. you have to remember, it was able to sit there for ten years and watch lawrence of arabia walk in for a year. the guy that didn't want to be here walk in for a year. the guy that thought you could have a two-hour i.d. conversation with him and he could change your mind. they developed a playbook. if these americans come in, and say what die need to tell the americans what i want? this is too hard to do. i need more money. you need to back us up when we go after certain targets. we do have done more and there are a lot of great americans who tried, and there were a lot of great americans who said, don't. don't try. let's respect -- see what they do. >> without being facetious, i'm going to ask all of you, because

we're about to wrap up here to answer, we all believed that this i important, the president also has a point as well. how long are the american people supposed to commit resources, both their sons and daughters and loved ones, as well as money, to iraq? we can say, now, well, if you don't, then you wind up with a phenomenon like isis, and the counterargument might be, is isis really a threat to the united states? yes, the might put nuts on airplanes and come here but we may have that anyway. so what is the importance about committing resources to iraq that we shouldn't have withdrawn resources, and that now we need to again? what is the argument. >> real quick in 30 seconds. if recoin the phrase recently operation inherent resolve. if the iranians coined that same operation phrase, it would be believed because they've demonstrated that in syria. they kept assad afloat. they demonstrated their willingness to fight in iraq.

but the way we approach this with this limited approach, it sounds more like incoherent resolve and that's the issue. the sunnis we need to fight this thing don't believe us. they don't believe we're there for the long haul. >> i agree. we could have -- we could have the sunni fighters on the payroll, could happen confident the. her. there's no need to throw allies under the bus at every corner, and by the way, when we speak about committing resources, think how much iran is paying? the money that iran is committing to this fight, is peanuts when compared to the united states. so, again, it only needs consistency and not that much more -- not that much money and resources, but if we're swinging -- we have to think of the visual of when we want to beat isis, we -- our secretary of state talks to the foreign minister of iran. that sent a message to the

sunnis, we're beating isis by talking to your enemies, the shia. so we have to keep these things in mind and i don't think we are. we're just going to make all sorts of mistakes, visual or otherwise, and then we look at ourselves and say why is that happening? >> andrew? want to take a stab at this? >> i had the opportunity to go to moscow this year. i had a conference by the russian defense ministry. and very interesting. in what i think i learned -- fascinating just the messaging. they think that president obama is actually sort of -- some sort of master mind. very interesting. they think that he is -- that president obama is behind what they call the color revolution around the world, ukraine and syria, and that what he does is through this low, minimalist approach, he gets people to rise

up against their government, and then it starts as a civil war, and then it's used as a pretext for u.n. resolution, which allows for american intervention, and then to flip that country over to its side, and that's the way it protect -- projects its power. organized chaos. there were five americans there and i remember afterwards, saying to russian colleague of mine you really think there's a plan? i can assure you this is not a plan. okay? >> not as far as we know. you're not on the inner circle. >> i mean, i think the problem that we have is very simple. that it's very difficult -- autocracies in general are better projecting power than democracies. it's amazing. even though we relate on a much more personal level and individual level to the people inside the countries and they're aspirations, but we're just not go at projecting our power

because we're saying, -- we're not saying this to get what i want. i they know how to divide us. they know who to invite over. invite the following journalists over. they'll write the american government is behind all these secret things going on inside their country all we have to do is back x tyrant to shoot their way out of this problem. the one thing that the arab spring did, it challenged that notion. >> how is that? >> i think that it was -- it is about stability. what is stability? and in the case of syria, we can definitely say -- look at the middle east now. you have the arab spring being reversed in egypt. and in other places. but there are other -- and egypt is a nation state. a long historical nation state, with a very strong military with a long tradition. but you have all these other

weak states. so the problem i see with the stability argument is, it would make a lot more sense and, therefore, the russians would make a lot more sense, if you didn't have the reality that their central governments and military are too weak to retake and hold all the territory. so it's like when you go to a kissinger lecture and it's like watching a master chess player. it's beautiful because all of the squares are clear, black and white. and i thought, it's just like when i was a kid. but then once it's over, you look at the situation and you realize, all of the different squares on the chess board now are broken, and so you can move your piece over here but you can't into these squares. and i think that's the challenge for not only americans but everybody. and if we work together to solve that, think we can make the -- >> you mean to fix the chess board or learn how to play a chess board that is broken. >> i'll used another analogy. >> it was a good analogy.

