s issue here in the homeland. just give all perspective, when somebody shows up in syria, okay? which has been going on for a while. they do a little betting of who these individuals are. and if it's somebody who just came over to sort of get their jihad on so to speak, they may just tell them you're going to be a suicide bomber, is what we're going to do, here's where you're going to operate and go forth and do good. in the other parts of the vetting they look for individuals who have different skill sets who have savvy with the internet who have some leadership skills, who maybe have some engineering capabilities. so they're sophisticated in how they recruit, particularly when they arrive. and those individuals then get put into a different pipeline. they may not get put into the suicide attacker pipeline, they may get put into different pipeline. and those are the individuals

that there will be sort of a different future for them to maybe come back to this country and get involved in additional recruiting, additional activities, and maybe larger scale types of attacks that we're trying to avoid. so i just think that a variety of reasons why they get recruited, the internet is a big, big part of this. i think our fbi is doing the best job that they can, but we really need to recognize and track to these persons are. and be honest with you if somebody is going to conspire to fight against us which is essentially what they're doing there also has to be a discussion list about the citizenship. >> so you think additional steps to look very carefully of the people travel from of course my concern is turkey is a conduit for people traveling into syria in those areas. are there additional steps we should take in working with turkey to be or aggressive with

them, looking specifically at those folks who have left the country but some kind of provision on the returned about the conditions on the return back to the united states? >> the combination of intelligence and law enforcement is a big deal gets rid of what you're talking about. so we have to make sure that there are good mechanisms in place, processes in place to rapidly share intelligence rapidly sure law enforcement and we need to be able to deal with a variety of partners. turkey being probably one of the principal ones right now because if we know somebody is getting on a plane out of laguardia or dulles to fly over to ankara, that we need to make sure that we recognize who they are and they are being tried the right pieces. and then turkey needs to know what they are doing over there. this is what most difficult things because we're also trying to protect their own freedom to travel and all that sort of

business. we've got to know why are you going there. are you part of an ngo, private organization that will provide human to assistance, or are you going over there for some other ill-gotten gain? >> let me ask this. we've seen what's happened in yemen, collapsing before our eyes, the u.s. marines our embassy staff, the embassy now has abandoned, we see the chaos going on. we see iranian influence there in that particular region. it was not long ago this was one of our foreign policy successes in how we dealt with terrorism, that we were in support of a government there, that our counterterrorism efforts were successful. a couple questions. what went wrong? and is this a indication of broader weakness or failure of u.s. foreign policy? >> from my perspective is the last decade plus of war, if i had, to give you one lesson

learned, that lesson learned would be that we failed and we continue to fail to understand the threats that we face and that failure is leading to a mismatch in strategy and resources that we are applying against these threats. and, therefore that failure is leading to these types of things that we're seeing in a yemen and in other parts of the air come the greater arab world. and i think the second third fourth order affects of libya, i'm really concerned about post-committed a time in afghanistan based on what we've already heard were going to do. i noticed in the "washington post" today there's an article their about we are rethinking our timeline for departure from afghanistan. i think that's appropriate. so that failure led to a mismatch in resources and

strategy how we applied it against this enemy. >> i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for being here and for your presentations. general flynn, could you follow up on your comment just because you're talking about the lessons learned about the mismatch and the threats. would you make that same analysis about eve an hour not understanding the country iraq for example, when we went into iraq and they have created more enemies than friends. how would you respond to that? >> i think that that's very what you were implying is very true. and i think that you know, in the spectrum of conflict and when we define the spectrum of conflict of we in the movie look at it from peace to war. the political damage of our

country has to look at it from peace and get us back to peace in order to get us out of war. and we did not come we don't do a really good job thinking past the point of conflict of the point of war. we have to do that. i think that's part of this debate. as the ranking highlighting we have to not just throw military resources at this thing we have to be far more sophisticated. but that's a comprehensive right now. that sophistication, i don't see it and i've been studying this from for a long time and hopeful we can get our act together but it has to be, it has to want it is very, very comprehensive, and it's going to be a multi-generational problem. and there are matters out there that we do need to encourage. someone said you don't the other other day and said there's 126 subject matter experts, clerics and others in the muslim world that came out strong against faces. wipe out their 126,000?

why are there only 126? there's that many mosques in baghdad. there should be thousands and there should be leaders of these countries that we're dealing with the need to stand up and make a statement, a strong statement about what it is we are doing or not doing. >> right now i think there are perhaps some opportunities and that we are not using. i'm thinking of the peshmerga in kurdistan. have had any thoughts about that? they are asking for. we are not doing it. >> yeah, i mean, i think that's a great question to ask you know, especially from this committee. so yeah we to do more and give them more support. we could help in training them

getting the more sophisticated and really putting in the right kinds of military tools. again, we need to be careful that we don't always get drawn back into what is actually the easiest part of a strategy which is to throw a military force at it. >> i can't agree with you more. >> we have to be more sophisticated. >> if i could go on. just shifting to another region a koran to before -- boko haram. the growing connections between isis and boko haram was mentioned but i don't know whether you happened to hear that, that discussion but shouldn't, i mean, we are even in terms of the aumf are we thinking about that connection -- where even -- the horrible potential that that would bring as well as? >> i will let built into this because i think he mentioned

boko haram in his statement. no one boko haram is incredibly vicious. i mean my god look at what they've done with children young women. these are children. so and i can't put that aside but now, the connection between these organization is very real and we know we know that al-qaeda, the al-qaeda command-and-control, al-qaeda senior leaders were, in fact, even with boko haram in a sort of cursory way when bin laden was still alive. 's so it's of some connection just all of a sudden having a boko haram has just popped up. 's hopefully you've seen general rodriquez, our commander of after, talking that we need a full sort of counterinsurgency effort. and again i think of separate nations in africa to try to come to grips with dealing with boko haram now.

they just postpone the elections. again of this is a long-term problem and these groups are, in fact, connected. >> thank you. i think my time is up perhaps dr. lynch can bring this up later. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just a question about isis. i served in iraq in 2005, and remod in fallujah in 2006 and the western euphrates. and what i found in the sunni arab population is they clearly didn't like us. we have -- they saw the government in baghdad as a shia dominated government sectarian government that was against them. they were against the government. but when they saw later on a path, the fissures between the al-qaeda element of the local

insurgents became more significant over time. and i think when they saw a path where they could be a part of the government, then those hoosiers exploded -- seizures exploded between the two. i found them to be a very moderate people. boys and girls went to school together in this town. annual exams ever depend upon a lot of government services. and so it's hard for me to envision them subjugated to this radical islamic group, isis. just they were in line with al-qaeda and and then they broke off. so what's the prognosis here? and i were for two each one of you.

>> thank you, congressman. i think you are right about that and about the nature of the iraqi sunni kinard and the resentment, both of us and especially the shia dominated government. what is a great strategic missed opportunities we've had in the middle east was maliki was unable to capitalize on that and to rebuild connections with the sunni community. instead he decided to rule in the sectarian way going after sunni leaders not getting the awakening forces into the security forces. it was a tragic missed opportunity. i think your absolute right about the long-term implausibility of people like this being willing to live under isil. the problem right now though now that i think is that the sectarianism has gone from has become so intense and deep ingrained. your pocket populations with enormous levels of displacement both internal and refugees people who have seen family members being butchered on sectarian ground. and into was amounts of mistrust that state institutions which

by its very difficult for them to look at the iraqi government as a partner. and i think that until they're able to get the iraqi government and see it as a viable partner, then it's going to be difficult for them to make that leap to me back in 2006-2007. that's why i think getting a new prime minister in a new prime minister and laserguided against them serious series saturday service reforms and institutional reforms is what you need to do in order to win in iraq. and reversing that sectarianism is going to be extraordinary difficult at this point but we have to begin taking the steps. i think the national guard project begun to work on is the right way to do it. something which is institutionalized and can't simply be dissolved at the stroke of the pen the way it promises to incorporate the way things were done back in '08-'09 '08-'09. >> thank you mr. congressman. i would just reiterate start research, surveys in the muslim

world and the iraqi population is overwhelmingly secular in how they respond at the national level polls even within the last two years. and to me it said terrorism trumps secularism the way it has in iraq, because of these identity politics from groups like isil we better make sure that our national strategy to address extremism and other places really pushes back on sector in his own because but because it's such a powerful force, a force of nature. if we don't deal with sectarianism, iso, aqim and these groups have relatively easy times forcing people to pick a side through violence. >> really briefly, a lot of lessons learned between the way dark alley operate in the way out of baghdad is operating, and has been a discussion within the ranks of the al-qaeda movement.

-- zarqawi. they learned lessons. and then the three things, incredible levels of corruption within the government's, in this case iraq, lack of inclusiveness, which is very real and even though the new president that is in there now still there's not a sense of that by the people and just a real desperate economic condition that these people live within and that just and it's going to be a difficult thing to change but it could change because these countries actually have the wealth to provide for their citizens. >> i yield back. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you, gentlemen for being here today. each of you has made points throughout this morning about how the sectarianism is a driver for violence, have the trust of the sunni tribes and people must be earned in order to take the

oxygen away that currently exists, especially in iraq for isis. how can this be done with its current strategy? to talk about new leadership in place. to talk about different rhetoric, it is a way of doing things but the fact and the reality is that iran's influence over this current government in iraq continues as it has been. their ability to have any sense of control over the shia militias and to their attacking and what they're doing does not exist. and unless you go to a different model of government and go away from this attachment to this continued policy of one central government in iraq and move to something where you're actually truly empowering the kurds where you're not having to find everything to the baghdad government where at this point even a small margin of the weapons and ammunition that we are sending is getting to them, and empower the sunnis and empower the shia in some type of

three state solution. how is this current strategy of winning strategy to defeat isis unless you get to the core of this issue? >> i was just quickly. i believe that we are going to not go back to the way things were. the breakdown is of the boundaries within this region are going to be incredibly difficult to get back to, not impossible i just don't see it happening anytime soon. potentially in my lifetime. i would say that iran is the greater problem. they do not see an inclusiveness of sunnis. from the iranian viewpoint. and i think that they, like you saw in human recently with -- yemen and with some of the champions we saw, you are seeing

in iraq things occur that are clearly iranian influenced and against everything that we are trying to do. so i will leave it at that. >> thanks for the question. the problem with iraq you are actually write about the role of iran and iraq. it's pervasive and he goes to the shia militias but it's in every level of the government, the state, security forces the kurds. they have relations with everybody in iraq because the actual have a full spectrum strategy for dealing with a close neighbor. i would actually not pose iran as the primary problem in iraq but i think the militias are a primary problem and iran can use that instant when it is useful for them. if they decide it's not useful for them then they can begin to move to try and shut it down. i think that the key point is going to be that it's impossible to have come as you said it's impossible to have a strategy which is about keeping a unified

state in iraq that isn't going to include some kind of path, maybe not formal but at least tacit cooperation with iran. the role in iraq is silly to -- this acute forces can't be this aggregator and only worked with sunni units. if you want to tamp down the sectarianism you can't then double down on a sunni-shia divisions of iraq and tried only work with the sunnis and fight against the shiite. what you need to do is bring that to -- country back together, tamp down the secularism of have a state based on citizenship. there's been huge progress on a decentralization in the constitution. they're dealing with these issues of oil revenues and all these things and no one is very happy with any of the solution that they've come up with but they're working on them. i think that the idea of allowing the kurds to go their own way, i think at this time is not a good one. i think certainly we should continue to support the path

continue to advocate for self-interest but i think the kurdish interest still order the part of an iraq in its decentralized federal framework and that's what it simply is a good idea to final support militant support and other things through baghdad. in other words, give them what they need, help them in the ways they need to be helped that don't encourage the fragmentation of the state. the key problem, and i will finish, is that you talk about a three state solution and we've heard about this quite a lot. there's a fairly plausible shiite subsidy you could imagine. there's a very plausible kurdish one. there's no plausible sunni third state other than the one isil has carved out. and i think is not in america's interest to create. you need to keep the sunni and the shia parts together something were calling iraq. so you need to find some kind of bargain by which the state can go exist and can survive. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> dr. heck. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for being here today. the question that was recent

released on the white house website is based that the stretch, is the blueprint for america's which how we address global challenges while dancing our nation's interest, values and vision for the future. on page three of the strategy is as we are leading a global campaign integrating a totally defeating the islamic state of iraq in the levant. on page 15 essays we reject ally that america and its allies are at war with islam. i would disagree with the for statement but i don't think we are leading trying to degrade old way defeat isil. but it would agree with the second statement that we are not at war with all of islam. we are at war with radical islam and islamic extremism yet nowhere in the strategy does not turn a good the only two times the word islam appears on the two instances i just mentioned it yet climate change appears 19 times. i would ask you think if the national security touch has enough specificity for the national defense strategy and

national tourist energy to actually have a positive impact on acceding a strategy for degrading ultimately defeating isil? and secondly dr. lynch i would ask in your statement about the momentum of isil being halted just within the last 24 hours they've taken control of the city of al-baghdadi. how can you say this momentum has been halted? >> in any civil war those are actual questions and i really appreciate your opening comment about validating the idea that we're not at war with islam, extreme important. you know there's been a huge debate about whether we should use the term islamic extremism or violent islam or extremist islam or those sorts of things. i could fall in this little thing i don't think it matters all that much what we call the whether we call the isil tadej

for isis -- or daish for isis i don't take it matters much. this notion that would be interesting to talk about a bit more but a think for a strategy is not dependent, i think it's semantics but i really believe that. in terms of momentum i think if you look at these kinds of civil wars there's costly going to be a surge and the flow and you'll see movement here and the decline here and to retreat there. we've been seeing this in syria now for the last two and a half, three years. this village gets captured this village it gets lost to you can't read too much into the daily pushes and flows. the defeat in kobani was big because this show that they were not unstoppable. they put a lot of resources and propaganda efforts into this. and they failed. that was big for blocking the momentum. i think we've seen them pulling back from a level. we've seen them try to concentrate some of their forces. we've seen -- aleppo.

move into irbil in baghdad and so i wouldn't say here i would agree with you. there's no sign we have reversed, we're pushing them back but we stopped their forward momentum and broke the put tenet of invincibility which was a clipboard i think for the bandwagon effect. once they don't look in vulnerable, that's when those tribes and other factions will start believing that it's safe to flip sides again. so i think that's how i would describe what is obviously a very still fluid situation. >> so the national skittish energy lays out the world which is very complex array of threats. i don't believe that the national security strategy priority what the tragedy about those threats. prioritizing the here and now and then sort of what like what harry truman said post-world war

ii which was, and i will quote him, he rightly understood that the soviets were quote animated by a new fanatic state, unquote. so we have to prioritize to take this strategy, national city strategy and prioritize inside of it against the threats that we are facing. the fact that we even use isil and the word islam in the framework of islamic state it actually recognizes that in fact, in the document them in the present letter on top of the document he uses islamic state in the levant. so we the united states are recognizing the fact that there's somebody called islamic and somebody called a state inside of the levant. so again we are struggling to define it as clearly as we possibly can. and it is a radical version of islam. there's no doubt about it, and

we can't not allow ourselves to define something that actually they're calling themselves in a sense, so if the enemy is calling themselves that why do we have such a difficult time? the other thing as a small, minor thing but the acronym daish, that we go around now that actually recognizes the latter part of the acronym talks about, it describes how sean. holeshot is the levant. so it actually to me in my framework of trying to understand what is we're facing and i say these guys are dealt with in a talk with them. that actually benefits them. so in we were using an attempt to describe this enemy and i think it's because the iraqis asked us to use but acronym actually describes, which says he basically are controlling the levant which is essential what they want to do. we have to be very careful about the words that we use. when we use words like

mujahideen or jihad, the readiness and other courage or a word, it's about an ugly a word as you can call in air. we don't use it. we should. >> mr. smith. >> thank you. two follow-ups. one of the notion that al-baghdadi and isis is somehow doing better than al-qaeda did in governance. there have been just as many stories out there, like i said mosul was a disaster if i'm wrong about that please correct me but from the government standpoint, and have been just as many stories of isil cutting peoples heads off for smoking and alienating tribes. i don't really see any evidence that they're doing any better in terms of governing muslims. the one thing that have going for them is the baghdad government the sunnis have no place else to go because,

frankly, i haven't seen much improvement with al-abadi. maliki was terrible but the sunnis to look at the baghdad government as shiite and basically sectarianism. we have had massacres of sunnis by shia militia groups here recently. i think that has more to do with the fact that sunnis are unwilling to break away from al-baghdadi and isil that it does that their government better. am i missing something? is there evidence that they are doing governing better? that al-qaeda and iraq did before, or the taliban did for that matter. >> if i may thank you for the question. i think the biggest difference is that they are company, even if their governing poorly. most of the al-qaeda and associated movement have never really tried to establish formal governance. >> it's a separate point. we're talking a little bit about

what al-qaeda in iraq, al-qaeda in iraq to control territory before the anbar awakening, if they did run a shadow government. the taliban did as well. so where they have governed was the comparison. and in that sense are they doing better than the taliban did or some of these other al-qaeda -- >> perhaps one metric would be the flow of foreign fighters into iraq industry. something about the way they're portraying the governance in iraq industry is an inspiring the largest number of foreign fighters to flow into the region. i think it's because they are quote-unquote living up to the righteous values that they espouse. they are not compromised. they are seen as uncompromising. but their purifying islam. these kind of macho terms. and while it's horrific stuff for the base as a dr. lynch mentioned, it's a rallying call and that they are calling

muslims to build institutions of the caliphate, to take part in this project of reestablishing a religious political empire. and that's empowering even if it means by which their governing is appalling. and it is seen as for some, a more appealing alternative and like as you mentioned and maliki government in baghdad. >> one final point on guantánamo. the conversation back and forth about that. i would not take scarcely any arguments that we don't need to detain enemies. we do. the question is do we need to detain them at guantánamo. nor would it argue with the point that you're not going to close guantánamo and have violent extremists islamists say okay, we are good. i understand that. ..

we are not arguing with you on where because we have to make that decision. but to be able to do tactical interrogations professionally, if we bring them into the united states and they get rid of the habeas corpus rights that stops the process of being able to get the kind of information that you can get in the interrogation. >> i've heard that argument a

thousand times. >> i've been involved in thousands of interrogations. >> you are telling me that every fbi agent gets no useful intelligence out of anybody they capture because once they mirandized them than you can get the information out. >> it is a lot slower and i've been on both sides of it ranking member. it doesn't mean we can't have professional law enforcement representatives involved in the process from the detention and interrogation process. >> i disagree with you on the fact that it instantaneously shuts off the information that putting that aside there is no reason as we've done this among the people you have to do that in guantánamo too. it is the same in both places. so the question is there is no reason we can't do the same

thing here as guantánamo. guantánamo doesn't give a particular interrogation advantage. >> if there is a timeliness issue and you have to make sure that the conditions are set. it's kind of the legislative executive discussion about if we bring them into the united states what does that mean legally? i'm not a lawyer but i know there's going to be different conditions when we bring them inside of the united states because we don't have is a dated combat zones anymore. we have to be able to get the intelligence out. >> mr. nugent? >> interesting discussion about guantánamo and in my home area we have the largest federal prison ever. why are we detaining these folks whether it is gitmo or the u.s.

that is the issue. that's going to be the issue to bad guys and their associated friends and fellows. so i think it's when you bring them back to the u.s. law enforcement officer it just creates a whole bunch of other issues that we have not had to deal with when they are held at gitmo. the one thing i'm struggling with what the president's request for the authorization come and you say that i had become a general come is the clear comprehensive strategy. what would that look like i guess that's where i'm struggling with is the comprehensive strategy look like in regards to dealing with the issue in front of us. you can just look at isis or

isil you have to look across the world to the islamist extremists >> we are making sure that it's comprehensive and those are sort of two parts of this that we just addressed. i think the third one is that we have to take a hard look at how we are organized as a nation to deal with the tactical problem of what is happening in iraq and syria and also how we are organized as a nation to do with the longer-term problem of the radical version of islam. and specifically the department of defense and the department of state, the central intelligence agency and the intelligence community as it supports the national interest and we have to look at how we are organized internationally.