>> my first job in journalism was middle east times in cairo, and we had a layout program called quirk, and so as young journalists we would sometimes to no end, try to depict reality as best we could on the pains of the newspaper, and to the middle east times credit they allowed us to do so. so we would put everything on the page and write our words and put up our graphic but there was this tense moment when we had to see if it would actually work or not. there was this button called snap to grid. boom, snatch to grid, some what you laid out on the pain depicted reality and didn't imagine the grid, the designer says, we can't do it. but in the end, i found that the only way that we ever really published the paper was we had to adjust the grid. there was no way around it. i if you didn't, you didn't end up actually solving the problem. these problems are ones that humans have been dealing with

for millenia. it is normal for political entities to grow and to contract and to break into pieces, and i don't need to -- many european friends and these things are solvable. americans working with their allies can do this. but we need to do it in a way that is smart, that makes sense, and actually we try and achieve our objectives that we outline, because if not we'll just be -- then the russians will continuously be able to do what they've done in the last year, and that is use a militia, like this territory, and then annex it over to its own territory, and be able to get away with it. they have sanctions but be able to get away with. i. until we can counter that we'll have problems protecting our power. >> i'm afraid we have to close on that note. we'll reconvene in a few years to see if we got the grid right or what happened. in the meantime, thank you all for coming.

thank you for the c-span audience, and thank you esteemed panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] pgh [inaudible] pgh [inaudible questions] conversation [inaudible conversations]

>> earlier today the white house announced that president obama will appoint ron cline to coordinate the u.s. response to ebola. mr. cline has great familiarity with the administration. he is vice president bide bid's former chief of staff as well as former adviser president obama, vice president gore,' former attorney general janet reno and is currently president of case holdings and a graduate of the harvard law school. some reaction from capitol hill, even though the house and senate are out. chuck schumer, the chair of the democratic policy committee, said i've known klain forover 20 years, he is level headed.

exactly the person we need to steer our response to ebola. he is an excellent choice. on the house side, couple of republican physicians said, obama's knew ebola czar is the same man who thought solyndra was a good idea, and john fleming of louisiana, obama appoints ebola czar, political activist and not even a doctor. so the president today appointing ron klain as the coordinator for ebola response.

>> a new report from the migration policy institute considers changes to the deportation system since 2003, and how those changes could affect future policy. next up, homeland security experts talk about the system. this is an hour and a half. >> we're going to get started, and start, of course, with saying good morning and welcome to our program this morning. my name is doris heist are, i'm a senior fellow here where i direct our work on u.s. immigration policy programs.

and where we are very pleased this morning to be releasing a new report, which we're calling, deportation and discretion, reviewing the record and options for change. now, this event this morning is both in-person for those in the room, and also live streamed so we welcome both sets of audiences. the report that we're going to be talking about is coming at an important moment in that there is again the possibility of an executive action on immigration sometime toward the end of this year. that executive action may well take into account some changes in the guidelines that presently are being used, where removals and deportations from the united states are concerned. this work that we'll be talking about offers the most detailed look yet at the record of removals and deportations from

the department of homeland security since its inception. so, what we're going to be looking at today is data from 2003, fy2003, through fy2013. the work builds on a large body of work that the migration policy institute has developed over the years, that have to do with various aspects of the enforcement system. this particular work today deepens the report that we released in the spring, called the deportation dilemma. it digs more fully because we d developed at that time. you have bios on your chair of the speakers. and you also have a copy of the report. so, i won't give detailed introductions for the speakers and their backgrounds other than to say that our lead speaker iso the lead author on the report.

he is the deputy director here at mpi of our u.s. immigration policy program. his overall presentation of the report will be followed by comments from rebecca handler, the director of the homeland security and justice team at gao, the u.s. government accountability office, and our sect comment will come from mark, an enforcement fellow at the american immigration council and also works extensively on related issues and issues of criminal -- the criminal justice system and immigration connections. so, with that, i'm going to turn the mic over to mark. we will do the presentation and comments and then have time for q & a from the audience. thank you, and again, welcome. >> thank you, doris, and thanks to you and the team at mpi for helping pull this report together. it was definitely a group effort and i want to especially acknowledge my co-author,

christine, who was a co-author and a huge contributor to this report and is is unable to be here today. so, as doris mentioned, this report analyzes every formal removal implemented by dhs between 2003 and 2013, and basically what the report does is it gives a profile of who has been deported from the u.s., a description of removal pattern, where and how, and then we spend time talking about how the actual enforcement practices line up with dhs's announced enforcement priorities described in the morton memos in 2010 and 2011, and then explore how potential changes to priorities could affect future removals. let me just previously say something about -- briefly say something about how we did this. the main thing we did is analyze