we need to have some sort of arab world of nato structure if you will and not deal with each one of these countries as each individual country to the individual problems. and we do need to put somebody in charge of it. designate somebody in charge that has not only the backing of this country and the full line of authority to execute the authorities and it's probably civilian life, but it's just somebody with that kind of groggy gravitas to move to the campaign. >> it doesn't mean that we have to have large numbers of people on the ground. it just means we have to come together organize ourselves first, make sure that we are organized internationally and make sure somebody is in charge of the effort and then tell the

american public that this is going to last for generations. this isn't something that is going to go away. >> and the aumf is not that component. >> that is the mistake that people think is the comprehensive strategy is part of the toolkit. the other panelists with regards to the comprehensive strategy, do you think today at this point in time that we have a comprehensive strategy today? >> no, i don't. i think we did a very good job of assembling a collision and stopping the immediate crisis and now is the time that we need to formulate that. your question is exactly right. in terms of what that strategy might look like i could repeat the things i said before about preventing the clash of civilizations. >> i want to emphasize the second and third something the general said that you -- if we

are going to have any success with isil we have to make sure that our allies are on the same page because they've been as much the problem as the solution. extraordinarily destructive and the abuse of human rights and civic audience of strategy i think has to have that component to the political reforms and everything else or else it is just spitting into the wind. >> i think this far we have been dealing with issues in an ad hoc basis perhaps because of the instability with the era -- arab spring. >> the republicans of strategy today though do you believe -- spin at al qaeda and isil have pulled us into the realm of nonstate actors where we are forced to work in terms and outside of the system where the rules of the game are set up in our favor and we should push this back into the international system where again we have those

rules working for our favor. >> thank you mr. chair. >> mr. langevin. >> i want to think of them as us for being here. general flynn welcome back before the committee, and thank you for your years of service. so, i would like to -- the question would be for doctor lynch and general flynn, whoever wants to go first. i would describe the radical violent extremists didn't happen overnight. it was allowed to fester in many ways with the religious community for whatever reason as i understand it it was allowed to preach hate and violence and the leaders in the middle east kind of looked the other way for whatever reason. so it kind of took a long time to get here and it's going to take a long time to get out of it. but let me ask you do the statements from the president in

egypt -- which i found surprising that he welcomed the statement, spoke to the religious community or established the sunni imams denounced the violence of isil were islamist extremism more broadly? to be be moderated the nature of the grievances and threats from dodgy hottest in the region, or are these steps having the reverse effect of reinforcing the jihad ideology and grievance narrative? can you comment on that? >> at the fantastic question. the issue in a statement like that general is not the statement of cells. it doesn't have the standing issues presiding over the impressive police state and putting tens of thousands of political dissidents in jail

it's difficult to then say you must be moderate and participate in the political system and so it goes back exactly to the conversation that we were having a moment ago about the need to understand that if you want to have leaders who are capable of making the kind of statement that you and i would like to see, they need to have a standing which to do so and right now they don't. the saudis have been in a difficult position and the egyptians have been in a difficult position into the traditional leaders in the world are not in a very strong position right now to make the kinds of moves for moderation and against extremism that we need to see. >> so quickly, this shift in the strengthening of this ideology started well before 9/11. 9/11 just brought it to the floor. it showed how dedicated and how

long-term their vision is that they believe, and i believe that the presidents remarks back in late december, january timeframe time frame he was talking to the egyptian people as much as he was talking to the arab world and we should not lose sight of that. so despite the challenges that each faces internally to get back to the sense of stability and security, we need leaders like that frankly more of them around the world that are willing to step up and say the kind of things that he said that took a lot of courage, but he also knows that he has to change change inside of in spite of their own system just in egypt alone to be able to get the people to sort of come back around to be more moderate, and they are dealing with al qaeda and they are dealing with elements of the radical version of the muslim brotherhood in that country. i was very heartened when i heard president el-sisi come out

and make those remarks. >> are there things we can focus on in our strategy to help encourage that kind of moderation but let me ask you also get another certain actors in the region such as the uae and jordan and others that appear to be supporting the u.s. interests, how should the united states support and organize these partners in the region to serve as moderating influences in the greater middle east? >> thank you congressman. one thing we can do or we know that the government is going to try to talk about is what is moderate islam and what should it be and what are the leaders in the muslim world will they they don't have the credibility to talk about moderating islam and how that carries the authority, the one thing leaders can do is try to collectively decrease the perceived social legitimacy of violence which is in talking about what islam is right or wrong but it's

lowering the threshold of death sparks the revolution against the terrorist organizations so they step over the line more quickly and this is something that i think we can do collectively. >> let me add another comment that has to do with the rule of law. if there's one thing we need to export around the world is not so much democracy but the idea of the rule of law so people are governed by the norms and behaviors that are acceptable internationally and that is a problem in this part of the world right now. >> as you all know we will have time to probably get two more folks in. >> thank you mr. chairman. general flynn, first i noticed he went to the university of rhode island. first land grant university in the country established by abraham lincoln actually. >> my daughter went there and my

son-in-law. the out-of-state tuition is so high. [laughter] i would refer to my colleague. >> going back to the question about the airfield which is is in the news right now and everything else. i think a lot of us are wondering if this is a symbolic thing in terms of the targeting and mortars and direct fire weapons because the fact there's marines and a chance to embarrass the marines as you know falluja was a major political propaganda victory for them because the number of soldiers sailors and marines that were killed in that city and i'm trying to see if you had a take on whether psychologically that would be a huge victory if they had determined his casualties or what have you and that's the

number one press story. can you comment on that? and second i want you to address the lack of human intelligence. i know you talked about feedback prisoners. >> so, the fact that this tactical action by isis is going on right now in essentially the village or town of baghdad is a strategic victory for them. it's definitely a strategic information victory for them. and they are very close. i've been there a number times. we've operated effectively. if i were those marines, i would be looking to make sure that we have the rules of engagement clearly understood to do with anything that happens against the perimeters of that

particular base. what i would love to see if the unleashing of some iraqi force with the support of our u.s. marines to go after and take that little village, so that would be doable. and it would be something that the iraqis could actually do with the support of our u.s. marine forces that are in al asad. we lack that kind of human intelligence that we need, that we used to have actually. we developed over time but we don't have that kind of level that we need today. and interrogation is actually a part of that. >> i still have two minutes. you talked about the plan and everything else like that. and we are talking about the budget and everything else had one of my arguments is it's out of control you have to do this this and this.

we have our plans and everything else and i'm wondering are we out of control because we have a squadron for this, we just don't have enough military force to go around for all the commitments, and if you could briefly comment on that. >> we do not. we do not have -- if you look at the menu to national security strategy currently is in terms of the layout of threats around the world and particularly this problem we are facing right now our military is so stretched thin and frankly under resourced and part of it isn't trained to the level that we would expect them to become the american public would expect them to be and the sequestration is just choking the readiness of the united states military and we need to decide what kind of military do we want to have given the threats that we face and right now it's grown. it's gotten too small and if we continue down this path is going to get even smaller and that is

a danger to our national security. >> thank you for the service. i yield back area to mr. scott. >> thank you for being here. i will try to be brief. general flynn i want to go to one of the statements that you made about the fact that terrorism is ebbing and flowing and we shouldn't pay too much attention to it. it's going to happen the way the middle east is if you will. i would like to have this submitted for the record and i wonder if you have seen this assessment from 2004 to 2014. in 2004 we were dealing with a total of terrorist groups groups and countries and today we are dealing with 41 terrorist groups in 24 countries. certainly respect your opinion and i would suggest that is more than advance low. that's a significant growth and ideology that's dangerous to the

world. what would you assess the population of the islamist extremists or terrorists, whatever we want to call them in iraq to be the total number of them? >> when i was talking about advance low life is talking about the civil war dynamics and i was talking about the battle fighting on the ground in serious so i'm sorry for that. for the record of the u.s. working to undermine and move him out, i've read some of your statements and i personally think the u.s. made a mistake and when we undermine those leaders in those countries we end up creating a vacuum that allows these extremist groups to expand. but i've read some of your statements there and the total number for iraq if you would -- cynic i just want to clarify that because the advance low is about the civil war and whether we should have gone after al-assad is a question for

another day. i would say if you go country by country you get wildly different estimates. for example there is an islamist state affiliates supposedly in algeria which might have 20 people -- >> if i can, -- >> so what i would say to your specific question, you might have something along the lines of, what would you say maybe 5,000 dedicated isis or isil fighters combined with a full set of local forces have outlined -- >> i'm trying to move fast because i want to get my colleague tim to ask her questions as well. how many fighting age men are in that country? >> good question. 17 million maybe 15 million? >> because our current sunni and shiite is a talking only about the sunni community -- >> here is my point and what i want to come back to you on, general. if there are 5000 islamist

extremists terrorists, whatever we want to call them come inside a country that has 5 million fighting age men, no matter what data we went and if we get the rules of engagement )-right-paren that they've got, if they are moderates that they 50000-1 margin and a 50000-1 isn't enough of an advantage then what is? so this is why so many people in our part of the world identify this as islam because clearly 50,000 could overrun one if they wanted to as general flynn my question for you specifically if we get the rules of engagement right, which i certainly don't trust the president on but if we get the rules of engagement right there is no doubt in my mind that we can win any battle over there. but if they have a 50000-1

margin versus the islamic terrorists and they can't control that, what good can we do? >> i was at stake? in 2002 when i was first in afghanistan. i was asked how many enemies are we fixing afghanistan in 2002. this is april may may come a time frame in 2002 and i said about 35,000. the question was okay if we kill or capture all 35,000 cammy go home and do we win back the next part of the answer was no because there's another half a million on the other side of the border in this place called the fatah so it's the same sort of analogy today. we can capture and kill all day long but until we deal with these others that are there and these other millions or whatever the number is we are going to be at this for a long time and that's why the military component of this makes us feel good when we do something and when we kill somebody and get a

leader but it's all the others that are there ready to join this movement and fight against our value system and that is just something -- that is the strategy. >> that's where i think training and equipping and supporting our allies becomes the most important part of the strategy. >> across the region -- absolutely. >> i think we have time for a couple questions if you would like to go ahead. >> thank you for your testimony. a lot of my questions have been answered. a quick question about trends in africa. i was a part of the team at the africa command turning current operations there. we talked about boca raton, but aqim and al shabbat and the trend is that you are seeing in those organizations, there's plenty of ungoverned spaces that are potentially using foreign fighters thrown in and out in the past when any people for not paying attention. so any comments on the trends going on in the rest of those

organizations on the stuff the african continent? spirit i will be for the bill but one thing i will talk about his libya and the fact that is having. you are seeing the emergence of the state affiliate in libya. it is completely un- govern space and it is now a civil war total polarization and that is having to stabilizing effects on both the east and west and egyptians are worried about it. so basically the lesson is you get the collapse of the state and it opens the space for these groups. i'm very worried about libya are all for all kind of reasons but that is one of them. >> briefly because i know they'll have something to offer on this as well. the negative is that it is rapidly growing. it is getting worse and particularly those couple areas that you just talked about. the other part as mark highlighted the breakdown of the

nationstate or the order of the nationstate if you will in parts of that region the positive is that there are countries that understand it and are trying to come to grips with it and there is a number at least seven countries trying to work against boca raton and there's some economy is their particularly in the central and southern part of africa that are good models for the rest of africa but the size of the population in the 15 to 30-year-old category of young men that have nothing better to do than join these groups is probably the fastest growing population demographic on the planet today. >> i yield back. thank you mr. chairman. >> think the gentle lady and thank you all for being here. as many topics as we got to today, we didn't get to everything. i'm sorry did you have something you wanted to add on the last point click

>> thank you mr. chairman and for the question. al shabbat conducted twice as many attacks in the first nine months of 2014 as they did in all of 2013. boca raton will likely be either the most are the second most lethal terrorist organization in 2014 when we finalize our data. although they are not the most active in terms of the number of attacks which means they unfortunately are quite efficient in creating the fatalities per pack, and we just saw the first attack in chad today or so ago and continue the attacks in cameroon and there is the active groups of 2014 the group called the full on tribes. and in east africa it is associated with al-shabaab and a lot of them of liberty in africa.

>> thank you. and i think that it is helpful to have some object of measurements to gauge these things. they don't tell us the whole story but they do enable us to compare the trends. the other topic we didn't really get to today which i think we need to understand better is this competition among the groups. you either did to it. we didn't have a chance to quite get to it that i think that is a very significant factor that we have not fully explored. but we did get to a number of things again and i publicize we are getting cut short a little bit because the votes but i appreciate all of you being here and assisting the kennedy and with that, the hearing stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> as the hearing comes to a close, members are heading to the house chamber to vote in a

procedural motion on extending tax breaks for small businesses. you can see the house live on the companion network, c-span. if you missed any of the hearing you can watch it again anytime on the website c-span.org. also on isis this morning, the hill is reporting congressional assistance to president obama's request has ballooned with a growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the eye aisle bowing to oppose it, the public hawks on the right are opposing it and the democrats are attacking from the left contending the limits are too loose to preclude another prolonged ground pork. some say there is no compromise in sight and congress and world war ii have never failed to take an opportunity to duck responsibility when it comes to military deployment. virginia democrat gerry connolly will pose as the president's proposal is passed to the prologue i don't think it will change this time either. again that's from the hill this morning. we love more on national security just before 12:30 is

the former un ambassador john bolton will talk about some of the challenges facing the congress. live coverage on c-span2. and president obama will be speaking at the white house summit on cyber security and consumer cybersecurity and consumer protection this afternoon taking place at stanford university. that begins at 2:20 easter and we will have live coverage on c-span2. national counterterrorism center director john rasmussen testified director john rasmussen testified yesterday of the global terrorist threat and the ongoing efforts of his organization. appeared before the senate intelligence committee the republican senator richard burr of north carolina is the chair of the committee. [inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon. we are going to get the hearing started. i want to welcome director nick rasmussen from the national counterterrorism center. we've invited you here today in an open session. i think some of the news outlets said this would never happen with me being chairman that everything would be closed and i just want to point out we are having an open session. and this is to provide the senate and the american people an update on the current threat from tourism. the committee remains concerned about the expanding nature of the threat and the challenges facing the intelligence community and the evolving nature of the threat. this is the first of what i hope

will be a number of open hearings that should give the intelligence community an opportunity to better inform the public of its current efforts and challenges as mr. rasmussen and i have talked about. here's what we do. here is how we sort of do it as much as we can tell but more importantly here's why the american people should understand why this is important to them. it's about their defense. given the nature of the material we are here discussing and the fact this is an open hearing i want to remind everyone to use extreme caution to protect intelligence sources and that while this is an excellent venue to engage, i reserve the right to immediately suspend any questions or comments that may be sensitive in nature or whose response could disclose classified information. the congress is currently debating several matters that

impact our counterterrorism efforts including the aumf. i want to make sure that our members and the public understand the serious and credible threat than any of these groups presented to the security of the united states and to our allies. in addition to addressing the threat itself, i hope he will discuss the impact media leaks encryption and other collection challenges are having on our -- your ability to detect and deport terrorist attacks. i'm afraid that your job is getting harder at a time that we could least afford it. i've spent ten years as has the vice chairman and have watched closely the threat environment as it has evolved since the attacks of 9/11. the threats we face today are greater than those we faced

since 2001. al qaeda in 2001 was estimated to have less than a thousand members. the group was relatively geographically contained and plots against our interests were in frequent by today's standards. today we face groups like the islamic state of iraq which is often described as a terrorist army with memberships estimated to be in the tens of thousands we faced terrorist safe havens spanning north africa, the middle east and south asia and are confronted by a host of different plots almost a dalia. the groups are becoming more creative, threatening our citizens and allies with massive truck bombings. in addition to your mastering the use of the internet and

social media to disseminate propaganda to recruit fighters that often already have access to western culture like we have seen in europe, canada and even in new york. we cannot give terrorists the sanctuary which to plan attacks against us. arguably, isil now has control of the largest territory ever held by a terrorist group. the safe haven provides isil and others others the time and space they need to train fighters and plan operations. it also provided then the access to weapons in a network that can be used to support external operations. we know about the threat we face from al qaeda prior to 9/11 but we failed to act. i just hope we don't make the same mistake again. once again i thank you and

welcome you here and i now turn over to the distinguished vice chairman. >> thanks very much mr. chairman. director rasmussen welcome. let me say i've been reading a number of store and intelligence particularly on threats yesterday and i think you're agency is doing a very good job in the way we think that about to be and i want to thank you for the good work. today provides us an opportunity for the committee as the chairman has said to discuss an unclassified terms the terrorist threats to the united states and to the rest of the world and this is particularly important that the american public understand these threats because they provide the necessary context for a number of policy decisions that the united states government is facing and that we have to help make.

these threats affect whether we authorize the use of force against the need for the continued military deployment to counterterrorism efforts and the need to reauthorize intelligence tools necessary to keep the country safe. ideally if that's the threat facing the united states is as diverse and serious as any time in history. we've come from both inside the country and outside. more so than any other terrorist organization that we have seen in the past isil is seeking to radicalize followers around the world and inspire attacks on our homeland. they are extraordinarily visible. if you look at aqap just as much a danger to us but much more

invisible. the uniforms of isil, the equipment, the taking over the city. the christians that have been sacrificed the iraq he army that has been 700 then shot down in cold blood, all of this has been on television and so americans have come to know the threat of isil is. the guidance from isil to the potential terrorists is clear. it wants westerners to come to serious and iraq to fight. isil instructs how to carry out attacks at home and that's what we are up against. more than 100 americans have either traveled to serious or attempted to travel there. the 20,000 foreign fighters who've traveled to serious and who will return home. at least 3400 of them are from

western europe and that includes the visa waiver countries where they are a plane ticket away from the united states. what we don't know is how many people are inside the united states following isil on the news and on social media and who are becoming inspired to carry out their own attacks. separately, al qaeda remains focused on conducting attacks against our homeland. while the a.q. in the ungoverned areas of pakistan may be as weak as it has been in many years i'll qaeda and the arabian peninsula or aqap still poses a clear threat. the group is enjoying a safe haven in yemen with the overrun of the government there. remember, aqap was behind the attacks against charlie and the group has already attempted to send the nonmetallic and

essentially undetectable bombs into the country on four occasions beginning with the christmas day 2009 abdumutallab underwear bomber. they have step-by-step directions for building the bomb in the latest inspire magazine. our efforts to combat aqap are significantly diminished with the removal of the president of yemen. over time the government has become a strong counterterrorism partner that we no longer have. closing the embassy was the right choice. but the instability in yemen presents them with a new freedom to roam and kill. elsewhere there is a power vacuum in libya.

much of northwest africa the groups are using the territory for a safe haven. i could go on and on but let me conclude with one remark that i hope director rasmussen will address. on june 1 3 provisions of the foreign intelligence surveillance act which we call fisa will expire. they are the business record authority, the wiretap and the lone wolf. if these authorities expire, the intelligence community will lose key tools to identify terrorist groups and to protect the homeland. this includes the phone metadata program as well as the authority for domestic fbi investigations. but also other important authorities. i look forward to your testimony, director rasmussen and again thank you for the excellent work that you are

giving. and you mr. chairman. >> let me say for the purpose of the members it is my intent once the testimony has been received that we will go to five-minute questions based upon the order of attendance and hopefully that has been shared with everybody and we will act this time turned to the director for as much time as your testimony might take. >> thank you mr. chairman, members of the committee, and i have that for the record a much longer statement that has gone around the world discussed in some depth of that picture as we see it. but thank you for inviting me today to discuss the terrorist threat the united states is facing worldwide and also to discuss in ctc's's efforts to counter that particular threat. the the chairman and vice chairman go to the environment is increasingly diverse and dynamic as is the wide array of terrorist actors that is driving this environment created those actors are located across

africa, asia the middle east and they can increasingly reach into the west even into the united states. in the emergence of the iraq and syria extremist battlefields and the related expansion in the reach has brought about changes in the terrorism landscape. the emergence of the groups in the wake of the arab uprisings since 2011 has also altered the threat picture as most of the groups are focused more on achieving the local games in the region. we are also experiencing a new level of specialization and fragmentation that larger terrorism landscape. we believe we might be entering into an era in which the centralized leadership of the terrorist groups matters less than it did previously. we may be entering a time in which the group affiliation and identity is more fluid and extremist americans are are focused on the wide range alleged grievances and enemies. and as it showed us come it may be a time personal connections on the individual terrorists may be more relevant to the plodding

than the individual group affiliation or identity. now i'm even in this dynamic and increasingly complex threat environment, i still believe it is possible to differentiate in some degree the threat we are facing in the u.s. and in the west from the threat that we are seeing in the region where many of the terrorist adversaries are located. and as we look at the global terrorism picture, we are trying to be careful not to paint the picture with a single broadbrush and i will try to explain. in the united states and in the west, by the west by traditionally been western europe under the threat of the catastrophic attack has been significantly reduced as we and our partners have been able to apply consistent counterterrorism pressure to some of the most dangerous groups that we face. clearly sustaining that pressure and the key elements of that pressure in those places around the world is an essential condition to preventing the reemergence of some of the more complex threat that would aim to have catastrophic impact on the homeland. in this current environment our

assessment is we face a greater and more frequent threat from the lone offenders and probably loose networks of individuals. measured in terms of frequency and numbers come it is attacks that are the most noteworthy feature of the terrorism landscape. since may of last year ten of the 11 attacks we have seen in the west were in fact conducted by these individual extremists. two of them here in the united states and nine others in europe, canada and australia. the majority of these attacks look more like what we would expect from random acts of violence rather than the effort at large-scale destruction that we saw in the terrorist plotting immediately after 9/11. and going forward we believe that those individuals and smaller networks will try to mount similar attacks to capitalize on and build momentum from the media coverage these kind of attacks generate. it's also important to note that what i would call the smaller scale low level attacks still can cause amazingly tragic human

suffering and can clearly generate fear among the local in which these attacks come. and i am in no way seeking to minimize the impact such attacks can occur. furthermore, the increasing focus on the small-scale and frequent low level attacks in the west should not in any way suggest we are no longer concerned in the ability of established terrorist groups and even some individuals to target the western aviation which would certainly constitute a large scale and potentially catastrophic attack. mitigating the threats to aviation remains at the very top of the priority list in terms of disruption efforts. it also remains true we still face moderate and small-scale threats from groups more structured and cohesive traditional al qaeda and some of the traditional al qaeda affiliates and allies. although the number of groups opposing that truly transnational threat is somewhat smaller indie efforts to place pressure has met with some success it is important to remember these groups are

consistent and patient and their desires and plans to strike the homeland. in contrast to the threat we face at home and western capitals, allies and partners in africa, asia and the middle east are facing a much different threat. as you know some of the most ambitious and active groups are located in countries continuing to work through the effects of the uprisings in the recent years, places like egypt, iraq, libya see rhiannon jenin. others are active in countries undergoing insurgencies in places like afghanistan pakistan, nigeria, egypt c-reactive and again yemen. the terrorist groups are trying to displace weak governments or make significant territorial gains. in other countries terrorists are contradicting to population displacement artifacting millions of people and a huge scale and this is happening in places like iraq c-reactive and nigeria and afghanistan. some of these groups are also responsible for stoking the

sectarian tension contributing to the proliferation of sunni and shia violence. now amidst all of this insecurity violence and political instability around the world terrorists are carrying out ever more violent attacks more frequently in these countries and often on a greater scale than what we have seen recently conducted here in the west. in the last year alone we've assessed there been hundreds of attacks on the countries that have unfortunately caused thousands of deaths. just last month as the world focused its attention on paris and the attacks there, at the same time this committee while those attacks on local populations by boko harma are taking place on a larger scale. despite the fact i tried in a small way to differentiate between different environment in the west and threat environment we see in africa, the middle east and south asia there is one phenomenon that draws the two separate for pictures tightly together. that phenomenon is the continued foreign fighters to to

c-reactive particularly those who come from western countries. while the majority of the roughly 20,000 foreign fighters have in fact come from the middle east and north africa, more than 3,400 have reassessed and come from western countries. now at nct c. we are working to advance a broad effort to attract foreign fighters working closely in the rest of the intelligence community and partners around the world. and ctc compiles information on the noting suspected terrorists that traveled to c-reactive and we house the data in the data environment. that effort has created a valuable forum for@identifying with the information on the node or suspected terrorists and that includes the law-enforcement community, counterterrorism community, screening and watch listing communities. also this effort has directly helped result in conclusive identity information. enhanced records with more information and most importantly upgrade the watchlist status for the several hundred node or suspected terrorists.

nctc also works to fully identify foreign fighters who potentially have access or connections to individuals in the homeland so that they can be watchlist did. to do all this might officers are moving the nctc access to a wide range of law enforcement information wider than anywhere else in the ic. this includes includes a room and a doubling as doubling stuff as well as our embedded officers from ten other intelligence organizations. to prevent individuals from traveling to c-reactive the first place might officers are also working to diminish the appeal of terrorism in partnership with doj department of justice, department of homeland security and fbi to help develop tools to counter violent extremism and raise awareness among the law-enforcement leaders across the country. we try to tailor the tools to address foreign fighter recruitment particularly in the updated context and we have received a significant amount of feedback in the communities with whom we have worked and there is a demand signal for more of this across the country.

despite these efforts the nature of today's threat is as we discussed at the beginning and evident in the chairman and vice chairman's statements. the nature is challenging significantly the ability to disrupt terrorist plots and this is at the time that we are unfortunately losing to keep ability. today, the terrorists related communications of the terrorist adversaries are increasingly intermingled in the communications that are not relevant to the terrorism work. but they are not separate and easily identified streams of information. signals intelligence is increasingly important in the denied areas around the world where we face charges with getting information from human sources. it's difficult for us to operate in places like syria and libya and yemen and terrorist groups are watchful for the possibility they could be infiltrated by human sources created due to the leaks and other disclosures, terrorists have a greater understanding of how we seek to conduct surveillance including methods, tactics and the scope and scale of the effort. the altered the way they communicate and this has led to

a decrease in the collection. we have specific examples which i believe we have shared with the committee and the committee staff in a classified session. specific examples of adopted greater security measures such as using the various new types of encryption. those that have dropped or changed e-mail addresses and those that simply stopped communicating in ways that they had before in part because they understand how we collect. they've also driven a wedge between the government and providers and technology companies. some companies that were recognizing the protecting the nation was a valuable and important public service now feel compelled to question or oppose our efforts. these challenges i just described they go to the question that you raised. all of this places a huge premium on information sharing among the governments who all face this challenge. this information sharing gives us the chance to identify the potential loan actors of the sort that are carrying out the most frequent attacks. while the number of the foreign

fighters i talked about earlier threatens to overwhelm of the intelligence capabilities of some of the partners around the world, the problem has actually spurred information sharing to a level that we have rarely seen if ever and that is a positive development so i would argue that this is one bit of good news in the picture of the problem that is of increasing concerns as i hope i have made clear. i will stop there and i look forward to your questions and the rest of the committee. thank you. >> thank you very much. i will restate we will go to five-minute questions based upon the order of attendance. warner, coats, collins, langevin and fresh. i'm going to go right to the issue of the vice chair and that is the three provisions that are set to expire in the first of june and specifically if we

allow those to expire what would be the impact on nctc's ability to discover and thwart the attacks here at home? >> i know that the president stated it is a central that we maintain these capabilities the ability to have insight into what the adversaries are doing the connections they may have both internationally and in the homeland is an essential part of the business of identifying individual terrorists and then building the picture of the network that they operate. it's a fundamentally, reauthorization is something we are counting on in the community as an important part of our work. >> earlier this week the rector announced the creation of the cyber threat center. the national center will

reportedly be modeled after the national counter proliferation center which struggled under the oda nine management. i'm hesitant to authorize the creation of the lingering management challenges to be resolved, not least of which is in the inability to fully hire. can you assure the committee that they will be able to fill the majority of the open vacancies by the end of the year? >> i believe i can and i'm happy to report that sends i would say over the last five or six months we have taken significant strides to address the problem. not only improving our ability to hire analysts and officers from outside of government outside of the community to bring new blood into the center but also increasing the level of the officers from the other

entities into nctc which as you know it's part of the life blood having the contribution of officers from the fbi and from nsa and the defense department every member of the community and we are making i think tremendous progress. if we had this discussion a year ago i would have given you a much markka just response as i wasn't necessarily confident that we could get to where we needed to be that in the last few months i've had a tremendously productive engagement with fbi cia to get our numbers to the levels that we need them to be. i'm confident i can give you the assurance that you are looking for. >> the threat is growing. it's not declining. the number that you are facing is shocking and your ability to collect intelligence on those threads is waning. is the principal adviser on counterterrorism are you concerned about the trend and the impact that it's having on

our security? >> in my and my statement i certainly talked about the more diverse array of the actors that we are seeing around the globe and clearly that puts increasing pressure on our capacity to respond and react to develop strategies and all of those places. as we talked about in the closed session as well it's not always possible for the united states to transform the environment in some of these areas where it is growing and so we have to develop an approach that allows us to mitigate and disrupted the networks that are most particularly aiming at the u.s. interests while also looking to see if there are ways we can over time develop stronger partnerships with countries in the particular regions that we don't own the burden ourselves of doing that mitigating and constructing. but unfortunately while you were doing that work to establish a

more sustainable counterterrorism framework with our partners, you have to deal with as you said every day the constant flow of the terrorism related threats and so you are trying to keep up with everyone of those most recent threats and at the same time trying to build a more sustainable partner ship around the world as we are also managing the day-to-day and it is a challenge i would admit to. >> thank. >> thank you mr. director. the vice chair? >> mr. rasmussen i think last year when we had the worldwide threat hearing this is a little different than that. the group was sort of put out there as a group that could really be effective at launching an attack against the united states. as i read in integrated remarks particularly page eight, you talk about the two highly capable aqim offshoots in west

africa merging to form the violent extremist groups, which one is one we haven't heard of before. how big is this that's the first part of the question and a second, how do you rank the groups and their threat to the homeland and which one should we be the most weary of? >> let me try to bite that off in a couple of chunks, vice madame chair. we did address the emergence of this group in north africa which is an offshoot of a group that we've long known about al qaeda and the islamic maghrib but one of the offshoots of that group that grew out of the leadership dispute and internal fights about direction is a group that we know as a battalion that includes known individuals with links to al qaeda but again as i

said, they have engaged in a little bit of internal feuding that put them into separate organizations at least from the way that we look at it. we look at the grouping is a pretty significant threats to the interest in and across africa. ..

we have long worried about their ability to potentially not only engage and impact the fight in the city which there engaged in doing but also while there engaged in that activity also looking for opportunities to engage in external operations against u.s. interests and western interests into europe and ultimately even the homeland. there's not much more i can say about that in this session as you well know that this is among the very the highest counterterrorism properties with intelligence communities to try to understand this network with more granularity with more specificity and to develop disruption options. >> is aqap still no one in terms of, talking about the homeland now. >> i guess i try to avoid number one, number two number three because this is you said that some who is awash in the picture as close as your as we are says your number three must not be getting the right attention. they may be right to think that

but they may be missing something because i said in my statement even though what we are seeing more frequently in the west are these low-level attacks conducted by individuals who are not network necessarily, we still are absolutely centered and focused on aqap's efforts to develop an efficient attack against the united states for all of the reasons mentioned above that chairman and vice-chairman statement that attempt to propagate the recipe for putting explosives on an airplane, the continued effort even amidst all the fighting in yemen for aqap to mount an external operation. that is still very much at the top of our counterterrorism realist from an analytical perspective, collection and disruptive perspective. so that's when something like isil rises to the forefront of concern, we don't have the luxury of downgraded our effort, level of effort and some other effort and some of the stream our senators and actors that we have at the top of our list. i hope that respond. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> senator wyden. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director, it's great to see you again. i think you've done a good job of laying out countertenor challenges. my years on the committee we have seen the threats move from al-qaeda in afghanistan two insurgents in iraq to al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula. so these are very real threats, very real threats, and the question then becomes how do we focus on ways to deal with these threats rather than, in effect, use approaches that waste time and resources? we've got to focus on approaches that work. mobile collection, the bulk phone records collection that has been widely debated has been described by the president review group, and i'll just quote here as information that could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional section 215 orders. these are all public documents

public reports, mike morrell, a veteran of the cia supported this document, and my question to you is first if congress passes the legislation ending bulk collection, would intelligence agency still be able to collect the information you and they need to protect our country against terrorist operations? >> i look at this in terms of as the president said last year making sure that we're any position to preserve the capability that that's bulk collection gave us. that's why i support, ma as did the director of national intelligence, the legislation that would transition program to want to preserve the capabilities without requiring the federal government to hold the records in the way it had previously. >> so you're proposing that we end the bulk collection program

that can affect the phone companies can still keep their record-keeping practices, right? >> i'm comfortable with that capability. that step would preserve our capability. >> very good. one of the question. mr. director, my understanding is and it would be very helpful here that there's some questions about whether the office of national intelligence has provided you all at the counterterror center with a copy of the full, classified version of the committee's report on the use of torture. have they provided you that report? >> a select number of officers have access. i'm certain to the executive summary. i would have to get back to you -- >> have you seen a? >> i have seen portions of it senator. >> have asked for a copy of the report? >> i have not personally asked for a copy of it no.

i asked that i be allowed access to ignore we performed the role we did perform at the tail end of last year when we are asked to produce a effort to develop threat assessments. >> well, there are some additional details in the classified version that i think are relevant. so i hope that you will ask for a copy and review it. but i look forward to working with you. i think it is helpful to have on record that if the congress passes the legislation ending the bulk collection, you and the other intelligence agencies can go forward doing the important work to do with the threats to this country. they are very real. i'm interested in working with you on the matters of the report as well. i hope you asked for a copy of the report and review it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. rasmussen, nice if you can. thank you for for a great service. i do think, i want to make a brief comment to senator wyden's

comments that we will have a spirited debate i think on the fisa issue. i do think there are challenges as we've discussed before both privacy and security related around holding data at the telcos and they'll be the subject of a new ongoing conversations. i want to raise, i know isil aqap, focus most of the tests went but i would like to raise one other area. i think in your testimony of touched on but i would love to hear before the group. think back last year in april when we were all at the moment astonished by the actions of boko haram in nigeria seizing 300 girls from a school, 200 of which i believe are still missing, subsequent actions of the united states in sending in troops and advisors to that region. we have seen since that time 1.5 million people displaced,

more than 3000 killed, in 2014, and a coalition arrives i think just recently nigeria joined, nigeria, chad and cameroon for a force. could you give us an assessment whether these countries have the capability whether the tide is weighing. obviously, nigeria has postponed the elections. first question will be, can they take on this threat of boko haram? it's remarkable with the atrocities they commit are still pushed off the front page because of the extraordinary atrocities of isil and others, what type a potential threat that poses the on that immediate region. >> thank you, senator. i think you're onto something with the question why raising the question of regional partners. there's no question that nigeria faces significant serious

challenges to mounting on its own a response against boko haram. even in the most stable political involvement they would face those challenges, and as the committee will knows, right now nigeria is in the midst of the potential political transition that will test even further public to mount a coherent response among their political intelligence and military community. so one solution to that is to try to get regional partners as you described more involved nigeria, cameroon and other partners. there increase like stepping up to the challenge with their admittedly limited resources, but their shared sense of threat. i think we'll be in a position to try to enable these partners to try to develop a regional approach against boko haram and doing what we can principally for advising and assisting and providing intelligence where it's appropriate. and i think i can increase their effectiveness to i think it remains to be seen, certainly

isn't the case yet that the tide has been turned against boko haram. and remains to be seen if regional parties can in concert turn that tide. i would not want to get out ahead of that in terms of predicting anything. this is a part of the world where we do not have the largest resource footprint. so we do will be key in but we may have to reevaluate boko haram's trajectory over time if we see that the regional partners are overmatched. >> do you see any evidence there have been some reported, evidence of boko haram's reaching out to other groups in terms of network. could you comment on that? >> exactly. the increased intercommunication between boko haram and other chairs groups in the northern part, northwestern part of africa, and even with isil. all of that just adds to the picture of an interconnected terrorist network with the ability to share resources

personnel, expertise and tradecraft in a way that serves as a multiplier for the own capabilities and that's a disturbing trend. >> mr. chairman, i think this is an area we need to keep our eye on as well. obviously, there are huge challenges. thank you. >> senator coats. >> mr. chairman, thank you. in response to the questions that senator wyden raised, you indicated that you are the director of national intelligence have assessed that ending the bulk collection program and transferring it to the committee kitchen companies would not impede with anyway of doing the necessary tracking and usage of that to reach a solution, the information that you want. but since that hasn't been done and since we haven't really outlined laid out a procedure can have the procedures and which how we are going to do that, and we don't know exactly how it's going to be collected and so forth and so on with a

much shorter period of time of holding that information, how can you be so certain that this is not going to degrade anyway your ability to access that information? >> i guess i was a i can't say anything with complete certainty, senator, but look at the provisions as we understood them we believe the legislation would have maintained the essential capability that we are requiring that we maintain. >> the legislation calls for short period of time for holding information. we have seen in pairs and some other instances where we need to go deeper than that in order to determine the connections and the network -- in paris. that we need to assess. >> i certainly agree. >> well then how can you say with assurance that ending that the bulk collection is going to not leave you shorthanded and what you need to assess? >> i can't predict into the

future exactly how what information requirements we would have. >> how can you come to the conclusion? don't you leave a little well, we are not sure senator exactly how this is going to works we can guarantee that will give us the same access we had under the bulk collection program? >> again, i come i look at this in terms of capability. my editing of the legislation that would've provided us with an essential capability. i am a little bit burdened here because as in cdc director i follow in the footsteps of two previous nctc directors mike mike leiter and that also established national city lawyers who lived this architecture in ways i haven't, and so i am less electric position to speak on exactly how these programs work in the same way that my predecessors were. that's why speakers that's why raise the question that might about your answer to senator wyden who i think took that as a

definitive yes. i think this is fine and nctc director thinks it's funny therefore inward would ever question it but as you there's difference of opinion in the intelligence community among the different agencies as to whether or not this is the right thing to do. >> i understand that and that's why i am relying on my experts who have assured me that preservation of this capability gives us what we need. as with anything it certainly involves giving and taking, give-and-take on particular provisions. i'd be happy to talk about it further with you in closed session where i can come at you with -- >> i understand. i think we should do that mr. chairman, because i think there still some major questions that need to be resolved. in the remaining time that i have, do you, through your agency or somewhere in the ic community, what is the appeal to the thousands of westerners in

the fall prey to the appeal of engaging in this the gravity, to do pray that he can all aware of, and are so attracted to this. i'm trying to get to the source can get my head around the fact, how could someone who has perfect capability seeing exact what they're walking into think that's the thing to do? if you're of the same ideology perhaps in certain countries in the middle east but coming from western europe and coming from america, more civilized and cultured societies and civilized might not be the right words, i think you know what i mean. are you looking at that and is there a way for us to counter with social media saying this is what you're getting into, which is a pretty tough situation.

>> that's a trifecta question, senator. isil's propaganda runs the gamut. you're absolutely right to point to some of these horrific videos involving executions of hostages or opposing fighters on the battlefield. that clearly sends a signal and that attracts its own element but isil's propaganda also includes a fair number of them messaging examples in which they paint a very bucolic, fulfilling life in the caliphate that the project to individuals who may be disenfranchised disadvantaged, dissatisfied in their home environments. and so the range of factors that grad people who end up going to a place like syria right now ranges from the ideological which appointed to but also to the psychological tailoring to some sense of wanting to belong to something, no matter how depraved the thing that they would be belonging to his. and for others is just the sheer

sense of adventure and a chance to throw your hat into the winning side is a part of the calculation and we've tried to disaggregate all of these different factors in the messaging that we're seeing so we can try to develop some counter messaging strategies to go at it. the president is convening this ct summit next week and trying at all of our european partners many of our middle eastern partners to try to get a handle on this to try, unfortunately as we all know, the government is probably not the best platform to try to communicate with this set of actors who are potentially vulnerable to this kind of propaganda and recruitment. and that something that we deal with all the time. we try to find ways to stimulate this counter narrative, this counter messaging without having a u.s. government hand in the. people who are attracted to this don't go to the government for the guidance on what to do not the u.s. government and certainly not their governments in the middle east.

so stay by some senior religious figures and middle east capitals are useful but it's pop-culture that's going to get come in many cases the voice of pop-culture or voices more relevant to these expenses of these people will have a far more profound impact on them than anything we say. >> i think so too. we need to take the same advantage of social media that they have taken. i agree it should be government directed to it ought to be coming from other areas of the culture reaching out to these people and letting them know exactly what they're getting into, which is not the problems that is being made during the recruitment. thank you. >> senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director, i want to follow-up on the issue of the telecommunications companies holding the data into different ways. first of all there are hundreds of telecoms in this country, and by contrast very few people, a

number of people who have access to the database in this country has come out in recent months with strictly limited and they were well-trained. if more people have access to the database, isn't that likely to raise additional privacy problems and questions? >> i would have to understand exactly how that architecture is going to look. i would ask if i could take that for the record, senator. >> related question, would you be troubled if there is no requirement for the telecommunication companies to retain the data for a certain length of time? >> obviously it's in the interest of the intelligence community try to maintain the capability of access that data for as long as a bit of time as we can. in terms of specific provisions

to compel, i can't speak to that. i can only speak to the interest we have been maintaining that capability, which, of course, be to have that access. >> let me turn to the issue of homegrown terrorism and to countering violent extremists are you setting said in your testimony today, and i completely agree that we face a much return threat to lone wolf and loose networks of the individuals, and to talk about the number of the texts since last may that 10 of them were from violent islamic extremists. as you may have seen former defense intelligence agency director michael flynn recently commented that he could not identify which agency or individual in the u.s.

government is in charge of the fight against radical islamic extremists. obviously, the hs the fbi dod to some extent, the department of state, nctc are all important players, who is in charge? >> i would argue senator that as with most elements of our counterterrorism effort we're approaching it on a whole of government effort without a single agency with lead or overall responsibility. in the effort against homegrown violent extremists here in the united states, we have a very tightknit community focused particularly among homeland security, the justice department, fbi in nctc along with the deputy directors of those organizations i meet matt olsen before we met every other month at that deputy, at that director or deputy director level to cigarettes and according all of our activities aimed at the with a homegrown

violent extremist phenomenon. working to make sure that we coordinate and partner with each other so that would go to a committee, and i used denver in my testimony as an example of a community we had gone to in the wake of the arrest of their last year of the three young somali american women who were disrupted on their way to syria. we go arm in arm lockstep with each other, all four of us together working hand-in-hand with a special agent in charge of the local fbi office, ma the u.s. attorney in the capital and all of the homeless a good elements in that city. so that we are speaking with one voice as a federal government. when we get the weird and with the widest possible array of dignity leaders and community organizations because most of his homegrown violent extremism effort is going to be carried out by those communities. on role in many cases is to empower and provide information. one of the things we did and that experience in denver was provide a community hours briefing that explains exactly what senator coats was talking about, the appeal of this

narrative, the kinds of things that the kids might be seeing on the internet if they weren't supervised. or its parents were not involved with and engaged with their children come with what their children were doing. i'm very comfortable that we are working well at home on the together. could i make the case for one single agency being given a lead role? i don't take a good right now. if we had a bunch of discord and disarming i might make that case. could we do better? i'm not going to sign up to the idea that we couldn't do more to do better and we're trying and looking to resource this more robustly but it'll think the problem we face is the result of not having a lead federal agency. >> i guess from my perspective, the problem is if no one is in charge, it's very difficult for us to assess the effectiveness of the program to budget properly, to hold people accountable, to assess whether what we are doing is making a

difference. when we did the fort hood investigation in 2010 one of our major recommendations from the homeland security to was the need to be a strategy, but there needed to be a lead agency or person in charge. it's not that these efforts are not worthwhile, but we can't budget for them. we can't assess them if there isn't a person who can come and report to us. my concern is that the national security council appears intent on trying to exercise the role of policy element or rather than just policymaker. >> thank you, senator. i mean, we are all trying to operate the four agencies i mentioned under the rubric of the president's homegrown here in the homeland. we are the looking at ways in

keeping with your suggestion to try to come up with funding mechanisms across departmental lines that we can do exactly what you describe, give some sense of the jointness work from the joint work that is going on without relying so department budgets and department stovepipes. i will certainly make sure we get our information to you on that. >> thank you. >> senator blunt. >> thank you chairman. mr. rasmussen, let's talk about yemen a little bit. i understand our embassy there is close but most of the people we had to their certain from the state department at the embassy are all out of the country cars left with keys in them at the airport or whatever it took to get out of there. it's been just a few months ago that yemen was supposedly a great example of how our efforts were working how the plan was working. how do you think that changed so quickly? looking back what do you think you and others might have seen to give more warning than we got

of the? >> the situation in yemen for some period of time has been stable, unstable politically for a long put it on the yemeni government faced this problem of iq the conflict emanating out of the northwestern part of human. but that was not a new phenomenon, and for many years the influence of the committee there was largely contained to the northwest part corner of human a long stride the saudi border. that changed rather dramatically when they moved out of that historical location and they held and move towards other areas but much as we saw in the with the iso- phenomenon, one thing is for difficult to assess from an intelligence perspective is the ability of a military organization to actively confront another insurgency.

director clapper i know has talked about the challenge, the intelligence committee faced by predicting where the iraqi secret forces would have melted away the way they did in the face of isil's advances last summer to i would say on somewhat of a smaller scale, something like that happen in yemen when president hottie who already physical good political vibrant and managing his military, managing security organization as the houthi advances took place, it simply became the case if they were unopposed in many cases. and that's something it was got to try to find a better way as intelligence committee to understand the willingness of fighters to fight. because when you match up orders of battle and read about the resources available to the various sides, you would look at that and say there's no way that might happen. but obviously it did. it has left us in a position now where on relatively short notice just over the past few months

the security wish and judgment situation deteriorated rapidly. the decision was made to leave. >> i do want to get into any kind of ongoing discussion with you about the specifics of how i would see these things now but you've got an example in isil or isis where j. d. one day and virtually a nationstate 90 days later or yemen which is a great example of our successful foreign policy and six months later it appears to be a total disaster. i think what you are, is it fair to say that intelligence committee has to begin reevaluate how we what you answered reevaluate how those insurgencies may match up against the inability to face them? >> i think that's fair senator.

>> on another question i have, i noticed in the information the president sent up yesterday for congress to look at the focus was against isil or associated persons or forces. how would you define the second part of that? associated them is about another terrorist group who actually is somehow fighting? what does that mean? is that al mister? is that some of these al-qaeda groups that don't appear to be that much in line with isil? how would you define associated persons or forces the viewer may? >> i guess i look at and take pretty much at face value, senator. in concluding that language likely allow for the possibility that other networks, maybe not even formal groupings, but other networks might align themselves with isil. and as we know, right now i sold, isis is in conflict with core al-qaeda and with al-nusra front, the designated

al-qaeda affiliates operating in this area. >> zocor al-qaeda or others from would not be included -- so core al-qaeda -- were not included in the definition because they're not associated with isil? that's my believe everything that's what you just said. >> i would have to check i guess what i'm saying is what looked at the worst associated forces i was thinking ahead to me with the development of new alliances, new online much that we can't necessarily foresee today. i wasn't trying to suggest that anybody was today in or out of that particular definition. inside or outside of that particular definition. >> i do want to take more time than i should, but today we of the base looking at this on what we do foresee today. and i think what you've said are there significant terror groups that are clearly not associated with isil. would that be right? >> there are certainly terrorist

groups that have not affiliate or associate at this point with isil. isil has reached out and develop affiliate relationships or endorsements like relationships with groups outside of iraq and syria concluded in north africa, including in algeria and including and i believe yemen as well. >> i'm out of time. thank you, chairman. >> senator lankford. >> think you can did ask you in page 10 of the written report you used the statement here iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism, and then a couple of those on the. i'd like to get some additional details on that. when you talk about iran being the foremost state sponsor of terrorism but how far does that extend? how many coaches aren't engaged in or terrorist groups are the engaged in sponsoring? >> -- how many countries are the engaged in.