administrative records from i.c.e.'s database. the data were obtain by "new york times" through a foia request. it includes removals and a certain number of informal returns. our report and my presentation today focus exclusively on formal removals. we're taking the returns out of the conversation. we also used dhs data to model the noni.c.e. removals that don't appear in the i.c.e. data set that are in the dhs data set because they were also removed and that's basically cdp removals to mexico and canada, nonjudicial removals to mexico and canada, and throughout the property and my presentation, the data measure removal events, not unique individuals. so what that means dismiss people are deported more than once and appear more than one time in the data set. so a certain bias in the data

toward tse repeat customers. altogether, 3.7 million people have been removed between 2003 and 2013 so that's the universe we're looking at over that 11-year period. just sort of a basic profile of who has been deported during that period. formally removed. 91% of removals have been men versus half of all unauthorized immigrants who are men. 91% of removals have been to mexico and the three northern triangle countries, el salvador, guatemala and honduras, and three-quarters of the unauthorized immigrants from those countries0. 0 so the system leans in those directions. some more sort of general information about who has been removed. this looks at previous criminal convictions. this is lifetime, have people ever been convicted of a crime.

simply being -- unauthorized immigration by itself ills not a criminal offense, and most people, 59% of all removals, since 2003, are of people who have never been convicted of a crime. this tendency was especially pronounced during the bush administration, when removals of noncriminals grew faster than removals of criminals. so the share of noncriminals among the removal population peaked at 67% in 2008, removes of noncriminals fell between township and 2011, during the first years of the obama administration so that drove the share of noncriminal in the removal population down to 50%. you can into we the lines converge there. and then more recently, removals of noncriminals have once again grown faster and we have actually seen removals of criminals tick down in 2013. so in 2013, about 55% of all removals were of noncriminals. the report -- the data and the

report allow us to get into much more detail about the types of crimes that people have been convicted of, people who have been removed have been convicted of. so, what you can see on the left side of the slide, the left pie graph is describing for the entire period we're looking at and then the right side is just looking in at 2013. so as i mentioned, 59% have never been convicted of a crime. and then looking at the specific types of crimes, about 13% of people removed have been convicted of a violent crime, about nine percent have been convicted of a drug crime, about eight percent have been convicted of a immigration related crime, and then the remainder, other nine violent crimes crimes and drug crimes.

focusing in on 2013 you can see that the share of noncriminal removals has gone down a little bit. the share of people convicted exclusively of immigration crimes has gone up. the other wedges are all within one percent of their decade-long average. so, one of the sort of key findings of this report is that looking at the aggregate data i just described, i see interesting differences between people apprehended at the border and people an apprehended within theout. so this picture is border removal. the great majority of border removals are of noncriminals, the blue band. and -- or people who whose only criminal conviction is immigration related crime. those two categories together, no nonimmigration crime, have consistently accounted for between 82 and 90% of board

removals throughout the period, and 80% of border removals in 2013. among people who have been convicted of any type of violent crime at the border, that represents four percent of border removals in 2013. so four percent violent crimes, 87% no criminal offense or just an immigration offense. the picture is completely different for interior removals. just to emphasize this point. those pictures look very different. for interior removals, for the entire period, about a third of everybody who has been deported from within the united states were noncriminals, and that number fell to 13 percent in 2013. immigration crimes for the entire period represented six percent of interior removals, and that climbed to 13% in 2013. so that means that three-quarters of people removed from the interior in 2013 had

been convicted of a nonimmigration crime. and this slide goes into more detail about what types of crime people removed from the interior and from the border have been convicted of. so looking at the left side of the picture, as i said, about three-quarters of people removed from the border have never been convicted of a crime. then another -- whatever it was -- 12% have one convicted of immigration-reach lated offense, and then every other type of crime, one or two percent. among interior removals, about a quarter have been either never convicted of a crime or convicted only of immigration immigration-related crime. 28% convict offed violent crimes. 15% in category of general nonviolent crimes. 18% are drug crimes, and 13% are traffic offenses. and of the traffic offenses,