>> iranian sponsorship particularly lebanese hezbollah provides a global reach to that organization. i could not give you a direct answer as to how many countries by would certainly argue that hezbollah would extend to pretty much every region of the world. >> there are clear lines were iran is engaged in in terrorism and advancing that that ideology or being a state-sponsored? >> certainly in portions of west africa, southeast asia, latin america. i did go into more detailed in a classified setting. >> it begs the question as well the foremost non-state-sponsored are we able to identify individuals and groups as well that you identify a rent as a former state sponsor of groups at you funny principle coordination from somewhere. are we able to identify some of those non-state-sponsored? >> certainly have a robust effort across the intelligence been to try to understand

particularly where individuals play a role in the financing of terrorist organizations and where, where we can identify through intelligence those individuals developing an approach using every tool we have whether its designation by the treasury department, other law enforcement or intelligence action, any tool we have to try to shut down that financing pipeline. that is an area where it is a constant constant struggle because these organizations are ubiquitous in efforts to fund raise. i'd be happy to talk in closed session about the work we're doing in that area. >> is there a sense for our ron is a state-sponsored terrorism is that on the decline? is a consistent as they continue to increase? have we noticed a significant change in iran in their behavior in the last several years of? >> i guess i would describe it as consistent and steady. the degree of concern we face has been consistent and steady over time. we are particularly mindful of

their support for militant groups in places like iraq where that frontline, that front-line activity where shia militant groups that have connections to iran could be potentially threatening to our personnel on the ground in iraq. >> let me ask you about one of the country and location. yemen, odds on second libya has fall into total chaos with no functioning government anymore. every time they formed a government that collapses within months and were borderline as the vice-chairman mentioned earlier, near civil war at this point. terrorist groups seem to enjoy a backing. what do we see is on the rise in libya and what is her status as far as the spread of terrorism speak with you are right senator. if i had to identify one of the greatest areas of emerging concern with respect to counterterrorism, it would be libya. he were already facing a chaotic

political environment of their in which the resident north african-based terrorism groups that we've talked about before aqim al-qaeda al-sharia were already active and potentially threatening in libya and potential with the potential ability to threaten u.s. interests across north africa which change more recently and what made you violate their more difficult is that ice is isil has looked to also take advantage of the chaos in libya and establish a foothold there as well. we are still looking to try to assess whether that capability will manifest itself in external operations outside the region of north africa or if the intent is simply to give themselves the capability to attack western interests in places like cairo or algiers or tunis or morocco. that by itself would be significant sufficient concern toward our attention but we are mindful of what they might try

to do too expand into europe as well as potentially threaten our interests there. >> one final question. if iran stopped supporting terrorism, what effect would that have on the region and on our terrorist organizations -- operations? >> well, if iran got out of the business of providing state sponsorship to tears organizations it would obviously lower our potential level of concern about the capabilities of some of the groups that we worry about. i don't necessary know that would look like an on-off switch. these are capabilities that are have developed over decades and decades, and so i don't know that would all be unraveled or unschooled by just flipping a switch. >> that's not us which we have access to but there are lots of connections there. >> i understand. >> i yield back. >> senator rubio. >> thank you. i would go will be been

delivered to their have been multiple open-source reports in the media that libya has emerged as a central and important growing hub for i system is that not right? >> i think that's right. >> may have been linked to many of the groups now in benghazi? their open-source reports the ice is the predominant group in benghazi? >> that's correct. >> also open-source reporting that isis was behind a terrorist attack at a hotel in aaa that killed an american citizen. >> yes, the caribbean hotel. >> open-source reporting that isis commander was killed in afghanistan. >> yes. >> so there's now an an isis presence as the lead against including open-source reports of terrorist training camps being set up in portions of afghanistan. >> that's correct. we've seen in recent months of isis isil has looked to expand its reach into a number of different places around the world and you've highlighted to the most recent examples in afghanistan lived. i would also highlight algeria

and egypt. >> on the libya front is another port region within there's no there's no assad bombing, the airstrikes. my concern is this becoming one of the most important hubs is complete and contested. have access to shipments and for buyers to take him. i just think that's an area of growing emerging that i'm surprised there's not more discussion of because of how serious a threat that poses including to the sinai. would not be a great spot for which to launch attacks into the sinai organized groups involved in the sinai peninsula? >> that's right. again the egyptian taste terrorist group that recently affiliate with isis, we worry about the threat impose to oppose western interests in egypt and the sinai. tourists, american businesses but also our troop presence. >> it would be a mistake to so be focused on our fight against isis s.o.b. street in iraq but is group is increasing its

footprint in multiple stages including afghanistan, throughout north africa and in particular libya. libya. >> that's correct, they have certainly expanded the reach. >> right to present obama's executive order to determine that the position of guantánamo detainees can 101 former detainees were confirmed to have engaged in terror. in the latest report in july 2014, 2009-july 201488 detainees transferred out of gitmo, out of the 88 six of them have been confirmed to return to their activity in what additional one was suspected. by my calculation that means 107 of the 620 total detainees transferred from gitmo have we from gitmo have reengaged into her and another 77 are suspected of doing so in addition to the 107. can you tell us since july 2014 when the report came out how many more have returned? >> we are just on the cusp with the next couple of weeks of providing the next integrated

version of the unclassified report the one you received last july. those numbers will be out very virtually. >> but as a stance that one out of six have been returned -- >> while we don't have the report finalized yet what i expect is that the trendline, the proportions will be roughly in line with what we reported last july as well. >> as it stands right now before the report comes out looks like it is approximately close one out of six individuals released from guantánamo have engaged in terrorism, and maybe more. >> as a net figure that is correct about the population released since 2009, that number is a lower number of. >> lastly on the question of of the rent i want to return back to kind of the thread senator lankford was pursuing. we know that iran uses its proxy relationship with hezbollah, for example, and but also are where the shia militias that are in iraq as we speak are heavily indebted and controlled by them as well.

do we have any evidence you can discuss of iran trying to set up similar type groups in places like kuwait saudi arabia, bahrain, jordan? >> i would have to address that in a closed session, senator. >> okay, thank you. >> we would be happy to provide you the answer to the committee staff. >> thank you, senator rubio. nick, so what stops on the street, they don't have the direct of nctc and they say mr. director, what does nctc do and why should i care? what would your answer be? >> i would tell the person that nctc strives everyday to be a center of gravity for our nation's counterterrorism efforts. not the center of gravity because to say would be a disservicedisservice to all of our partners and encounters work as

well by center of gravity that provides information, analysis strategic planning and support of our national catechism efforts. and so if they asked i would say that they have a large number of officers who come to work everyday to assess, analyze and provide information in data defeat our terrorist adversaries. that's what i would say. >> and why should i care? >> you should care because as we talked about in my opening statement and in your opening statement, mr. chairman, the threat environment we face right now is the most multifaceted the first dynamic threat of violent we've ever faced and it manifests itself in chimeras all around this country but it's not simply a threat that manifests itself in far-flung places around the world. the kind of low-level potential of small-scale attacks i talked about from isil inspired or other terrorist group inspired individuals are the kinds of attacks that could literally happen in any of our 50 states.

>> in part this hearing was because you said to me when we first met, i believe america needs to know something about what we do and the intelligence community can't be this black hole forever. i just want to thank you for what your organization does, for all the employees. because when you hear the intelligence community described, it's not nctc first but everybody who's in the intelligence community is a customer of yours. they looked to the analytic product that your folks produce. we look to the and other product that you produce from the standpoint of being policymakers. they look at it more from a standpoint of actionable information. i think you have some of the most talented folks working for you that you possibly could i do want to reiterate something. if for some reason you feel that there are constraints that don't

allow you to build out your workforce to the degree we have authorized and to the degree i think we both agree you need i hope you will share that with the vice chairman and myself so that we can help to try to remediate that. >> i will certainly do that. and again i'm enormous a grateful to both you mr. chairman, and the vice chairman for the assist and support of our work force overtime. i think one of the biggest contributions the congress could make towards to that end would be to not put us in a position where we're dealing with a sequestration of our by going into the future. because that impacts all federal agencies and the budgets and their ability to operate. but if our organization where we are so relied on detailed personal from other organizations, that kind of budget approach has a ripple effect because it reduces the ability of other organizations to do the hiring and developing a personal that we need to fill

our ranks but it ends up having a double whammy effect on an organization like nctc when there's an an uncertain budget divided that affects our partners the way that does. >> i thank you, mr. director. i would turn to the vice chairman issues any follow-up questions that she might want to ask. >> i would like to put a paper in the record, if i might. since senator rubio mentioned the recidivism rate of former gitmo detainees. and i would like to put the problem is really that whether it's bush or obama, people learned more the recidivism rates changed dramatically. pre-january of '09 the recidivism rate was hundred one of 532. that's a 19%. now, since the obama

administration is six out of 88. that's six-point 28%. if you look at it in versions of time. i would like to put this paper in the record, if i may. >> without objection. >> i wonder the of the question to ask the director. director, days before the public release of a report on cia detention and interrogation, we received an intelligence assessment predicting violence throughout the world, and significant damage to the united states relationships. nctc participated in that assessment. do you believe that assessment proved correct? >> i can speak particularly to the threat portion of a rather than the partnership aspect of that because i would say that's the part nctc would have the most direct purchase on. and i can't say that i could do

is aggregate the level of terrorism and violence we've seen in the period since the report was issued. this aggregate that level from what we might have seen otherwise, because as you know the turmoil roiling that part, those parts of the world not that far those parts of the world, the middle east, africa south asia the are a number of factors that go into great the difficult threat environment we face. so this has to we made at the time as the committee was that this would increase or add to the threat picture in those places. i don't know looking backwards now that we can say it did by ex percent or it didn't bite ex-percent. we are also i think clear in saying this parts of the impact we would not know until we had the benefit of time to see how it would play out in different locations around the world. >> oh, boy, do i disagree with you but that's what makes this arena, i guess.

the fact in my mind was a threat assessment was not correct. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you, vice chairman. senator blunt. >> thank you, chairman. let me go back to where it was when i ran out of time earlier mr. rasmussen. just trying in my might to figure out where the aumf that is proposed and how it relates to these various terror groups. i think the further language on associated persons or forces it says, means individuals and organizations fighting fighting for on behalf of, or alongside isil or any closely related successor entity and hostility against the united states or its coalition partners. list for me a few of the terrorist groups that would not be associated in that way with isil. you mentioned to you earlier.

are there others that immediately come to mind? i'm not asking for an exhaustive list by the way. >> i don't think lebanese hezbollah would qualify as an associated force. i think terrorist groups with operating in latin america, i don't believe would qualify under that definition of associated force, or some of the al-qaeda affiliated groups operating in southeast asia for example. those are just some examples off the top of my head. >> so this, if we just take that definition, does that mean the isil and its associated groups are the only people have authorized the president to go and do whatever is necessary within the restrictions of that? or does the 2001 aumf give the president the authority to go after other terrorist groups?

>> i would have to get you an answer that because i'm not confident that a note enough about the design of the aumf, of the new authorization of force. >> how about the old one? you should know about the 2001, what authorization data gives us. >> that allowed us to carry out operations against al-qaeda and associated forces. >> i'm sorry. could you refresh the -- >> no, that's the one. i think that's right, though i think it also said or future terrorism against the united states. that's the one that the president proposes we let stand and we eliminate the 2002 that's more iraq specific. and then add this will one to it is i believe the proposal. what i guess i'm thinking is what do we really add by adding this complicated definition of terrorists that are social with

the isil win, is isil covered under the 2001 aumf? >> i would defer to my lawyer but i believe that. >> you believe not. so how are we engaging with isil now in syria? >> let me provide you with an answer for the record. i would want to be precise and correct in what i provide you. >> all right. and do you have any follow-up do you understand the question? >> yes. >> is i assume it might be able to pursue isil/isis in iraq through the 2002 if the 2001 is, i guess my point is mr. chairman, if the 2001 is broad enough to cover isil now, i don't know what we add to it when we add another authorization and leave that went on the books. i think we do have a significant complication of who is a closely related associate of isil when we begin to define this.

these groups like core al-qaeda is generally not anywhere what it was at one time but if areas we named our affiliated groups have sprung up everywhere from the philippines to all over the world. and i'm going to be very interested in how we define and why we would specifically begin to define individual groups as opposed to what now brought the 2001 authorization was which is i guess the beginning of that question mr. rasmussen. so thank you. i look forward to your response on that. thank you, chairman. >> i think he gets even more confusing when i'm in the same geographical battle space it would be the 2001 aumf that provides us the ability to go after course on but next door in the same geographical area it would take a new aumf to go after isil. senator king.

>> thank you. i appreciate that. just completed a market in the armed services committee. senator mccain acted with some dispatch. hopefully i won't confuse this discussion further but i think it's important to talk about the 2001 aumf. actually the term associated forces doesn't appear anywhere in it. that's a gloss upon a gloss that the 2001 aumf is very clear. president can use necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on september 11 or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism. that has been used very very broadly and i think that's one of the concerns, and i think the president has realized that to stretch it into attacking an organization that didn't even

exist in 2001, operating in the country that was at least partially stable in 2001 is quite a stretch. i think that's why we've got a new authorization that's been brought forward to cover the isil situation. so i think that's a matter for the foreign relations committee, but the 2001 has been stretched very for and i am a frankly one who's glad to see that the president has brought forward a new authorization to mr. rasmussen, a couple of questions. counterterrorism we always think of in terms of killing people striking, intercepting communications drones, all that kind of thing and get we are now learning harder but we have to do is intervene before people get radicalized. and yet when you raise that the fbi said we're not social workers, county sheriffs say we are not social workers. if it isn't going to be law

enforcement that does that kind of intervention and through the social media, for example, who is going to do it? do you see that as the counterterrorism mission? >> certainly the effort to counter violent extremism and especially most particularly in the homeland is part of the counterterrorism mission. i would argue that are long for supporters like fbi do embrace that mission, even if some individuals may have said exactly what you said senator king. earlier in the discussion we talked about some of the work that ac/dc is doing along with fbi, homeland security and the justice department to try to exactly what you just described. from the federal government the effort though is to enable and empower local communities to carry out this kind of intervention in their own communities, and to enable them to do that in a way that does not scream along for the context here as you know that can have a chilling effect on the kind of

community engagement and community dialogue that would help you get at the underlying causes that lead to violent extremism. so the role we've taken from the federal government has been a little more circumscribed aimed at providing communities with the tools to do this kind of work, information so they understand how terrorists and now particularly these days of isil is using social media to go after their children in their communities, to let parents and teachers in schools and other authority figures understand what is coming at them and where intervention might be necessary to prevent a foreign fighter from developing. what we are doing in this area is useful and important but it is thus far not scalable or scaled on the size i would say has the impact we want all across the country. the president countering violent extremism summit during the part of next week three pilot cities, such as comp many apples and possible report to the group

on their efforts industry and those are three tremendous important cities that the federal, has been working very closely with to try to do this kind of work. osha only three cities and so the purpose of a part is to demonstrate whether this can be done on a scale of the impact far beyond just those three cities. >> i take it that you are concerned that this speeded we will leave this discussion at this point and go live now to capitol hill to washington, d.c. action. former u.s. ambassador to the united nations john bolton will be talking about national study challenges. he's a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. the defense forum foundation is hosting this event. it is just getting underway here live on c-span2. >> the opportunity to hear from her expert speakers on a critical national security issues. primarily to deal with national security and defense of our country. over the years our leadership, under the leadership of

presidents suzanne scholte he susan is our great beloved leader come we focus on programs for freedom, democracy and human rights. she has been one of the greatest ways of measuring her greatness is that she is now on the list to be exterminated by the north koreans. life like she has done so much work for human rights there. she has had threats on her life by the way. we are very proud of our tradition of nonpartisanship because the very issues we address our of a concern to all americans. today we focus on the urgent national security issues that the new congress will be addressing. before introduced our testing was speaker of like to acknowledge and he has to leave, but i would like to acknowledge one of our great living american leaders greatest living american leaders

serving on the armed services committee and chairing the subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. i am extremely passionate extremely knowledgeable on the chinese threat with their missiles and any satellite capabilities, cyberwar capabilities, the mp threat and in every sense a growing threat to the free world. unrecognized because the chinese, the russians are waiting threats around, about taking care of in today's and what have you, but he chinese are the ones that we have to be concerned about in my opinion for the long run. we had a section on this last session. at the defense forum foundation cover that issue with bill gertz and i thought it was very successful. so i would like to introduce to you a great american congressmen

frank. would you stand up please? [applause] >> he sends his apologies yes ago because of important meetings. stacy white house from the office of congressman rob wittman's office who helped make arrangements for the use of this room. stacy, thank you so much. i appreciate it. a great south korean leader whose successful efforts getting congress to pass the resolution on comfort women, professor. if you could stand up. thank you. [applause] wonderful work. also on the list of the north koreans, and counselor mohammad from tennessee of algeria. [applause]

and also the ambassador of the western sahara. glad to have you here. [applause] had the privilege of years ago of running -- riding around a camel in that place. what you need is a few more water wells i think. i've never seen such desert. they must go on for 800 500 miles. but any rate we are so on are to have you here. our speaker, also one of our board members, chad, one of the founders of the organization. chat is one of our truly rate patriots. chat, so honored to have you. also a board member, i'm sure is no to all of you. -- known to all of you. ..

this administration, is not strong as john was in his when he was in leadership position, to push syria out of lebanon and to bring african peacemakers into somalia. he worked vigorously against north korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs, moving very strong sanctions resolutions through the u.n. u.s., u.n. security council. working with the french ambassador he led the security

council's efforts to approve a unanimous resolution to end the summer 2006 hezbollah war on israel. to authorize u.n. peacekeepers and to create an arms embargo against hezbollah. he also assembled an international coalition that bid of hugo chavez to join the security council. he also advocated for human rights while serving at the u.n. arranging for the security council's first deliberations on burial meese human rights -- burmese human rights abuses. and getting security council approval to send peacekeepers to darfur. we're honored to have him with us today. before i have him come forward i would like to point out in today's issue, he is probably mentioned as potential presidential candidate. for very good reason i can say from many years experience with john. john a great honor to have you

with us. [applause] >> bill, thank you very much for those kind words and thanks to you and suzanne and defense forum foundation for invitings me. it is always a pleasure to be here. i've worked with bill over the years in many capacities and with suzanne gypping when we started on the western sahara problem, an issue i have worked on for close to 25 years now still without a satisfactory solution. one of those things that really i think it's an obligation of the united states to help resolve, to give the people of the territory of the western sahara the opportunity to vote in a referendum on their own future. how is that for a startling proposition? [applause] something the united nations failed to do these last 23 years unfortunately. but thank you all for coming today, i appreciate the opportunity to be here. i want to talk about some of the issues that congress, new

incoming congress will face on the national security front but i think it is important to start before we survey the internationally to talk a little bit about the new congress and how they got here and what it means for the future. and i think there is a very important domestic american political issue here, one that was important in the 2014 cycle and that i think is going to be more important in the 2016 cycle and that is a lot of freshmen house and senate members in in my view owe their election in substantial part to their strong advocacy of american national security. i think a number factors in the external world helped propel national security back into the public attention. isis beheading americans, caught a lot of people's attention. but i think also the people in the country are ahead of their

would-be leaders here in washington. i think they have a deep sense of the importance of protecting the country, of the risks that we face around the world, of the dangers of the weak and ineffective american leadership. and i think it's continuing reputation of the political conventional wisdom in washington, you know, if you listen to the political operatives and any in the media, they will say foreign policy doesn't matter. nobody cares about national security. it doesn't affect their daily lives. they don't vote on the basis of for return policy they vote on the basis of any of a dozen other issues. and it turns out i think that conventional wisdom is wrong. even if it weren't wrong, it would be disasterous for the country if it were true to really believe that the american people don't understand that the protection of our way of life depends on a strong american presence in the world. but in any event, as i say, the

people who have more common sense than many of their leaders and i think it's going to be evident in the 2016 cycle that national security will be at the center of the debate for some of the reasons i am going to explain. the international environment will get more perillous over the next two years. i think if candidates for the republican nomination or the nominee of the democratic party i think we know who that is going to be at the moment but if we're not prepared to have a debate on america's grand strategy, it is going to be, going to place the nation in even craver danger and i think the fact is right now our situation has deteriorated around the world and confronts congress with some very, very difficult policy decisions because we have an administration and a president who don't give national security the kind of priority it deserves. it may sound counterintuitive, but i think president obama pays

less attention to foreign and defense policy issues than any american president since pearl harbor. i don't think he wakes up every morning and has his very first thought, what threats does the united states face around the world? i think that's evident in a whole series of his policies and in the implementation of those policies and the consequence has been diminished american influence, and diminished american ability to protect our interests, our citizens and friends and allies around the world. the president has revealed this lack of interest in a lot of different ways. some of the things that he said about america's role in the world i think reflect i'm being polite here a deep by lens about american power. -- a deep am by lance. he said in the state of the union last year, long term deployments of american forces

around the world risks inciting extremism. that is the word he uses because he avoids the word terrorism. think of about that statement. deployment of the american forces is a problem. tell that to germany, japan south korea. where long term deployment of american forces has not only been critical to our national security but i think has helped immeasurable ways create a democratic climate in those countries and a climate that is respectful of civilian control over the military something that is extraordinarily important. we haven't fostered extremism in germany, japan and south korea. the president said that nobody in the media commented on it. he said very early in his term of office, when asked if he believed in american exceptionalism, can you imagine? this is the first person who has to be asked that question? but he said yes, i believe in american exceptionalism just as the brits believe in british

exceptionalism and the greeks believe in greek exceptionalism. if you parse that sentence, what he says in the first third, that he believes in american exceptionalism he takes away in the second 2/3. there are 193 countries in the u.n. he could have bonn on just as the fasi believe in bore keen that fast sy. ecuador exceptionalism. you get the point. if everybody is exceptional nobody is. yet our president doesn't have confidence in the american role in the world and to see that, you can't have a strong and sustained american economy with out a sustained and strong american presence internationally. obviously the reverse is true as well. you can't have that strong international presence if you don't have a strong domestic economy. just as the aphorism predicts we have a weak economy and weak presence in the world and every risk within the next two years our adversaries who can read

calendars just as well as we can will try and take advantage of that. they don't know who will be elected in 2016. none of us do but they know that obama has two more years. so just looking at the array of issues that we face in a short survey i think you can see unfortunately the grave consequences that the united states and its friends and allies face because of the president's policy of weakness inattention, lack of involvement, lack of resolve lack of resources for the military. let's just start in eastern and central europe with what is happening in ukraine and the threats that other nations in the region face. you know in 1945 we thought we had resolved the question after two deadly world wars that military force was no longer going to be used on the continent to change international boundaries. and in fact we went on to a

third world war the cold war to prevent that from happening as well. and at the end of the third world war of the 20th century, when the soviet union collapsed, many people said peace is at hand. end of history, we don't have anything else to worry about. what we're seeing in ukraine today is that history never ended or if it did it certainly has returned with avengance. crimea has been annexed by russia. they are in the process of increasing their military control over provinces of ukraine. i don't know where this is going to end. i don't believe that the agreement that was signed in minsk a few days ago will hold for a long period of time. it is not that much different from the agreement announced in september which broke down. so in three or four months we'll see if this one doesn't break down as the territory that moscow effectively controls in ukraine continues to exist. and it is not just what's

happening in ukraine that's a problem. i know there are some people who say, you know, it is a struggle in a country far away among peoples of whom we know little. some of you in the room will know that phrase that is what neville chamberlain said about the sudanton land in september of 1938. you but it goes well beyond ukraine. what has happened here is that putin has driven a wedge into the nato alliance. i think he seize the prospect for -- season out come for russia far territorial aggrandizement at the expense of ukraine. i think he seize possibility unthinkable, a few yearsing a of shattering the nato alliance it may well be his next targets could be the baltic republics, as stone yaw, latvia lithuania. the russians in years gone by already engaged in cyber warfare

against those countries. they have large ethnic russian populations. if putin believes relatively low cost he can take aggressive action against r begins one or more of those countries and nato fails to respond for first time ever when a nato country was imperilled that the alliance itself could collapse because there is no american leadership. this deal just signed in minsk was notable by the absence of the president of the united states. we are the leaders of the nato alliance. the president doesn't want to lead the nato alliance. he might do us the courtesy of telling us that. of course he is not going to. that would be impolitic. if there is one thing that is consistent in the president's foreign policy it is his concern for the domestic political implications of what he does but make no mistake about it. i think the europeans and i mean specifically chancellor merkel of germany, have looked at the

situation and said, we're not going to see american leadership for the next two years. in germany they have got their own problems economic dependence on russian oil and gas, a crisis in the eurozone, a general disin:mation to use german power for good and sufficient his to tore call reasons. they rely on american leadership. when it is not forthcoming i think chancellor merkel has decided she is going to look out for german interests and cut deal even she may consider unsatisfactory in order to try to stablize the situation in ukraine until such time as america get as president who is prepared to try and prevent the use of military force in europe to change boundaries. now, you know there is nobody watching what happens in ukraine, i think more carefully than the leadership in beijing. because they're seeing the world's preeminent political military alliance responding

ineffectively in ukraine and there is no comparable alliance structure in east and southeast asia. so, in china today although the conventional wisdom in the united states is that china's undergoing a peaceful rise and it will be a responsible stake holder in world affairs, that is only one potential scenario. it may be the most desirable but it is certainly not the most likely. as well as its economic strength china's engaged in a massive buildup of its ballistic and nuclear forces. it is a building a blue water navy for the first time literally in 600 years. as bill said it has advanced cyber warfare capabilities and satellite capabilities area defly and anti-access weapons systems. it is modernizing the people's liberation army ground components and and it is essentially now making a sort of

almost belligerent territorial claims in the east china sea and the south china sea. once again many people in the united states may say, but that is so far away all these islands, three inches above the water on a good day. what possible interest can they be to us? well the interest to us i think is palpable because not only are there potentially important mineral reserves in and around the east and south china sea but what the chinese are doing, and they have said it publicly, they intend to make at least the south china sea into a chinese lake. they have claimed the borders of, that go back, claimed those back some time. they have now establish ad provincial capital, if you can believe it on one of these islands three inches above the water. they are confronting the philippines and vietnamese in the south china sea. and our response is to call on all sides to negotiate competing

territorial claims peacefully. that's a little bit like praying that the claims are resolved peacefully. it is very admirable but it is not going to guaranty an outcome that we or the others see as satisfactory. now what difference does it make if china asserts and can maintain sovereignty over the south china sea? every barrel of oil that goes to japan, south korea, and taiwan from the middle east passes through the south china sea. a huge amount of international commerce generally goes through that and the straits of ma lackca. if the chinese turn the south china sea into territorial waters they will have their hands around the throats of key economies in east asia, key trading partners and friends of the united states. result in a huge strategic shift in the region. yet we have a president who despite much trumpeted pivot

toward asia has done essentially nothing in response to these potential chinese threats. nobody is looking for a hostile relationship with china. quite the contrary. but the way to avoid a difficult, fraught relationship or an even more perillous one is to have the united states in a position of strength. and instead, we are in a position of weakness. it was an issue during the 2012 campaign where governor romney, for example, pointed out that at that time about 287 ships at sea, the united states navy was at its lowest level since 1916. one, nine one, six. goes along with president obama's budget for the army where this fiscal year we're projected to have a ground force level equal to the force level of our army in 1938. another good year. this is this is a reduction in

american capability that will not be made up overnight, even with the right kind of president elected in 2016. and there is every prospect that the downward trend of our capabilities will increase unless congress steps up and does what some consider a politically unpopular thing of defending and expanding the military budget in a time of tight fiscal constraints. but i think, i think it is critical that we do that. i think we should do it unshamedly and fully defending the reason why we need to get the military budget up just as ronald reagan did when he took office after the carter administration, in a time of economic difficulty. he said to cap wine merger -- weinberger expenditures of defense are not just a budget line item. that is the exactly the attitude we've got to follow. now i mentioned that president

obama had bragged about his pivot from the middle east toward asia. and i suppose that's because he thought things were going so well for us in the middle east that we could afford to turn our attention away. in fact, they weren't at the time and things are in even worse shape now. in country after country, across the middle east and north africa, what has been a crisis here and a crisis there and a crisis in the next country has merged together and we have the entire region slipping into chaos. you can see it in the disintegration of national governments around the region. began certainly before the obama administration but i think it is accelerated dramatically since the arab spring, which the president badly misread, to the detriment of many american allies in the region. allies who were concededly not

jeffersonian democrats but who at least had the virtue of upholding deals they had made like hosni mubarak with the peace treaty between egypt and israel. and others. and instead we've got a region we are where terrorists and warlords are increasingly taking root threatening their neighbors, destroying existing governments and ripping up boundary lines that have been in place since the end of world war i. really began in somalia back in the early 1990s but we see this problem continuing in the sudan and across north africa, libya, being the prime example of a country that has just disintegrated since the overthrow of qadaffi. we have boko haram in northern nigeria, declaring its own caliphate. it is now attacking in cameroon

and niger and probably elsewhere across the region. we've seen terrorists nearly topple the government of mali. we've seen terrorist attacks against oil and gas facilities in algeria. got little attention in this country but one of the worst terrorist incidents there. in egypt we've seen the muslim brotherhood come to power and nearly snuff out the opposition. had there not been a military coup against it, even today, no one is in control of the sinai peninsula. and it is a highway for extremists and terrorists and traffickers in drugs and human beings. nobody has got control over it. just been reading in the newspapers recently yemen has collapsed as state allies of iran and the houthis control sinai, the capital. another capital where our -- sanaa. other capital where our embassy

officials had to flee because we can't protect them. what used to be the country of yemen you have both al qaeda in the arabian peninsula as a base and surrogate for iran at the back door of saudi arabia and other oil producing monarchies of the peninsula. this is the country that the president called, an example of a success story of his count terrorism policies. just moving to the north obviously you have isis literally creating a new state out of the remains of what used to be syria and iraq. i think we're at the point where realistically you have to say that the country of iraq is, as we have known it since the breakup of the ottoman empire doesn't exist anymore. i don't see the kurds ever going back into a country that looks like what iraq used to. they're defacto independent and i think only force would change that which they would resist to the end. sunni-arabs what used to be iraq

will not go back into a country dominated by political forces that operate under the will of the ayatollahs in tehran. syria has come apart. the kingdom of jordan is threatened only there as you of because of the latest act of brutality of isis. we saw the king step up and act like a real leader to the embraer mass end of many people in the united states who wished we had a leader of that kind of strength. but the fact is that isis continues to develop support all around the world. it is a threat in the region. it's a threat to jordan obviously, but it too is a threat to the oil-producing monarchies. we have in pakistan, taliban simply waiting for the ultimate american withdrawal. many of you have probably heard the famous taliban saying, referring to us, they say you have the watches, we have the time. they're right. at least under this administration. and if afghanistan falls to the

taliban again, it will not simply put that country back to where it was before 9/11 but it will be a major threat to the stability of the government of pakistan. and if that government were to fall to the radicals, not only would it also be a base for international terrorism, but with its supply of nuclear weapons, it would be an iran on steroids right now. a grave threat, not only on the subcontinent but for terrorist attack around the world. then of course, i have saved the best for last iran. which is a state sponsor of terrorism. it has been since 1979 the largest source of financial support for terrorists around the world. and it is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. so of course the obama administration is looking to reach an agreement with them on their nuclear weapons program. abandoning the basic premises of

an acceptable agreement that the europeans have pressed for for over a decade, that iran would have to give up uranium enrichment. their uranium enrichment capability will be legitimatized by this deal. and substance of the deal itself, when we finally see it announced is simply a deal that will try and maximize the amount of time that we have to find out when iran violates the agreement. that's what this boils down to. and i think it will be a destablizing event all over the region. i think other countries will accept that iran is on an inevitable track towards nuclear weapons. they will try to get nuclear weapons as well this already volatile region will be even more dramatically at risk. we do have allies in the region. we have israel. its prime minister is coming here to this congress in less than a month to speak about the threat of iran's nuclear

weapons. the president of our country, will not receive this leader of one of our closest allies. what signal does that send to the terrorists, to the state sponsors of terrorism, to nuclear proliferatetors? what signal does it send to our friends, who say, if this is the way the united states now treats its closest allies how will it treat us when our time of trouble comes? it really is a low point, i think in recent american history. although, i'm sad to say there is a lot of competition for that dubious honor. and i think the low point to date, to come back to libya yaw has been been events, before during and after the attack on our consulate in benghazi on september the 11th, 2012.

obviously we weren't ready for it. whether we were able to or not we didn't do anything on the date of the attack to save those four americans. or to do anything else to protect other americans in the region who were at risk and potentially in danger for days thereafter. but worst of all from the point of view of american national security, look at how little we have done since that attack in benghazi. . .

strong and positive benign force in the world or do you think america is too pushy, too successful come into assertive and more withdrawal in america will make a peaceful world?

i think that's the way the president looks at it and it's like looking through the wrong end of the telescope that's the debate we are going to have in 2016 and the candidates likely to win are the candidates that can explain why supporting the strong american presence in the world is critical to the liberty here at home. thank you very much. >> we have time for questions is that right? guesser. >> can you touch on turkey and their proximity it seems very tempting. >> i think turkey has been increasingly a problem for the western alliance over the past ten or 15 years and we first saw in the run-up to the second gulf war when we couldn't get the

parliamentary majority in turkey to allow the transient of american military units across the country into northern iraq. turkey was and still is the nato ally into this conflict was on their border. but i think it's certainly gotten worse under the payments are now president. i think he's made a very clear decision to move turkey away from the vision of turkey as a secular westernizing country has done this in a number of ways purging the military and the courts suppressing the domestic dissent and i'm very worried about the direction turkey is taking things further away from the west. i don't know whether he has a style of ideas or whether it's some thing you do or focus on turkey but i do know that when

he was the mayor of istanbul he said that democracy is like a streetcar you write it to this topic you want and then you get off and i find that a pretty chilling proposition and i just worry when i read that he's considered to be obama's best friend on the leaders. we should be vigorous in our diplomacy with turkey and we have to do what we can which is limited. we would maintain them as a strong member of the alliance. i'm very much referring. yes ma'am. >> on the men's peace process, there've been some statements from the right sector saying they won't even observe the cease-fire. is this something that's in control of the government and that also the secretary-general

of the omb that while there were some russian soldiers identified in eastern ukraine they could find no evidence of the russian military and how -- they could find no evidence of heavy military equipment in. >> i think the deal is very shaky and the odds of it being sustained our small and putin has been pursuing a strategy of divide and talk and i honestly don't know what his ultimate objective is. certainly the conflict and the annexation represent only a small percentage of the total territory in ukraine that you might expect a real russian

irredentist want to carve out of the country. so i don't know whether it is putin doesn't feel he's capable of going as far as he might or because of the price of oil and international markets russia has been very badly harmed and putin may feel he needs a respite from the fighting in the short term for the russian economy to recover and get some of the sanctions lifted, but that's why i don't have any confidence to be sustained. certainly since the last settlement or the last cease-fire along the lines of the september principles then broken that russia's territorial control into the dispute over the eastern province has grown very considerably. there are some aspects about the

deal in minsk and the political questions below the level of the cease-fire in the eastern provinces and what it might serve as a precedent from putin from increased autonomy from kiev and other provinces because it is in the russian spirit of influence. it is an effort to gain a breather on the part of russia and its satisfactory to france and germany they want a breather, too and they have to figure out the crisis in the euro and they don't see the united states playing the role at all. i don't think that this is over in ukraine by a longshot and long shot and i very much fear it is not over in other

countries once part of the soviet union. yes sir. >> you have just outlined a number of specific instances in which the obama administration has made of things that many of us consider it to be mistakes given that america's strategic objectives and principles around the world. i'm always shocked by the statements that every once statement that every once in a while float out from the white house. there is an ideology behind it. if you think that global warming is something that has more impact on more people than the murder of a few americans being held hostage then you probably don't think that the loss of people in benghazi even if they are representatives of the president

do also think that that does not come up to a major point of concern. it was i think too often for saying they knew what they were getting into when they signed up for overseas assignments which is a shocking thing. you have always focused on some very specific and sometimes very small there is a situation in western africa who are very much involved in the crash. it's taken to the ideological drift that basically makes us think foreign-policy doesn't matter. it's only crimea. we all know it because we know

music. at what point do americans become alert to the fact that these individual little part -- particles form together on the matters? >> it happens all the time it happened on 9/11. 13 years after we appear to have forgotten about it. i don't doubt the president's policy is driven in large part by ideology. a lot of people have theories on it. mine is fairly simple if you went to into the ivy league schools and believe what he was taught he's not the first person to hold those views if you went to the faculty lounge of the great universities today you just slip right into the conversation. he just happens to have been elected president and that is what the danger is. i am very worried that if we don't look at the events around the world and draw the same would seem to me to be clear

conclusions it would take a tragedy of great dimension to bring america back to its senses and i have feared for many years the next tragedy involves a weapon of mass distraction and that's why we focused on the nuclear weapons program all these years and the risk of proliferation. generally if the terrorists could get their hands on a nuclear device, god knows the north koreans will sell anybody anything for hard currency. how will that play out for the united states, and i just think that the risk of this kind of attack is so acute that we have to have this debate to make people aware of it and as we do have the debate it will come out the right way.

the witnesses were the general kelly of telecom and then admiral pat who was in the commander. given the national threat coming from the south the absence of the military in the caribbean central american region and more accurately general kelly was saying we could hear what's going on. we are hearing is a new environment now in the caribbean and russian activity. going south of the border in the region there is a next essential threat could you address his comments? >> secretary kerry has taken that into account and the whole doctrine is outdated. they were threatened by a lot of

interest by the adversaries and potential adversaries in the western hemisphere. we have those all around the hemisphere like in cuba and the like in venezuela and like in other south american countries that would be receptive to these sort of overture's from the adversaries. but even in the obama administration the higher officials of the revolutionary guards corps a few years ago for conspiring to murder the saudi arabian ambassador in washington by intel trading of the assassins through mexico into the united states. it's a pretty stunning document when you read it. the president's response to all this to try to get the diplomatic relations with the castro regime in cuba. this is a novel of -- another

signal and i think ignoring the geostrategic reality that we face in our own hemisphere is something that we do at our peril. it's a problem for the united states. everyone comes in and says we need to spend time on the western hemisphere and then they don't do it. we really do need to spend more time and more concerned with the threats that we may face here in the hemisphere and one of them will materialize. i'm i am quite concerned about it. the trouble is i think the entire remarks demonstrate there are so many problems that fester for six years because the president will address them and when you lay them all out it sounds pretty gloomy and in fact it is pretty gloomy. even if we faced up to a limited number of these problems, others would still have remained two and danger of the friends and

allies. the threats and challenges will make them easier to resolve. it doesn't obviously it makes them harder. >> first of all i was moved by your excellent description of the obama administration and if you become the president of the national security problem in the united states i noticed you haven't mentioned much about the north korea. it's generally focused on that issue.

he's afraid of the more. when the united states says we don't want the war then the enemy can win without fighting the war at all. i spent a lot of time worrying about the north korean problem insulted by the rulers of north korea in my time and still view it as quite an honor that they attack. my view is that the only long-term solution to the north korea nuke leer weapons threat is to merge the two koreans. that's what we were going to give in 1945 in what was supposed to be temporary.

you take the argument to china but if they are serious, the north korea nuclear capable of the endangers the stability in east asia and compares china's economic growth and risks the peace then china needs to do what is the unique capacity to do to get the regime down. it supplies 90% of the energy and incredible amounts of food and other humanitarian assistance into north korea largely to keep the regime in power in the north koreans on their side of the border. the chinese leaders have an increasing recognition that the north korean regime is a pretty ugly piece of baggage and that ultimately it is in china's interest to see them united.

i think unfortunately much of the problem is in south korea which sees unification as a costly burden to that. i think that is a bad reading of what happened. i think this would be an enormous accomplishment. i think that it would destabilize the region. they would've to be talked to at some length and what to do with the american forces on the peninsula. i would be happy to move them from the 38th parallel where they would no longer be needed. the chinese see the threat on the river and they saw that in 1950. we can find a way to work this out with china but it takes time

to read we are not even later approaching it and as you alluded to north korea the last six years and that is better than making the concessions to the north koreans in the hopes which is no more likely than iran giving up its nuclear programs. we need six more years of progress. if you don't think that north korea is a global threat * of white north koreans were in serious building a nuclear reactor that was a clone of the reactor beyond until the israelis destroyed until 2007. the north koreans nuclear weapons program is one of the issues that nobody wants to talk about but i would be amazed if there were not substantial work between the two.

it would be remarkable if there wasn't cooperation on nuclear front as well and that ought to be troubling to everybody. you are too far to the right. it's important for the u.s. to have enough military power to defend its interests overseas. it seems as though a large number of our allies seek our strength for granted in the spending for their own defense. what can we do to ensure the allies? since the nato circumstance, for

example, the downward trend in the expenditures by the nato allies has been going on for a long time and i think what is required and perhaps what is happening now unfortunately there is a silver lining in this debacle in ukraine. and they understand what is at stake and what happens when the united states fades away. we have to tell the nato allies to do more and then we just act like it doesn't make a difference. i think the new president would have to take a very strong line inside of the nato alliance to say we are not going to do this as business as usual again and i think there would be a lot of support. this goes to the critical question of american leadership. if you don't leave don't expect the others to follow if you're not out there. i contrast on the pacific side i think the japanese are engaged

in a very important and legitimate debate about the post-world war constitution and what it means to be a normal nation and i think we can safely say they are a normal asian and should the normal nation provide for its own self-defense. so i think that debate the japanese will have that debate but it's going in the direction of a logical conclusion that they are going to have to be more active especially if the united states is not. so the circumstance is an different parts of the world and and we could have a fascinating discussion about india in that regard and how they see the events playing out on the subcontinent in asia generally. but this says something about what happens when america withdrawals from the world and and it doesn't make what we need to play not because we are all true mystic. we are not out there doing this for these other countries for their benefit. we are doing it for our benefit. and if we don't do it, nobody else is going to do it for us. thank you very much. [applause]

thank you all very much for joining us for this program and i want to make a quick announcement talking about north korea. next wednesday is the korean new year and we do a radio broadcast into north north korea every day. on that day we especially send a message to the members of congress so if there's any members of congress, any people that are here if you want to spend a special -- send a special message, we are gathering those together. it's a really uplifting way to show the north koreans would americans really care about. if you want to participate in the program in the next few days we are gathering those. thank you all for being here and we look forward to seeing you at the next forum. thank you. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] president obama will be speaking at the white house summit on cybersecurity and consumer protection taking place at stanford university. live coverage of that coming up 2:20, just under an hour from now. it will be on c-span. and on cybersecurity the hill has this article. the white house is funding efforts to wipe out the password as the primary security code used to access sensitive data online. officials and experts say the password is inherently weak and frequently misused and easily phrases like password and 123456 and bank accounts, social security numbers and other sensitive information at risk. for many the ultimate goal is to kill the password which has

become a favorite refrain for white house cyber security coordinator michael daniel. president obama's homeland security adviser said iran to getting passwords is one of the administrations cyber goals. coming up tonight, wrote to the white road to the white house with american conservative foundation in information sharing and former hewitt packer ceo at a politics and eggs breakfast in new hampshire. she said she's considering a run to be the 2016 republican candidate for president. and again that comes up at 8:00 eastern tonight than tonight then at nine kentucky senator rand paul at the american spectator magazine gala. he defended the 2013 government shutdown and he criticized torre clinton for the benghazi attack. see those both tonight starting at eight eastern on c-span. >> to provide proven leadership

is our challenge in 1992, that is why today i proudly announce my candidacy for president of the united states of america. [cheering] a special presentation on presidential campaign announcement. from ronald reagan in 1979 to barack obama in 2007. and we will re- air these announcements later in the evening at 9 p.m. on booktv c-span2. finalists for the national book critics circle award starting at noon eastern the pulitzer prize winner david brion davis on his third and final volume in the history of slavery focusing on emancipation. at one time go 30 elizabeth argues we are currently undergoing a mass extinction and this one is the result of human action and will be the most devastating. then at three french economists along with senator elizabeth warren talk about wealth and economic inequality on american history tv on c-span three at eight eastern cartoonist patrick

draws ten presidential caricatures as the history and david discusses the presidency and to some of the most memorable qualities. then at 7 p.m. in 1960 nbc interview with former president herbert hoover discussing his life beyond the presidency presidency and the nine time go 30 hour conversation with playwright james stokes and after dairy bacon about the ford theater production of the widow and into mark the 150th anniversary of president lincoln's assassination. find our complete double vision schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at (202)626-3400, e-mail comments@c-span.org or send a delete at c-span has tagged comments. join the conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on vitter >> veterans affairs secretary mcdonald was on the hill to talk about the budget request.

the va is asking for $168 billion, that is a 7.8% increase over the last year. other officials and leaders from various veteran service organizations also testified before the house and veterans affairs committee. >> the hearing will come to order. we are here to discuss the president's fiscal year 2016 budget request for the affairs. mr. secretary, welcome to the committee. i understand that your testimony will be a little bit different today than what we are accustomed to with the arrest of the charts. to help us better understand what you're seeing in terms of the challenges that lay ahead and i would say that is indeed a welcome change. so too is the openness that you have had with me and members of this committee and this congress about your plans to change the culture at the va.