about two-thirds of those were dui and a third or other types of traffic offenses. so, again, very different pictures at the border and then the interior. one reason it's important to understand the differences between border enforcement and interior enforce. is the data show different trend about where enforcement is taking place. this picture shows -- the bars are total number of removals. the black line is the number of border removals, people apprehended at the border and then removed, and the red line is people apprehended in the interior. so, you know, first thing you can see from this picture, which bears emphasis, is that the total number of removals has been at record levels during the obama administration. the lowest year of removals during the obama administration is higher than the highest year for any other president, and the last two years have each set all-time records for the number of removals. so there's some confusion in the

popular discussion about removals but there's no ambiguity that removals are at an all-time high. but looking a little deeper into the picture, what is interesting about this picture, we see four distinct periods between 2003 and 2013. so, in the first couple of years, the first three years of the bush administration, removals were basically flat, and the ratio between border removals and interior removals was unchanged. so there was a status quo, no dramatic changes to the enforcement system early in the bush administration. and then what we see beginning in 2006, is a steep increase between 2006 and 2009, in the total number of removals, and what happens then is that with the failure of the comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the senate in 2006, the bush administration initiated a real enforcement surge and what you can see is that was driven overwhelmingly by increased interior enforcement.

work site raids and other operations, fugitive operations teams. this shows up in the data here as increased interior enforcement. those numbers flattened out during the first years of the obama administration. the total number of removals was flat, and that there's no real change in the ratio of border to interior enforcement, and then most recently, since 2011, we have seen removals started to increase again and that it's driven entirely by increased border enforcement, while interior enforcement has actually fallen during this period of rising removals. so very different things going on. one other way that border and interior removals differ is by the enforcement pipeline or by how enforcement is implemented, and what can see here is that at the border the majority of removals are expedited removals. another 31% are reinstatements

of removals. so 84% of border enforce. is nonjudicial, either reinstatements or expedited, versus 16% judicial removals. in the interior, we see over half of all removes are judicial removals. and we see that many fewer expedited removals, as we expect, because that's a tool designed for new entries, but it's noteworthy that 29% of removals are reinstatements and another seven percent are administrative removals, which is nonjudicial removals for certain criminal offenders. so, one last sort of removal pattern i'll share is looking at the time between when people enter and then they're apprehended, as we expect among border apprehensions, people are

an preparedded more quickly. so 90% of border an presentings occur within two weeks of entry, and six percent occur a year or more after somebody enters the country, and of course the pattern is different for interior an preparations. interior an preparations, just 11 -- apprehensions, 11% at entry and two-thirds a year after entry. so a way that these populations look different from each other in terms of their time in the u.s. also interesting to look at this reinstatement because this is a somewhat controversial procedure. it mean that somebody who has been previously formally removed, if they get re-appear friended, then that previous removal order gets reinstated without having the opportunity to appear before a judge, and maybe argue that your circumstances have changed. what we see is that that 72% of reinstatements occurred between

-- after re-entry. >> so, the other key set of findings or another key set of findings from the report -- and key set of analysis, we compare actual removals to dhs's enforcement priorities, and the bottom line finding is that most removals are consistent with dhss enforcement priorities. this aggregates removals outside of dhs's priorities, the purple stripe, recent entrants, immigration obstructionists and i'll explain that -- and then people who have been convicted of crimes. three points before the overall findings here. one is that 95% of all dhs removals since 2003 or between 2003 and 2013 fall within one or more of these categories. 59% of everyone removed meets one of more of dhss

priorities. the second point, that includes 93% of everyone removed boy the bush administration. so the bush administration adhered to obama's enforcement priorities. so, when you look at these dat dark it's a little bit surprising that the morton memos should have been major source of controversy because it's clear, both historically and in the data, that they formalized long-standing priorities that already existed going back to the ins era. having said that, a third observation about this satellite is that we do see some of the trends i talked about before, also translate into adherence too these priorities. so, although the morton memos didn't break radical new ground, they did sort of redistrict enforcement, and what you saw is during the bush administration's enforcement surge between 2006 and 2008 -- we look at this in more detail in the report -- the

share of nonpriority cases increased, and actually 2008 was the year that nonpriority cases peaked at 10% of all removals and that trend reversed as soon as own came into office and the nonpriorities fell to less than 20% in 2013, and you see that especially after the memos came out in 2010 and 2011. so the moral ton memos have been effectively implemented and also been criticized by some advocates for immigrant rights because they define dhs's priorities very broadly. in particular, i mentioned the three categories, recent entrants. they're defined by dhs to mean anyone who was apprehended within three years of entering the united states, as well as anyone apprehended by cbp regardless of the timeline. immigration obstructionists are defined as anyone who has ever been ordered deported,