as your testimony illustrates you've been active in visiting the facilities. i think it is well over 90 at this point talking with employees, veteran groups in your private-sector colleagues with one aim in mind, putting everyone's focused squarely on the needs of veterans. thank you for your willingness to take the job of secretary and thank you for putting everything that you have into that job. returning to the business of examining the va budget request i see some very positive things. but also there are some areas where we will have considerable question marks. the committee task will be to learn as much as possible in order to inform our views and estimates letter that is due next friday. on the positive side, mr. secretary, you have literally tackled a very sensitive issue of the va's aging infrastructure. coupled with a more realistic

budget request for the va major construction program, addressing the closure of unsafe, vacant or underutilized facilities begins an important conversation about the future of alignment of the va infrastructure. i have long argued that we needed a strategic reassessment of the va construction program. that is in part with the independent assessment and veterans health healthcare commission established in the last summers choice act tasked with examining. you have my commitment and the committee's commitment to work with you as this conversation begins. i have several areas of concern that i hope you and the second panel can address. first, and i'm going to be frank as i have in the past with you on this particular issue. the proposal to reallocate any portion of the $10 billion appropriated for the veterans choice program is a nonstarter.

understand there is a great degree of uncertainty about the programs utilization. but in appropriating the money the congress had to work with the best estimates that we had at the time to stretch those dollars including limiting eligibility criteria for veterans. so if there's good to be any reallocation it's going to be due to be good to further improve and strengthen the program itself and not address other specified needs. second, the budget requests an additional $1.3 billion for the va medical care on top of the advanced appropriation for fiscal year 2016, bringing the total proposed increase to 7.4%. at a threshold level i do not understand how this request interacts with the $15 billion congress provided last summer for the non- va care and infrastructure as part of the veteran actor choice

accountability act. it would appear that there are considerable unknown variables in this area such as the degree to which the choice program immediate workload and restores pressure on the va the productivity standards that the va should expect from its workforce and the ability for the va to hire medical professionals on the base of an already large vacancy rate and a national shortage of healthcare professionals. i hope to expand about this a bit more into question. third, i know to 6.5% increase for the veterans benefit administration principally to hire additional staff to address the workload. mr. secretary, there are several of us on the committee, the ranking member included, who have long memories on this issue. we know the disability claims staffing has doubled in ten years and nearly tripled since i arrived in congress in 2001. we've invested over half a billion dollars in the millions

more in other systems and we've provided the tools to encourage veterans to file a fully developed claims which in turn enable a quicker decision. all of these investments were made with a promise that productivity would markedly improve and shift the department away from the usual trend of relying on the ever-increasing workforce and overtime to deal with the workload. although i know the production and providing the backlog over the past two years, it's a far cry from seeing individual worker productivity improved given the resources that have already been provided to the department. again this is another area that i hope to address and questioning. finally a big lesson learned last year is that veterans are better served with constant and aggressive oversight. mr. brown and i have asked for a larger committee budget towards that end. one thing that you and i have talked about is the office of inspector general. on a two back belief that they

need and an increase larger than the .3% increase provided in the budget. proposed from that isn't even enough to cover inflationary costs let alone the increased oversight that we all rely on so heavily. again, mr. secretary, thank you for what you're doing. i look forward to your testimony and to hearing from the veteran service organizations on the second panel. the va system is for those and those they represent the input on the budgetary matters is critical in forming the committee and the congress on the va budget request. with that i recognize ms. brown for her opening remarks. >> thank you mr. chairman and welcome, mr. secretary. i want to say that i'm very happy that you're here this morning. and i'm looking forward to hearing how this budget request will need the needs of our veterans. the president has proposed a large increase to the va for

fiscal 2016 the president has proposed an 8% increase in funding for the va healthcare personnel, construction, research and claims processing. given this large request, i'm looking forward to our discussion today and how it will assist our work as a committee to make sure that his proposed budget gives you the dollars that you need but also assures us how in congress every dollar that you received will be spent wisely. i certainly wish my bill hr 216, the department of veterans affairs budget plan and reform act of 2015 was the law of the land. it's an input and tools to assist us and you and match the resources to the needs of the veteran and ensure that we are planning for the future to make sure that we don't let our veterans down.

mr. secretary, the first question that i would ask is does your proposed budget give you all the dollars you need to fix the problems that you face meet the goals and the initiatives that the department has laid out, keeping in mind the funding provided by the act i hope we can discuss whether you have enough resources to ensure veterans do not face the delay is in getting access to healthcare. i hope we can discuss how you are looking down the road to ensure veterans have the access to the deep va care in the future. i always hear from veterans how they prefer to be a care when it's available. i hope that we are all going to work together to make sure that health care our veterans pay for is available to them when they need it. this is the first year the va benefits program will be fully funded on the advanced

appropriations. they won't have to worry about what we are doing in congress and it won't affect how we operate. finally, i want to hear about your reform and reauthorization efforts and how this budget request would support these efforts. i also want to hear about how you are making progress in an effort to reform and generalize and reinvigorate the va. too often all we hear about is the problem the va is having. i would like us to also consider what we can do to fix those problems and to point out what the va is getting right. i'm pleased with this budget request and i hope these dollars can fix what is wrong and strengthen what is right with the va. with that mr. chairman i yield back the balance of my time. >> i would like to welcome the first panel to the table this

morning accompanying the honorable robert mcdonald, secretary of veterans affairs doctor carolyn clancy and secretary for health, the honorable allison hickey under the secretary for benefits. mr. ronald walters, interim undersecretary for the memorial affairs ms. helen tierney executive director in charge for the office of management and the va chief financial officer and mr. warren, executive in charge of and chief information officer within the office of information and technology. mr. secretary, again, thank you for being here and please, proceed with your statement. >> thank you chairman miller ranking member brown to my members, thank you for the virginity to discuss the 2016 budget and 2017 advanced appropriations request. thank you as well for joining me in vermont last week for the groundbreaking town hall meeting. we deeply appreciate the presence and the congress

support for veterans, their families and survivors as well as the advocacy of the veteran service organization. our nation is emerging from the longest war in its history. va is emerging the va is emerging from one of the most serious crises the department has ever experienced. we now have before us the greatest opportunity we've ever had to improve care for veterans and to build a more efficient and more effective system. with your support we intend to take full advantage of this remarkable and timely opportunity. members of this committee chair michael to make the va a model agency with respect to customer experience and stewardship of taxpayer resources. an example for other government agencies. with efficient and effective operations, we looked to be comparable to the very top private-sector businesses. this is how we best meet in asia and obligations to all our

veterans. the cost of fulfilling his obligations to our veterans grows, and we expect it will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. we know that services and benefits for veterans do not peak until roughly four decades after the conflict ends. this chart demonstrates the number of the veterans receiving service connected disability benefits from world war i in 1958, for world war ii and peaked in 1985 and for korea it peaked in 1993 and for vietnam veterans, it was just last year 2014 when it peaked. it's worth remembering that today almost 150 years after the civil war ground to a halt, the va is still providing benefits to the child of a civil war veteran. we still have troops in both

iraq and afghanistan and in the last decade, we have already seen dramatic increases in the demand for the benefits and care. this chart shows how over 40 years from 19622000, the percentage of the veterans receiving compensation from the va was stable at about eight and a half%. but in the last 14 years since 2001, it's dramatically increased 19%, more than double. simultaneously, the number of claims and the number of medical issues in the rated claims the va has completed has soared. as this chart shows in 2009 vba completed almost 980,000 claims. in fiscal year 2017, we project that we will complete over

1.4 million claims. that is a 47% increase. but there has been even more dramatic growth in the number of medical issues and claims. 2.7 million, 2.9 and a projected 5.9 million in 2017. it is just over eight years. these increases were accompanied by the dramatic rise in the average degree of disability compensation granted to veterans from 1950 to 1995 the average degree of disability held steady at 30%. but since the year 2000 the average degree of the visibility has risen to 47.7% as this chart shows. so while it is true that the total number of veterans is declining, the number of those

seeking care and benefits from the va is increasing. fueled by more than a decade of war, a jet orange related to disability claims, and unlimited claims appeal process come increased medical claim issues, far greater survival rates among those wounded, more sophisticated methods for identifying and treating the veterans medical issues come in demographic shifts, veterans demand for services and benefits has exceeded the capacity to meet. it's important that congress and the american people understand why this is happening. the most important consideration is that america's veterans are aging. as with any population, health care requirements and the demand for benefits both increase as veterans age and exit the workforce. this chart reveals an astounding

shift. in 1975 country year that i graduated from west point just 40 years ago, only 2.2 million american veterans were 65-years-old or older. 7.5% of our veteran population. in 2017, here on the far left we expect 9.8 million would be 65 or older or 46% of the veterans. 7.5% to 46%, an astounding increase. so today we serve a population that is older, with more chronic conditions, and less able to afford private-sector care. we predicted that benefits for veterans of recent conflicts will peak around 2055 if we assume that afghanistan and iraq are winding down this year. and it's fair to imagine that members of congress, the

president and the secretary of veterans affairs in 2175 will be debating resources that will in part help but care for the family members in iraq and afghanistan veterans. currently, 11 million of the 22 million veterans in this country are registered, enrolled or use at least one va benefit or service. veterans are demanding more va services than ever before. the number of all veterans who are seeking the va medical care is steadily growing. the requirement for women veterans, a very important issue for us coming and mental health, another important issue for us have increased dramatically. over 635 women veterans are now enrolled in va health care. and over 400,000 actively used the va for care. that's double the number using va care in the year 2,000. we see an evil increases and women in women veterans seeking

care of about 9%. and this trend will continue and probably even go higher. our women veterans call center now connects with over 100,000 women veterans per year. over 1.4 million veterans with a mental health diagnoses are enrolled in the va. an increase of 64% from the year 2015. there were approximately 19.6 million mental health outpatient encounters in 2014. that's an increase of 72% from 2005. since its inception in 2007 through 2014 the veterans crisis line has answered over 1.6 million calls and assisted in over 45,000 rescues. over 1 million veterans receive services through the primary care mental health integration program begun in 2007 through

november, 2014. the annual number of encounters has grown from about 182,000 in fiscal year 2008 to over 1 million in 2014. as veterans witnessed the results of the positive changes the va is making and regain trust in the va and as the military simultaneously downsizes, the number of veterans choosing va services will continue to rise. it should, and our veterans have earned it. we are listening hard to veterans, congress employees, and other stakeholders are telling us. and what we hear drives us to a historic unprecedented departmentwide transformation. changing the culture and making the veteran the center of everything that we do. that's the way we want better instead think about the va.

it's theirs and it's if there is and it's personalized and customized and this transformation appeals to many organizational reforms to better unify the department's efforts. my va focuses on five objectives which i have shown here on the bottom. first is improving the veteran experience so that every veteran has a seamless, integrated and responds experience every single time. second improving the employee experience eliminating barriers to customer service to achieve people's excellence, so employees can better serve the veterans. we have no hope of taking care of veterans of the don't take care of the employees in the va. third, improving our internal support systems and services. fourth, establishing a culture of continuous improvement so local levels can identify and correct problems more immediately into that replicate

the proven solutions across the entire network. and fifth, enhancing strategic partnerships. my va revolutionizes the culture and it reorients the department without the need of veterans measuring success by veterans outcomes and as opposed to some kind of internal metrics. we intend every veteran to have a seamless integrated and responsive customer service experience every single time. recognizing the department geographically is a first substantial and important step in achieving this goal. in the past, the va had nine organization structures, one for each line of business. so imagine a business with nine different businesses, nine different sub businesses in the different organizational structures and the different middle-management. our new unified organization

framework has won national structure as it is shown in this chart. the new structure has just five regions. i winding the disparate organizational boundaries into a single framework. this facilitates internal coordination and collaboration among business lines, create opportunities for integration at a much lower level and promotes effective customer service. veterans will see one va rather than individual disconnected organizations. last my va is also about ensuring that it's a sound steward of taxpayer dollars. we will integrate lean six sigma systems inefficiencies across our operations to ensure that we balance that are in centric service with operational efficiencies. what we needed the help of congress. the va cannot be a sound steward of the taxpayers resources with the asset portfolio that we are

currently carrying. no business would carry such a portfolio. veterans deserve much better. it's time to close the va's substandard underutilized infrastructure. nine of the va facilities -- i'm sorry, 900 va facilities are over 90-years-old. and more than 1,300 are over 70-years-old. da currently has 336 buildings that are vacant or less than 50% occupied. that's 10.5 million square feet of access which costs us an estimated $24 million a year to maintain. these funds could be used to hire her the 200 registered nurses for a year. we pay paid for 144 primary care visits for veterans. or to support 41,900 days of nursing home care for veterans in community living centers.

we need your support to do the hard right rather than the easy wrong. these reforms will take time. but over the long term they will enable us to better provide veterans with services and benefits they've earned and that the nation promised them. the 2016 budget will allow us to continue this critical transformation to meet the intent of my va. the 2016 budget requests $168.8 billion. 73.5 billion in discretionary funds and 95.3 billion in mandatory funds for benefit programs. the discretionary request is an increase of $5.2 billion order 7.5% above 2015 and active level and provides the resources provide the resources necessary to continue serving the number of veterans who've selflessly served the nation.

the budget will increase access to medical care including increasing access to care for veterans. it will address infrastructure challenges including major and minor construction modernization and renovation. it will end the backlog of claims and veterans homelessness by the end of the calendar year 2015. to fund medical and prosthetics research and it will address the it infrastructure and modernization. we know this is a large request but it's not sufficient to meet all the requirements for either 2016 or 2017. therefore the president will transmit a legislative proposal that will allow flexibility is necessary to reallocate it needed a portion of the veterans choice act funds to improve the va operations a fiscally responsible budget neutral approach to best care for veterans.

as this chart demonstrates this proposal is was largely driven by the uncertainty of what resources we need to fund the new veterans trace program. it's difficult to predict that are in use of the program or its interaction with the medical care based budget because it's all new. we have no long-term data to draw upon you and the current estimates of the demand range from a low of about $4 billion to the high a high of about $13 billion over the three year program. we want and need the flexibility to move resources of the veterans decided to stay inside of the va rather than move outside of the va. this is about ensuring every veteran receives the care that they've earned and deserved regardless of where they choose to get it from. mr. chairman, members of the committee, we need to date at a historically important time for va and the nation. march will mark the 150th anniversary of president lyndon's solid promise to those that have fought the most devastating war in the country's

history. he promised that we would care for those that show up on the battle for their families and the survivors. that is the va's primary mission. it's our only mission. it's the noblest mission supporting the greatest clients of any agency in the country. and we count on your support to uphold the sacred commitment. thank you again for your support for veterans working for us on the budget requests and making things better for all of the great nations veterans. we look forward to your questions. >> thank you mr. secretary for your testimony. as we approach president lyndon's birthday tomorrow, we are ever mindful of his commitment to the veterans of this nation and our responsibility as a congress and in administration. can you tell me a little bit

about how the $15 billion that was appropriated last year in addition to the budget how that is accounted for in this budget? >> well sir as you know that money gets obligated only when veterans use the program. so far in terms of the veterans choice program, we have had nearly half a million calls from veterans about the program, veterans and providers. so far we have had roughly 24,000 veterans make up i spent on the program and go outside. so we obligate that money as it is. also, we are in the process of leasing 27 new facilities and that work is already underway. and we are using the money to hire more doctors.

we have more medical professionals. we have a net increase of over 8,000 medical professionals and that is in the last nine months. november was the biggest month of hiring. we hired over 2,000 more medical professionals then we lost. our turnover rate is about 8% 8.9%. the turnover rate in the industry is about 18% so we are trying everything we can to maintain and hire those that we need. but we ask what we ask is there anything that i missed? >> yes we did have a shift of just over $500 million where we think that the cost will shift to the choice program. >> could you explain that a little bit further? i know there was a telephone conference with staff but talk about the shift.

>> so, understanding the program is still very new, we thought that some of the cost we normally see in the program would be picked up by the choice program. right now the actual results are seeing much more demand for the fee program on the va side of the budget. >> i would say that is a critical component to knowing whether this request is adequate or not. that's why it has a chance to do anything mr. secretary with a choice piece again we arrived up 40-mile criteria because we wanted to have zero. any veteran out there had the choice that never came back from cbo about 50 billion. we couldn't do that so that's where the 40 got there. but there has to be some savings i would suspect that are derived

by alleviating some of the pressure within the system by those that are going outside because of the choice program. >> we are going to be looking at that very carefully. what we also don't understand is what level of demand we had from the veterans who did want to use the services and who were not using the services because of long wait times distance so there's still a lot to understand about choice. >> i don't know that now is the time to make a move of any of the funds. i'm trying to sensitize the committee to the fact that there is a lot of uncertainty and in the budget, we have roughly 70 line items where we can't move money from one line item to

another. what i'm asking is that we work together to have the flexibility so that no matter where a veteran goes we can move the appropriate money and make sure that veteran receives care. >> i will commit to helping you have flexibility just about everywhere within your agency except enough choice piece because of the uncertainty that's where that's what's interesting about this budget request you talked about all the uncertainty that's out there yet we are asking for increases and in the dollar amounts coming yet -- let me get back i have one other question and then i need to get to ms. brown. one of the things i think a lot of us have asked over and over again have never really gotten an answer to fold, number one how much does it cost for a vitter into the scene within the

va versus the private sector as you know mr. secretary they could answer that right away. we have a hard time answering that in the department. and then the other issue is do we know whether the clinical workforce is operating at its maximum capacity and efficiency based on the workload that's out there? there's been a lot of anecdotal evidence presented to this committee that would say that it is not, that physicians are seeing as few as two patients a day which is just absolutely unheard of. >> let me ask him to comment on that but before the let me say as you know my first trip was to phoenix and when i arrived in phoenix i discovered we were short 1,000 people and each primary care doctor had one clinical room and in the private sector today, a primary to adopt

or have three clinical rooms so we have an issue of staffing which the committee helped with the choice act but we also have an issue on infrastructure. it's an old infrastructure. we have women veterans and we don't have the clinical rooms that are in the situation today. ..

that tool has been deployed systemwide winner we are right examiningnext to me some the data quality issues and very importantly are having that extra we reviewed. we would be happy to come back and breathe you in more depth. we think it's a good tool. at this point it's more diagnostic and it is kind of in a place where we can give people great, for example, but we also want to make sure that some of the best and brightest minds have taken a look at it, have kicked the tires and so forth so we are confident as we measure productivity. i just want to reinforce what is secretary chu said a minute ago. some of our clinics, some of the better clinics would bring tears to your eyes in terms of how well they're doing what they're really, really landlocked. one room almost feels like a gift much less the two or three you would see in the private

sector. >> ms. brown. >> thank you, mr. chairman. before i begin my questions mr. secretary, understand you are down in orlando last week meeting with the nurses association. can you give us an update of how that went? also you made an announcement about the opening of a hospital in orlando. can you give us an update on that also? >> yes ma'am. i was in orlando. i spoke to the american nurses association, and i was there to tell them about how exciting it would be to work in va today. and just like you and the chairman went with me to the medical schools in florida to recruit. we were recruiting. we picked up quite a few people who were interested in coming to work for va. the va is the largest employer of nurses in the country, and it's important our nurses are very important to do a great job. that's what i was there.

separately i did visit the orlando hospital, atlanta medical center. the art of patience being seen. we're in the process of moving in. we expect to have a commemoration ceremony of sorts by memorial day, but between now and then it will be new clinics being set up every single week. it's a fantastic facility and i think the citizens of orlando and the area florida will really enjoy going there. >> thank you. dr. clancy, there's a lot of discussion on this committee about, we have doctors on this committee and the talk about this responsibility. it's a little different working with the va because what we expect of the va physicians is a little more comprehensive. when a person goes in let's say i'm going into a podiatrist but they can't just go in and deal with a podiatrist. it's comprehensive.

i mean the blood pressure, it's a whole different casework. can you explain that to our? >> we believe primary care and care for the whole veteran if you will is really the foundation of the system. so for the most part we don't have people just coming in for podiatry or for a hearing aid for example, a very popular use of our facilities, without also taking some of the other risks to their health and so forth. we are taking a very very hard look because there are two overarching goals for this year getting access right whether it's within our facilities, whether it's virtually by telehealth or something like that, or with a choice program. all of that is seamless and are equally high second goal is exceptional veteran experience. we recognize that some veterans actually might choose to simply come in for podiatry and skip the rest.

we are going to be looking at different options for doing that i way of maximizing efficiency and, frankly making the veteran experience very satisfactory. but in general we have an incredible opportunity because of the entirety of the department to auction revenue back on health that no with health care system has. because a lot of things affect health besides medical care. that's income education whether you have a place to live and so forth, and the department has tools through vba and so forth to actually address all of those needs. so we take that very, very seriously. >> the last question i have, what are we doing working with the department of defense as veterans transition to make it seamless, you know, by bumps in the road? i just met a veteran who has been a two years and only 10% disability but the point is he can't get his paperwork from

dod. what are we doing? we've asked this question for years. >> it's a great question. i have to say that secretary hagel and are totally aligned that we want to have a seamless handoff from the department of defense to view. that's why we've instituted programs like t.a.p. water person is on active duty. maybe i will ask allison to talk about the. >> congresswoman brown, some good news on this front the and we didn't obviously help that particular veteran two years ago. we are actively engaged out in the mandatory t.a.p. program for all of our separating service matters including national guard and reserve for which you are now nearly a million who qualify for benefits that did not previously. another thing that is starting literally right now is the mandatory separation health assessment. the choice to the veteran told at the t.a.p. session is that if you're going to make a claim to

va for anything, then be able to complete separation assessment on you top to bottom before you leave service so that we capture everything service-connected right there on the spot. the next thing i would say is we have moved substantially forward with dod on the new system where they give us the complete service treatment record from all the parts in peace we've talked about before that we used to call the gold standard. for a while the numbers were really high but have come to to do about 21% of them are overdue. they're getting better every getting the faster we built all the i.t. connections in the such that we simply note in vbms that we've got a claim. the system does the dod system were asking for the record and then the records come back automatically into vbms or are instantly loaded up into our bbs system for the raiders to do.

that has helped substantially. the last thing i will share with you that we've also done is we have reduce substantially, and those folks waiting in the process now are getting much better in her time in his in the ides process until you also get the benefit that the discharge program, the backlog has been reduced by significant amounts can only about five or 10% of those who are now over 125 days spectacular much and i yield back the balance of my time. >> mr. secretary, i just want to read a text i got from a friend of mine said had a reason to do with the va in jacksonville this morning. we just finished a home for a veteran, i guy handled by request i was are efficient and friendly. i left the conversation warm and complete, very good experience. never had that before. thank you. >> may i get the name so i can send a note of recognition? [laughter] i'm serious.

spent ages came in while i was sitting here occasionally but as you know i've given him my cell phone number publicly nationally and they get about 120 contacts a day, and right now i would say 30, 35% are positive. that's not enough. all of the city at the table at 100% of those to be positive and we're working on it. >> you betcha. i will be glad to provide you his name. >> mr. chairman, you did say jacksonville? >> yes, i did. [laughter] and that's why the never had a good experience last. [laughter] mr. lamborn. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for being here secretary mcdonald. i'm pleased to see that you're focused the portion of your budget on construction efforts but can you tell me the status of a southern colorado national cemetery project? and when you anticipate that they will begin accepting early burials? i'm very concerned that this project stays on track.

>> we are as well. we are in the design phase right now, and we think that design phase will take about a year year and a half. ron, would you like to provide more detailed? >> yes. as you know we have made progress, significant progress on establishing a cemetery in southern colorado. we acquired the 374 acres at rolling hills ranch in el paso county. we do have sufficient funds in the budget right now to complete the design, complete it through construction documents to the final phase of design. once that is completed we will begin the solicitation face or construction of phase one. assuming construction funds are provided in the next budget cycle, and that is you know yet to be determined, we would expect the first burials to

occur sometime in calendar year 2018. >> well, i'm disappointed that the timeline seems to be slipping. i will do everything i can to make sure that those funds are in the budget and double work with other folks to try to achieve that but it sounds like there's been some slipping to the right, and that is disappointing. >> we are going through a complete review right now of our construction management process as you know. sloan gibson, the deputy secretary is leading that, and we've asked the corps of engineers help. we've got to find a way to shorten these timelines that we face. and so we will be looking at that and, obviously, any work we can do to celebrate it we would like to do. >> and i will work with you if any amendments are necessary or any other legislative action to help you have the authority to make faster progress in the future on this or other

projects. changing subject, secretary mcdonald community in the row five versus proposed regions as opposed to 21 visions. i guess that's more efficient it doesn't mean that you will have fewer personnel's doing the same job as before which to me is a hallmark, a result of more efficiency. >> as i said in my remarks this organization is focused on productivity improvement. we don't feel like we can come to you and ask for more money and less we're demonstrating that we're saving money at the same time. that's why we have identified the buildings that are empty that costs us money every year. we have nine different geographic maps. each one for different line of business whether it's insurance or disability. >> and i wonder the question so if you could -- >> to go to five regions and we haven't yet determined how many visions we will have, but they have to fit those five regions.

we have a team of directors looking at that now. everybody is trying to fit into that structure but the point is there will be more efficiency at the middle management level. >> good and i hope that means fewer people doing the same job which means less budget dollars going to -- >> we're kind of at every budget dollar weakened against the veteran experience, making the veteran experience better. >> lastly i know we touch on this but the transition between dod and va and i've 100,000 batters in a district that almost that many dependence and other family members. and the military compensation and moderate retirement, authorization committee has just come out with recommendations but they said there needs to be betterbetter transition. you've making some things that you are working on that is good to hear but what can be done in the future? what could be improved to make

the transition better? >> when we met with that committee throughout their work, i think they've done some excellent work. so many ideas that allison mentioned are brand-new, and before the committee wrote its report. in fact, when they gave us the report we mentioned some of these things and they missed the report. the report was already in print ink at this ib of the medical exam before the service member leaves the service, that's the biggest idea. and i think the problems we've had in the past we will be able to resolve with that. and also with the way we strengthen the t.a.p. program but i think we're getting better but we will continue to look and see if the other things we can do. >> thank you so much. >> ms. titus. >> thank you, mr. secretary. it's nice to see you again. we appreciate you being here. before as much a course on going to bring up what are spring up and that's the real office. we have been without a permanent director for about two years to

we are on our second interim. i understand they haven't started the recruitment but if you moved to las vegas it would be a lot used to recruit a person to come and take that position. so that's my first point. second a hospital in las vegas was too small by the time it was completed because they didn't anticipate the increased usage. we heard deputy secretary sloan say they're going to move some resources to help with the hospital that is out from denver i believe it is aurora. i want to make sure you're not moving any resources from the las vegas hospital to fix the problem in aurora. so if we can just follow up with that. now, my general questions, for the last couple of years we focus on the backlog, fixing that problem, and also problems with our hospitals. so i would like to see us as we move into the next two years look at other areas of benefits and make the va more relevant to

our 21st century veterans. and i appreciated the things that you make in your testimony. one is women. second is lgbt veterans, and third is the issue of medical marijuana. these are all big issues during these times. you talked about how many more women veterans we expect to have come but really what we don't know is what we don't know. and the women veterans task force recommended to physicians that are data-gathering position so we can get a better handle on this. performance, a demographics and research analyst the solid like to know if the va is making those two positions a priority and if we have your commitment that those would be positions that would be funded and utilized? second i would ask you mr. secretary, if you would commit to whether you think the law needs to be changed that prevents the va from giving lgbt veterans the same benefits that other veterans get your they

earned them they deserve them they just happen to live in the wrong state. i don't think that's fair. and third with medical marijuana, as more and more states are legalizing medical marijuana, va doctors are not able to make any kind of recommendations concerning the. i wonder how va policy might be moving to address that issue? >> thank you for the questions. first, on women i took down a painting in my office that it had probably been on the walls and omar bradley was a condition of the and i put up a poster that says women in the military and has a picture of a woman in service in each branch of the military. i did on purpose because this is going to be a defining issue for those of us leading the va right now. you already heard that our buildings are old. we need space to be able to great the women's clinics.

it's different than what the men would want to go and, of course, they care is different because we have gynecologist and other kinds of care. so this is a very important issue for us and we're working very hard to identify where can we put women's clinics with women care? we just got a building from dod in fort mcpherson georgia where we have set up a women's clinic. this is a very big issue for us and we're going to stay after. relative to lgbt, we are following the law. you know if the couple is married in a given state, we will give them benefits. we need a new interpretation in the law or a change in the law. we are following the law. there is an exception to that. and the national cemeteries, if we are able because of the legal authority i have to be able to bury partners together, when

they so choose, and in every case that we've done that we have looked at the relationship and we have granted that. >> if i may interrupt you i appreciate that but in state cemeteries is still remains a problem as i understand it. >> i don't control those. >> they get funding from the va. >> some. on the medical marijuana let me ask dr. clancy to comment. >> so a fair number of our clinicians have veterans who use marijuana come i will put it medically in coast to you live in areas where this is legally possible and so forth. it is very, very early days for us of medical policies but there are active discussions going on now, and try to learn from what we know about treating it for different conditions which by the way are not necessarily identical with those conditions for which veterans believe that they are helpful. i actually think that there's an incredible opportunity for us to learn from some of those

experiences i think we have to be careful given the variation in legal issues. but we would be happy to provide more detail for the record. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i yield to ms. brown for 30 seconds. >> on the area of medical marijuana, we have constantly passed a bill saying that the va doctors cannot administer it even if that state in the area says it's legal, and they could be charged with a felon. so it passed last year on the floor. i didn't vote for it and it is an issue for congress. i mean so if you feel strongly about it that i think maybe you should introduce the bill. but as we speak it is illegal for a va doctor to administer marijuana spirit that is correct, and i was not clear enough on that point. that said again trying to be responsive to veterans experience is and what they're

telling us we are trying to learn from that and understand and anticipate what a different future might look like. >> absolutely. there are all kinds of additional kinds of therapy but as we speak now it is illegal for a physician to administer it, am i correct? and last you we passed a bill on the floor saying it was illegal for a va physician. and i yield back. >> thank you. mr. bilirakis. >> thank you. first of all i want to thank you, mr. secretary, first of all for taking the position and being so accessible to us but more important to our veterans. again, you have made a great deal of progress and we want to help you make more progress, so thank you for your cooperation. we are here for you. first of all i want to talk about, i have some questions with regard to lease

authorization. first of all i want to thank you for working with me to ensure veterans and community stakeholders in my area are being engaged regarding the pasco county lease consolidation located in central florida, to ensure the success of its utilization is important that their opinions are potential locations and with specialty services should be offered are considered. i know you agree. i'm pleased to hear that there will be a potential site visit. can you give me an idea when that might be? >> our staffs are meeting, they met this morning actually so i don't know the outcome of that meeting, i think it should be a minute tomorrow or the next day. >> thank you again. -- should be imminent. >> isn't something we can work with you on to expedite these leases in general, the leases and general? i'm not talking about the 27 leases from last year. >> as i said, sloan gibson, deputy secretary them is going through a process to understand

how can we speed up our ability to design, ladies, construct. and as we go through that if it looks like there's an opportunity for legislation we will come back to you and ask you for your help. right now we are not ready for that, but we are taking a close look at it. >> my next question has to do with the future of lease authorization. i understand there's an issue between the a and gsa with future lease authorization, not the 27th that were authorized last year. can you discuss what options are be considered and if there is enough request in the budget should fund for the full extent is the least be required? if so important we planned ahead. >> i will start and then maybe helen can he. at one time over a year ago now we had a blanket lease authorization which would allow us to enter into from gsa which would allow us to entry into

leases likely easily, with our authority. that has been revoked and it requires us to go to gsa for them to study our leases. in some cases if the cost of the least accede, i think it's 2.85 million dollars, they may actually have to take it to a committee which takes even more time. they have been very helpful. we been working with him to speed up the process, but we're also trying to see if there's a totally different way that we can do. we're applying technology see if there's a way we can improve the process even more. helen? >> gsa has been working very cooperatively with us. we're working on getting those processes right and making sure that we all are working under the same standards for scoring pics i think that is progressing well right now. >> anyone else? thank you very much. i do want to discuss with you in

the future, mr. secretary, expanding dental health care for our veterans within the va and some of the clinics, but i yield back at this time. thank you, mr. chairman. >> we would be happy to do that. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to start by commending you, secretary mcdonald, for the efforts that no team has done to settle the lawsuit out in west los angeles we had a hearing yesterday in the oversight and investigation committee, and we had a discussion about the steps that will be taken. a couple of things and follow and i will be working with our subcommittee chair, but one is we want to stay in very close touch with your team about the plan for the west l.a. facility, particularly addressing homelessness of veterans in west

l.a., and then we have suggested to have a follow-up hearing next fall when you come back with your report so that we can stay closely engaged with that. >> we would love to do that. i think what we demonstrated demonstrate in west l.a. more than anything else is this is a team sport and we all need to play together on the same team. and it's just silly to think that we have a national issue with the veterans of being homeless, and in the city with perhaps the largest homeless population in the country, we had a lawsuit going for four years that prohibited us from making progress. >> and the representative from the american legion said it had been 30 years that they have been working on this problem which goes through a number of administrations. >> we got the land in 1888. >> i wanted to go to the opposite end of the country to my district in new hampshire and talk briefly about the veterans choice program. my colleagues in the senate,

senator ayotte and senator shaking have introduced a bill to make sure that the veterans choice program, whatever happens elsewhere will continue in the states that do not have a full-service va hospital. this is critical for us because we've got folks that come and i know they don't travel the distance is that my colleagues constituents travel, but with weather and such particularly of late. that's important. can ask about how the veterans choice act is working in those states? and you mentioned briefly about hiring new physicians and medical personnel for filling the gap. i particularly interested in mental health providers shortage. if you could comment on that it would be very helpful. >> first of all i'm going to make sure that we are clear that the leadership of va believes

that the system of the future will be a network of both va and outside care. already we in the last year, we did about 550 million apartments in outside care. that was up 48% above year ago. that's even before the choice program. so we are believers in that because that's what our veterans will get served the best. it was misinformation but there was never any intent to either get the choice program for somehow eliminate the choice program. it was simply i was asking for recognition -- gut -- we have 70 line items of budget that we can't move money from. imagine your household coming up a checking account for gasoline. you have a checking account for groceries at the price of gasoline goes down by half you're hungry but you can't move the money from the gasoline account to the food account. welcome that's a situation i

face. i'm trying to serve veterans adam have the flexibility to do that. iran a relatively large business. i have never come it is very hard to achieve customer satisfaction we have all these strictures and restrictions on how you can take care of customers. so that was the only point i was making. the choice program is good program but it's very early days as i said we've had nearly half, 500,000 calls and about 24,000 appointments but we are going to be watching it very closely every single day. we will let you know. >> again, that's something i would assume that oversight committee would want to stay in close -- >> we invited over at all make this invitation to everyone, we invited over congresswoman brown, chairman miller. they came over. he went through our daily come with something we call afghanistan that the it is a technique we review the data from the page make changes to

the next day. deputy secretary tips and leads it, and i would invite any member to come over and watch us do that. i would argue that it might give you confidence in the data that we are giving to you. and you can also see the trend lines spent thank you very much. >> mr. coffman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, in the budget submission for the office of general counsel, you listed recent accomplishments, and this is a quote complex litigation such as the construction projects in orlando and denver how is that a success? you lost that case on every single point for the hospital and my district. hundreds of noise of dollars over budget and years behind

schedule. and the only way to construction could continue was that the general contractor demanded that the va construction management personal be kicked off the project and that the army corps of engineers come in and take over the project. and so you know, i think that that's just. domestic of your glossing over the extraordinary problems confronted by your department. this is a department mired in bureaucratic incompetence and corruption. at a veggie chili i think the public relations is great today, but there's no substance. there is no substance. and i speak i am highly offended by your comments spilled let me finish because i fundamentally believe that as unfortunate as it is, that at the end of the day, at the end of his presidency term that you will not have made a difference in changing the culture of this

organization. by virtue of the fact you continue to gloss over problems. >> i am offended by your comment. actually, i've been here six months. you have been here longer than i have. it is a problem in denver, i think you own it more than i do. i found it ironic that when i went out to l.a. to solve this for your loss or you were busy calling for hearing to discover what happened five years ago. i'm working on the future, sir, and i'm going to correct the path but i'm working on the future because that's what our veterans want. >> for you to say that you're going to the army corps of engineers to invite you to advise you as how to correct the extraordinary problems, let me tell you, i think what you need to do is focus on providing the health care benefits and the other benefits veterans deserve and get out of the construction management this is into ceding to the army corps of engineers. >> that is your point of view

and -- >> each major construction project, hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. that's the problem. >> i think we work very closely with the corps of engineers. general bostwick is a good friend. is also been very helpful. he has told us he does not want total responsibility for all of va's construction. we are going to work with him to find out the right balance of that. we're doing in denver as you know, we appreciate it help to get the building finished and get it finished for a good value for the taxpayers. >> i hope, i hope you can make a difference. >> i would just say maybe if you want obligated myself on tonight and you can answer some of the calls and see if i making a difference for veterans and see what they say. or go on the websites, see what the veterans are saying on the websites. ask the vsos in the next group. >> the fundamental challenge -- >> i run a large company.

>> the fundamental challenge is for this organization to reflect your value, and i'm not sure that that's going to happen and i hope that it does. >> i want your help to do that i need your help. >> i yield back. >> thank you, mr. secretary. mr. o'rourke. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, let me begin by thanking you for your service. i've only been in congress a little over two years but in that short time i really feel that you personally have set a new bar for leadership and accountability and responsibility for the problems that you encountered, that you're turning around and in fact, facing in the future as we build a better va and do better for the veterans whom we serve. case in point, two days after the tragic murder of the doctor in el paso, texas, you were there on the ground meeting with va leadership, the incredible staff that works under

mr. dancing. you in fact ensured that we had in there to begin with. you replace leadership and ensured that we have someone there who could be transformational and that's what we need and our pal so right now. so i want to thank you for that. i also want to thank you for your willingness to work with us, to do better in el paso. i mean again, no need to focus on the past. we are not a top tier performer. we want to be at want to figure how we're going to do that to some of the points that mr. coffman just raised, you know, six or 800 by dollars facility projected to be $1.1 billion or 1.4 at the high end, we can't do that anymore. in el paso with partners like texas tech and the for your medical school, university medical several private providers all of whom are desperate to work with us. i would like your commitment

that we're going, in the short time that we know that you have within it administration, 22 months, put together a plan and get to a point where it is unstoppable so that should we be lucky enough to have you as secretary next administration or your successor will be able to work with us to implement that. can i had a commitment from the publicly to work with me on that? >> as you and i talked we were there a way to the texas tech site, what we wanted in el paso is exactly what we did in los angeles which is we got everybody together can look at all the options and will make the decision together. we work together to get this done. this is a team sport. we can't do it by ourselves and we know that. and so i look forward to working with texas tech. i look for to talking to the department of the army because as you know carly our facility is connected to beaumont but beaumont is closing. but yes, we will work together to develop a plan for el paso. >> thank you but i also want to

thank you for the presentation made at the outset of this meeting. i think you place our current problems in context. not all of them, some of them originate in the va but wars that we choose to engage in a jamaican hopefully we are at the conclusion of our commitment in afghanistan and iraq and we will peak in terms of commitments to those veterans in 2055. i would argue the point that we are still a war in afghanistan. if 10,000 service members their whose lives are on the line. the nato commander said expect more u.s. casualties. we are about to consider an authorization to use military force in iraq and syria. we are and have been in a state of perpetual war and there's a cost to that beyond sending a service member over funding the assets that follow him or her. it's the cost to care for them and their family and their children when they return. i just hope that we're all keeping that in mind as we go forward. much larger cost than the

immediate ones that we consider. that that is choice past this august and cleared a component to assess the health care processes. it was supposed to be an independent assessment. what you have in the 20 '16 budget that would fund implement in the findings from those assessments, if any? i do know when that is supposed to conclude. >> thank you. as you said the choice act actually has required a number of assessment which, frankly, we think are an incredible gift. but last weekend i spoke to a blue-ribbon panel that they have assembled and we'll take a look across all of the assessments. they will be finishing their work by this august, and are working very very hard, weekends, evenings whatever they

need to make sure that that happens and they're looking at all aspects of our operations. >> do you have dollars in this budget to cover with the recommendations? >> i don't think we have explicit dollars. we expect that this will be a core part of management and how we do business. and we are providing them all of the data that they need to actually make the recommendations as actual and relevant to be a as possible. so we are looking very much looking forward to those. >> i would love to follow up with you on the to find out what that might cost. thank you. they give mr. chair. >> thank you, mr. chairman thank you all for being here today. if i may i'm going to go back to something i touched a great be the last that we met and that's what we actually spend for the care that is delivered. and i asked about knowing the number of how many rv use per year does the va generate with her caregivers. a relative value units.

that's a common term used both the private sector and in the va. in what the total cost is an by total cost out of me just what the doctor is getting paid but you including everything administration, physical plant. and it sounded like mr. gibson said we are a long way from coming up with a number and the question how to come up with with a budget if you can't say what that number is today? much did we spend on everything to do with health care for our the you that was generated -- rvu that was generated countries when we can come up with a number for one, because i wonder since i only look at choice i would really determined is a more cost-effective and a patient benefit in some regions to refer out rather than build out? because the cost per rvu to the outside is pretty easily defined. you know what you pay that talked about that doctor is paying for the physical plant and the staff and the

malpractice and all those other expenditures so that's pretty well-defined but we are not being realistic if we don't look at the overall picture of what we're spending per rvu. so if you could comment to those issues. >> as sloan said that is a system have to develop it we're in the process of doing that. it's not perfected yet the numbers are not as valid budget. the department has had a history of working through budget. it's not worked to a demand or to a customer focused. as a result of that, congress would provide a budget and that's what the department would work toward, that budget would be allocated throughout the department. so we are actually, contrary to what congressman coffman thinks can we are actually to some relatively large changes here to focus the organization on of the customer and be able to get that data. you can talk about the process of doing that but this is a big undertaking. >> so if we know what the budget is for all the health

administrative costs and what that is, can't they give us something to start with? in other words, i feel like we need a baseline weakens her to look at them more closely in different facilities as we project after come looking down the road. i'm here for the same reason i think you are estimated difference and make good decisions but we've got to come up with those numbers because you can't decide if choice is working better or worse and effectively as bush went comes to the dollars. [inaudible] >> that's part of the independent assessment we'll be getting as well. one of the wildcard sure that i'm sure you're quite me with in terms of comparing how efficient and productive we are cost per rvu versus private sector is that there's a big difference in terms of fixed costs versus variable costs. if you've got a building that we had to keep a capture a running and all that kind of stuff that's the point that was in the overall opening statement from secretary mcdonald.

in the private sector they have a lot more flexibility but we will be looking at that theory very hard. because as we look to a future where as secretary mcdonald said a few minutes ago, it's going to be both about what we provide in va as well as what we send out to community partners through non-va or fee care and choice and so forth by something like it possibly with a different name, we've had to be very very smart and has strategic as possible about make or buy decisions. >> i look forward to seeing those types of numbers because that's got to be our guide as we tried to decide what's best for the veteran in the va itself as we go down the road. >> absolutely. and those answers will probably be different in some committees compared to others. >> you do have to evaluate locally but you can start what it is in the big picture and then take a look locally because every place is going to have a little different demand based on va population, et cetera. i look forward to working with you on that and i yield back.