removed -- excuse me -- everyone been ordered deports, as well as anyone who failed to appear at immigration hearings, and criminals are defined as anyone who has ever been convicted of any crime. so those are all sort of a broad definition-to-those terms. what this table does is, one thing, in the first row what we look at is if dhs or two strictly adhere to its enforcement priorities, meaning that anybody who fell outside those priorities would benefit from discretion and not be deported, how would that change the enforcement numbers? this table only looks at the i.c.e. removal cases. we couldn't look at the cbp cases because we don't have enough information. removals -- i.c.e. removals have fallen from 2.9 million to 2.7 million. the rest of the table asks the same question but if the priorities were defined somewhat more narrowly. so instead of all criminals,

what if we only focused on people convicted of nonimmigration crimes. what if we only focus on people whoa have been convicted of violent crimes? the way to read the table is to look at these numbers and compare them to this. you can see that excluding immigration crimes from the priorities, doesn't actually move the needle. when you look in detail, only changes the removal numbers by 7,000 over the entire 11 year period, and i'll say something about the reason in a moment. so, we don't really see these numbers go up until we look at really the significantly narrowing the criminal categories we're going to focus on by not emphasizing level three i.c.e. offender are or not emphasizing violent numbers. all these numbers are smaller than we expected. so that was something that we were interested in and we looked into, and one of the reasons for that is that most people who fall into one of i.c.e.'s

priority categories, fall into more than one of i.c.e.'s priority categories. the example i was about to say something about, the immigration crimes, most people convicted of an immigration crime are apprehend at the border and convicts of immigration crime so they're -- they're seen as a recent border crosser. most people reinstated are at the border and may have been convictedded of immigration crime. so a lot of people fall into all or two of the three priority categories in the obama years, 58% off all removals fell into more than one priority category. so, that's one reason why the numbers in that previous table were smaller than we expected. so in this table we looked at some more complicated scenarios where, what if we changed more than one of these priorities at the same time? and what you can see is that this does show that removals would fall more, which is what we expect, and i'll just sort of talk you through a couple of

cases because it's a lot of numbers to throw at you. so, what this row is showing is that if dhs no longer focused on nonviolent criminals as a top enforcement priority, and they no longer focused on ten-year-old removal orders, allow -- didn't consider people removed ten years previously to be a top priority, then we would project the removals would have fallen by 17% over the previous 11 years, and this row is showing you that if dhs no longer emphasized nondui traffic crimes, and defined recent entrants to mean somebody who came in, in the last one year instead of three years, removals would have fallen by nine percent versus seven or eight percent for either change by themselves. the most far-reaching set of changes we model is to deemphasize nonviolent criminals or dee prioritize people who entered more than a year ago,

and people with ten-year-old or older removal orders and that would have reduced removals about 19%. so, these numbers are bigger than the previous table. one of our takeaways is still that we were surprised that playing with the enforcement priorities or doing these -- thinking about the enforcement priorities doesn't produce a larger reduction in numbers, and so one reason is because most removals, a second reason is most removals fall into core dh interests. most people removed from the bored are apprehended at the border, within three days of entering, and those are people that dhs views as an enforcement priority. most people move from the interior have been convicted either of violent crimes or of drug crimes or dui, and those are people who are viewed as sort of core enforcement priorities. so for that reason, change in the enforcement priorities doesn't push the numbers down that much.

this relates to a third point. think about exercising prosecutorial discretion during the enforce. process as a form of executive action designed to reduce removal numbers, it's important to recognize that discretion during the enforcement process has a different kind of impact on immigrant communities than an affirmative style program in which up authorized immigrants would actively apply for relief. discretion during enforcement is less concrete and it's more difficult for immigrant communities to observe because most people who could potentially benefit from discretion during enforcement don't ever experience that benefit because they never enter the dhs enforcement system. so think about an unauthorized immigrant who lives in the united states and never commits a crime, they just don't interact with dhs for to the most part and are never going to see dhs's discretion in action. so, that's how this type of

discretion should work. means that i.c.e. is focusing on high priority cases instead of people who would benefit from discretion and also mean the psychological impact of discretion during enforcement and the politics of any changes to enforcement priority are quite different than those for a an application based style program where people would affirmatively seek relief. ...