>> mr. mcnerney. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. hey, i'm really glad to be back on the committee. i was sure for three years starting with the 110th congress. it's a pleasure to be back. i want to thank you, mr. secretary, and the under secretaries for your dedication. this is an enormous challenge for you pointed out in your opening remarks. a lot more service is required, a lot more veterans seeking help and so on. so i think we're making progress but there still a long ways to go but my first question will go to miss vicki who've i've had a lot of dealings with in the past. i would like to give a brief update on the backlog -- ms. hickey. some of the our roads that have been such a problem a few years ago. please be brief if you would spent absolute. let me just how for all of you the backlog is now nationally 62% and we're on target to our 2015 goal of productivity is up 25% per fte. we are producing now at the

claims perspective 47% more than we did before we started this transformation effort, 101% from a medical issues perspective. our quality we have not traded for in fact its of eight percentage point at the claim of, 91%, at the medical issue level it is now up to 96% the what i want to you and i'm rating by the way would not put off nine rating. we just have a lot of it. its volume, it's me. when we do more regular, first time claims it opens the door to more followed on nine rating opportunity for our veterans. so by example when we did record breaking never done in our history before, 1.32 million claims last year, and as you saw on the chart, the disability level is now on average at 47.7%. he had a wider opportunity for many more veterans to get an additional benefit as well. oakland since we last saw you in

the room glad to have you back congressman, doing phenomenally much better. the backlog is down 6743% of their quality is up at 90% on issue basis, and they're doing much better than they were. they also have done much better on the mail issues which were doing nationally saw i think this'll committee both now and for the bunch of invested in centralized mail but we are really starting to see the benefit of that moving mail time went down from 32 days down to eight days. that's a phenomenal savings to our veteran in getting that male associate with that claim. >> you know, president reagan had a say, trust but verify. i'm glad to hear these numbers. you know we will be looking into them. >> absolutely. >> the next question goes to mr. secretary. following up on mr. bilirakis questioning, i would like you to comment a little bit on meeting construction challenges.

you said and almost a quote the va is not ready for legislative help on this issue. but i but like to see if you think public-private partnerships would be beneficial in moving forward with the construction backlog or where you stand on that sort of issue? >> first of all, as i said in my remarks on my feet strategic partnerships is one of the five points. this is a really big deal. historically va has to have as many strategic partnerships as have been possible. one of the first things i found as secretary is i have a lot of people willing to help but we did not accept. so we set up an office strategic partnerships. we have some and leaving -- leading a. we are hoping to make good progress. second the road to do construction, a lot of changes have been made over the years, probably since the last time you were on the committee. number one, originally a lot of

times the design was done by architects. engineers have now been added to the design design committee and physical design committee now to reduce it. many of the structures we are building now frankly as an indian -- engineer, i am engineer i would not about because they are architects dreams but they are very expensive and expensive to operate. secondly we looked at that entire process. 's we are training doing better job training to project managers. we are implementing gao recommendations about how to make the process more efficient. so there's a number of steps being taken. as congressman coffman said we're also working with the corps of engineers and we've asked them to do a compete with you for us from the agency of our process and see if we can improve it. as well as what part of the process with the help us in -- from a-z. >> on a parochial issue there's

been some temporary structures put up. but some of the basic requirements such as disability accessible bathrooms have not been met yet even though the project has been up for more than you. kind of get your commitment to take strong action to make sure those basic requirements are met? >> we will get into that. >> thank you, mr. secretary. >> dr. abraham. >> mr. secretary, first thank you for your effort and your attitude, that other stuff are trying to help our veterans as great as they are. two quick questions. one on we get this before, on electronic health record issues. the va budget states in addition to improvements in 2016 investment support our commitment to achieve interoperability with the department of defense electronic health record and committee health care providers including those who are participating in a in the new veterans choice program. my question is this. with the 136% increase in the

h.r.'s and funding for fiscal year 2015 to 2016, and given your stated emphasis on making seamless transition possible, can we now expect to see third party administrators and not be a providers get access to the system's? >> let me talk on a high level and then i will have stuff to talk specifics to i believe that electronic medical records that will win in that will win individual be a record which is open source, free to everyone, as well as crowdsourced in terms of the innovation. crowdsourced innovation occurs at a much more rapid pace in any company can protect their own innovation rate. so our record is open source. it is crowdsourced in terms of innovation to we get innovation back to i was at the ama convention talking about the importance of private sector providers using our record so we

could do a really warm handoff of our veteran to the private sector and back under the choice program. >> is that working pretty good the warm handoff to? >> its early days. it's early days but we have more work to do. to make sure that the veterans record is there when they get there, and to make sure that we get the information back from the doctor in the private sector who works on the. that's part of the work we are doing. >> heretofore, some of the providers were getting the veterans health record but it was the entire record and sometimes it was hundreds and maybe even thousands of pages was that provider needed only the last discharge from and would've taken two or three hours to get through that stack. so when the something certainly more seamless, something more efficient for the outside. >> we need to interoperability with dod. so we need the interoperability back and we needed forward.

>> thank you. >> if i could set it for the record actually for charged a walk through what is the sharing we're doing today it and it includes should with third party providers. so we have 31 partners, uc davis medical systems in terms of where we're sharing it already but there is a way of sending the e-mail or send information to the third party provider as an e-mail. the other piece were doing directly to your point, we've sent a full medical records. we are taking the va record and the dod record together and we're going through and modify it so we can provide that to the third party provider. so when we send the veteran out for the third party care or choice, we are able to send a url. the provider can click on the url and the record comes up. >> do you have a timeline? is this going to happen in six points, 12 months a? >> so again if these documents are what's happening now.

it will give you the records in terms of using the existing systems. the one where we are sending the provided the links so they can look at we are about a year away. we need to make sure we do it, we have a choice issue with respect to veterans opting in to us sharing the information to somebody outside of the system. that's one of the pieces we are working to programmatically. so the technology piece the teams looking at it, using the view that was deployed last year to head into capability out to third party providers. >> my second question are quickly because my time is limited, going back to the efficiency of the provider whether a physician or p.a. and understand the limitations space being one or two exam rooms. but even with that is there a measurement for the provider on a daily basis that we can access or you can access and give to us? that shows how many patients, like chairman miller said to patients to date even with one

exam room is not anywhere close to being acceptable. as a position i know what went exam room can see during a day. even sometimes understand the obligations that the patients has as having multiple organ system issues. so can you address that please? >> the answer is yes and i will let caroline talk about it. >> the great news and as as a fugitive see less we can the secretary find anyone else who wants to come, we literally go over these did everything the morning. so it is much more visible, how many patients per day provided are seeing. understand that some of our providers are also teaching or doing research and so forth but we've got to be as transparent about all aspects of that's possible. so this entire exercise not only gives us close to real-time information, ma and we post this publicly every two weeks. >> are you doing anything with the information? are we incentivizing or maybe punishment is the wrong term that if a physician or the provider is is not pushing himself a little bit, are you guys

pushing him or her a little more? >> i think the word would be motivating, yes. >> that would probably be a better word. given the issues on access that's a problem. everybody is look at this data locally and regionally and nationally because of access. >> okay, thank you. >> mr. walz. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and ranking member, and thank you for the opportunity to be back on this committee. it truly is one of the greatest honors i've expressed my love. mr. secretary, thank you for being here. for numerous reasons i say thank you as a veteran. i'm glad to know you're there. and that means a lot. i think this room i look around and being back is filled with some of the most honorable patriotic professional people i know. at this table, those behind you the vso membership. i have to say it is early somewhat subjective and over the last year we the difficult conversations, all of us and we are closely together to all of us understood the invocations of our actions impact of veterans

and did it was finished or whatever but trying to find solutions. and i can say from my experience, and i think it's the one you're hearing here the professionalism and the willingness to fix this amongst this team has been greatly gratifying. and i was a. and i was a kid may be subjectively but it feels to be like for the first time in a while the department has got its feet back under it. this idea moving towards solutions and it's not that we're ever going to stop having accountability ever stop problems at the bring up, trying to find a solution. so i, for one, except that and i believe your challenge is right but we are all in this together. we have responsibility. we bring up these parochial issues, those are the things our constituents are talking about. i go back to what you said. i do believe this is a unique opportunity for transformational change. this window will close over a certain amount of time just the nature politics and everything else that goes with it so i think we need to seize on it. the feeling i've gotten is there's a desire. i can tell you from the folks

that work out there. eye scan for meeting with a group of your fantastic va nurses, and they want to get this right. they are morel is i care about that because if we freeze that they can hammer them, tell them the va is not working, they know that is not true. i think when we hear from them i hear the feedback, here from the different groups come we try to get right. i just want to go on this providing solution thing. i think there's new ideas. i think there's this new model started to get there. i want to touch altogether. when i first after eight years ago, the first thing i worked on was vha's pain management issue and this comes back to meet again and again mainly because it ties in on so many levels of veterans care, especially mental health care. i think it's time you that end yesterday, we signed in the department would be signed by the president, the clay how to build are quick to recognize once debt. i recognize the incredible work that's already being done at va. but i think -- clay hud.

it might be into it looking at this, new approach and it ties in with again why we bring the solution to one point interact with is the opiates, these are all enacted and i agree with you. i've been here eight years i own some of that and i get that. so what i ask is when we provide and we move forward on something like clay hunt if we figure out a new model on how that is going to come in before way for it to run its course, we correct itself great the i know it's i for one, have bought into your vision of patricia maisch but i, for one, want to be that partner. i, for one want to picture i didn't pass a piece alleges is that add more to and didn't approve the care of veterans. >> we are very much in favor of the clay hunt act or the safe act as it is called. we partnered with everybody wants to do. whereby much in favor of the. i had the opportunity of the

"charlie rose show" last night with right of american sniper, with the leader of team rubicon. ..

we estimate commit suicide 17 of them are committed to the va aren't connected to the va. one of the things i'm working on is how do we get more people connected so that -- because we do a treatment have treatment for posttraumatic stress and we do know how to ebv 88 and we just need to get those people selected. we are working very hard on that. >> to all of you again thank you for working as partners and they are difficult conversations because veterans are counting on us to have those conversations. i yield back. >> i want to thank you for the opportunity to have breakfast last week and share the concerns of some of our american veterans who because of our geographic and economic isolation don't share in all of the benefits they are entitled to and i want to thank you for presenting me.

our veterans have issues that are basic and comparatively small but they are generally taken for granted here in the states. in a nutshell they need a cemetery, we need access to better health care, the local hospital has no cat scan of another cancer specialists so our veterans must always seek care off island. obamacare both of our veterans do not understand the troops are always out of merchandise and there's always complaining as to why it is we don't get merchandise and services provided. the veterans of difficulty getting their medical records to even apply for benefits. mr. secretary what i would like to ask you is the submission

identified and expected an increase in receipts for 2015 at 1.3 million in fy 26 million at 1.4. these represent 17 and 20% respectively over the 1.14 billion claims received in fy 2015. can you explain what factors and information you considered in determining the volumes of claims received these two years? the largest portion of that isn't good either brand-new veteran who is now leading service transitioning to us. it's a fact that we have done so many veterans claims 1.32 million every veteran is entitled to come back to any

supplemental claim which by the way is up 67% of the workload. it's been aggravated and got worse and as a result you can come back and get another. that growth largely attributed to the expectation for supplemental claims. in and so that is where the majority of it is. i would like to bring that leadership over and go through all the issues on some os to see if we can help it and fix it. we care very much about every veteran and we care about those. we would love to do that. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. secretary i want to thank you for your extraordinary leadership over the last six and i feel very

confident that the letter of the va is being repaired and we certainly i believe that we are on a good trajectory for widening the ship and i want to thank you for that leadership and also for two days presentation and the analysis and presentation because it demonstrates what the challenges are within the va both in the short and the long-term and the fact that all of the challenges that we must collectively tackle for our veterans so thank you very much for that. i appreciate the meeting we had in our office last week and i was excited to go home this weekend and talked to my veterans and accountants and let them know an important milestone has occurred including a new

clinic for the veterans. it was quite clear to me that our veteran were are served when i was first sworn in to congress and i think that this clinic will indeed right the wrong end and the veterans will be better served. i wanted my veterans of the venture accounting to hear from you directly your agreement for the need of the clinic and what you think the time estimates will be to apply here acquire the lease and build out the facility if you could comment on that i would appreciate it. >> i apologize to you for not visiting the venture accounting when i was in los angeles. i was a relatively quick trip and i was there for one reason which was to get a settlement in the community and get the

homeless veterans off the streets of skid row and los angeles. but i will come to venture accounting and get together with you and perhaps this would be a good target to talk. as the deputy secretary gibson goes through and looks at the construction leasing process i'm hoping that the kind of time that we've seen in the past to get something going will be short and. right now i don't have any estimate of together and work with you on that and meet the needs of the veterans in the venture accounting. >> as a follow-up that you just described briefly what the process will be in terms of our stakeholders and veterans being included in the process? >> i always bring together the stakeholders. members of congress, veterans service organization ayers.

as i said earlier this is a team sport and particularly in the case of homelessness as an example we can do the right thing unless we have all the vouchers that we want but if there isn't a landlord of the city of los angeles willing to rent at that rate we will still have a homeless veteran so for me what we did in los angeles is going to be a prototype of what i hope to do everywhere else in the country which is the va can be the lightning rod to call the community together with the local mayor and work to improve the situation in this case we will work with you on the option of the facility. >> i think we are making progress on the side and there is site and there is more progress to be done on the benefit side. this year is 2015. i was just curious to set an

ambitious goal your predecessor set an ambitious goal in terms of the backlog. just your comments in terms of meeting that goal. >> we think that it's doable so we are not changing the goal but one thing that is clear is we do need more people even though the productivity is up, the inflow is so great and has grown so much and the repetitive appeal has created a workload issue that we have had to work mandatory overtime. it is a prescription for disaster with the workforce. i do have some experience leading to large organizations and as a result of that, we have to get more people or find even further productivity and improvements which we are working on. going to the entire digital record has been a big improvement. one of the nice things about it

is we don't need more space. all of the spaces that used to be taken up with paper cannot be people working on digital files. >> congresswoman i want to thank the entire committee for increasing the budget. we wouldn't have been able to accomplish without the support of the committee and every person on it. you solve a growth in the retirement from 2000 so thank you, chairman and ranking member for being here long enough to see us through that growth. one of the things i wanted to tell you is a savings implementation object being able to realize what half a million cubic feet of paper that we no longer touch. and that 5000 tons equal to the 200 empire state buildings just to give you a visual we don't touch that anymore. 95% of everything we are doing right now is in a paperless

environment. we are working on a solution to get that out of the building. when we do we have some potential savings in the tune of $30 million a year that we can bring that to you and say this is what the benefit is by not needing to house all of the cabinets and all those things anymore. simply the shifting cost of not living off moving off of paper around on a regular basis. >> thank you. my time is up and i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman i appreciate the opportunity to visit with you mr. secretary. i would like to ask a few questions and then discussed the choice program which is important to me as we discussed last week. it includes 63 counties in for different visits and that creates some promise. the distance is the main problem

of access. there is no va hospital in the district. i decided to e-mail contact for the veteran to drive 340 miles one way for cardiology. if the choice program can't provide something closer for him that i need to look at how we are implementing that. the one thing that i would like to ask you if there is concern with providers for the veterans that are looking into taking advantage of that is it is a temporary program. are you into the administration committed to making this a permanent option for the veterans? >> as you know we have had an external program selecting an external program is to look towards the future where the network is inside and outside air. we are also going through an analyst right now given the low take-up rate but again i don't want to assume that it's going to continue. we talk about how we can do the better job of marketing and also should we it and also should we look at that 40 miles and change

the interpretation of it, get them to score something differently so we can make sure the program is robust. >> and your thoughts on making the choice program permanent? >> i am all for whatever it takes to satisfy the veterans. >> appreciate that. i appreciate the discussion because if you are in a place that wasn't limited sometime in the last 20 years, all of a sudden that keeps you out of the choice program. and as i understand the interpretation is even after the service is not provided, that restricts the access, so for the gentleman in kansas that is asked to drive to kansas city again 340 miles one way only because they will never provide the cardiology services we need. so is this something that you are willing to look at an interpretation or you are going to require us to have some changes in the law because i think that can be interpreted

that could have the flexibility to make that determination. >> it is pretty straightforward. at least that is where we have heard from the cbo and others. but we are going to work on different options. each option will have a different estimated price and we will come back to you and let you know those options are and what those options are and together we will decide what is the best thing to do. i agree with your point of view that this is from a place you can't get the service seems like a relatively weak measure but that is what has resulted in the current appropriations and we have to work with cbo to score all those opportunities and decide together. >> i can follow some of that but i think that is an interpretation that can be changed even with the 40 miles in the choice program is nothing that would prohibit you from using the fee-for-service approach in the exact same situation which is creating many of these problems.

>> we have to get the word out that that's possible. >> the word i think needs to go with the folks answering the phone at the va regional ethical center. that is and what they are told. you could get your cardiology services and drive 100 miles you could go to wichita which by the way is only 157 miles, but the services say if you can try 340 miles, he could have gotten those right in his hometown. the answer should always be as weekend we are going to look at a way and if it's not the choice program we have the fee-for-service that we should be using all along. if you are in an urban area but again, when i'm in a rural area and have the community hospitals that come into my office is we would like to serve those veterans and we are not able to in the choice program. we can meet that permit and expand our understanding of the service approach that i think we will serve the veterans serve

them better and give them access to the care that they deserve so i appreciate your efforts on that and the commitment to make these programs permit because they are critical to making sure that the va works long-term. >> thank you mr. chairman. so, mr. secretary, as everyone here has thank you i think you've you for spending time with me yesterday. i think it's incredibly informative and i personally all the brave men and women that work so hard to protect our freedom deserve health right now. and that is what you and your whole team is working towards with what what they do not deserve is a knee-jerk band-aid on the gaping wound. so i appreciate as everybody in the committee for thoughtful way that you are approaching all of these records because i think that they are because of the brave men and women to protect us in the long run. so i just have a couple quick questions. you mentioned the veterans had

committed suicide every day. 17 of them have not accessed any service within the va. how are you going to come and we spoke about this briefly yesterday but how are we going to reach out to the? >> there are a number of things we have to do. number one we have to eliminate the stigma in this country that exists across the world around mental-health care. i am thinking that this is a gratuitous moment in time because american sniper the movie the largest selling war movie is starting to do that. that's why the charlie rose show last night was to talk about this. when the congressman and i were in el paso together i will never forget that we were looking at a private-sector hospitals and there was a neon sign at the top of this one building that said mental health clinic and there wasn't a car in the parking lot. i turned to him and i said of course it wasn't his hospital or our hospital but of course

there's not a car in the parking lot. what we do is take our veterans through the primary care physician into the mental-health treatment and as a result of that the stigma doesn't exist and they may not even know they are talking to a psychiatrist. so, we've got to get credit for stigma. number two, we have to reach all of the veterans. we have the ability to put on tv a public service campaign with the ad council worked with us to get people signed up. but i don't get a feel that we are ready for that or that our capacity is so strained that if we were to get more people into the system not for mental health that we might have issues and third, we have to train the american public. if you see somebody that you think is an issue we have an algorithm, not an algorithm, an acronym called save. seeing and recognizing that the individual may have an issue. we have a hotline you can call

to get that person help and then we go immediately into action. those are some of the things we are doing. the medical exam when you leave dod is also a big help that we've got to get our arms around the 17 veterans and care for them. >> i know there was discussion in terms of the facilities in california that are vulnerable to earthquakes. i -- the va is just outside of my district but i still claim it as my own obviously. on behalf of the veterans that within live in my district and had to travel out of their super storms and he hit my congressional district harder than any other place and i was wondering if part of your construction plan included -- i understand obviously the focus on places like california but similarly in the fragile and vulnerable areas like long

island is there a plan to have some emergency preparedness to prevent any description of the services? >> when we do our construction management process we call it to skip. it's another acronym. >> safety is number one and we consider seismic and other natural disasters as safety so that's always the first priority. in the case of sandy for example, we have a facility near the battery, near battery park in manhattan. and it is devastating. the entire first floor was what her. we are now building a wall that can help us keep our higher levels of water should another storm occur. for us safety is always number one and i don't have the specific facts under long island, that we can get together with you and we can go through that. >> thank you so much mr. secretary and your entire

team and i yield back my time. >> thank you for being here with your team. i think a lot of the members this morning asked a lot of great questions and touched upon a lot of the issues that i want to talk about. i want to commend doctor for bringing up the cost of care and i wanted to ask a few more questions about when you think you're going to have an idea or is this an independent review of the va system and is that going to help look at that number because i know i'm very concerned about it and continue to implement access to care. can you elaborate on that? >> in addition to the external which we anticipate will be here around august or before then, we are also commissioning the

internal contracts and so forth through some of the leaders and industry just to figure out how do we get to some of the questions that you raised in a recent hearing when it was presented and so forth. one of the issues we struggled with in the cost is this reliance factor where some veterans use the va for some of their needs but they don't for others. my uncle told me he got his hearing aid but i at-large given where he lives doesn't go to the va for most of his care. he was closer to home. that's part of the issue we've got to work through as well as this issue of the fixed fixed and variable costs and again i think this is why the secretary is raising this issue of the fixed costs that are kind of a drag on the budget in terms of getting to the issues of access and veteran experience. >> i think that is what the doctor was talking about is the cost of these half a billion

have a billion-dollar hospital over runs ads into the cost of taking care of a patient that walks into the clinic. i just want to be sure all of these costs are included in that because we are supporting a bureaucracy that are we supporting way too much of the bureaucracy for the care that we are getting out of that? that's my concern. >> and it's a fair question. >> another one and this is something we talked to the subcommittee as well, the management of pain in the va because i know that it's been over a year since we talked about this in the subcommittee and the medication and the high doses and the number of prescriptions written in this recent troubling incident what's been going on recently to try to address the management?

is there a better pain management systems and is there a referral to the specialist? tony what's happening and how we will put an end to this practice of using over your done the patients with chronic pain. >> one thing i want to see at the beginning is we take this opiate use very seriously abuse very seriously and we track it very closely. one of the things i'm proud of that we do in the va that i do not see as much of in the private sector is we use a lot of alternative approaches, alternative medicines. we used acupuncture, yoga we've used electronic devices that have been shown to be effective among some of our veterans. anything we can do to get that veteran off of the opioids is something we want to do and we are developing a broad array of tools that can allow us to

reduce the use. >> that sounds great mr. secretary but i think if you look at the numbers of people you would find there's a lot of people on the opioids compared. and it's great that you mentioned those things that it seems to me that there should be a lot more people having access to being treated by their family physician or other primary care position. >> incredibly important and serious issue i think as you know from the prior hearing it again i'd be happy to preview and more details we actually track the use purpose of each facility has a dashboard nationwide since we launched this initiative we've seen the trend line go down but we are also looking at the pattern of individual physicians to see to

make sure that an overall positive trend that is going down isn't masking some practices we would consider a suboptimal. we are supporting a lot of research in this area as well because for some the combination -- >> it's unfortunate but apparently the situation contradicts what you're saying and i want to maintain a high vigilance on this problem. i'm out of time but i appreciate your efforts. >> thank you very much members. ms. brown has one final question. >> thank you mr. secretary and thank you for your service. i have one question. just a few minutes ago the congressional audit came out and i don't know whether you've seen the article, va healthcare at high risk and i guess they do this every two years. reading it seems like they were

rehashing a lot of the stuff that's going on. you know i appreciate you coming on television i just think we need to respond. and in the town hall meeting, we see about 7 million people a year that once they get in the system they are happy with the service. would you be willing to do an op-ed piece because i think it's important that veterans are not sidetracked. we are headed in the right direction. >> i actually met with the cultural or general and we were talking about whether or not he should put the va on the high-risk list. i actually encouraged him to. the reason i did that is we are a healthcare system and we are going through a large amount of change right now. and during that time any organization goes through a largemouth change we need to make sure.

while i think that they are a central to american medicine, we trained 70% of u.s. doctors and we developed innovations and they are absolutely critical for american medicine and the first liver transplant nicotine patch, first-time barcode used to connect patients with medicine. i'm thankful you and the had the oversight role and others will be helping us get through this change and develop the robust system. i want to thank you again for the service. >> mr. secretary and everybody at the table, thank you for being here today. you're excused. '

[applause] invite the second panel to the table and welcome the associate executive director of the government relations at paralyzed veterans of america who is going to be testifying to the committee on behalf of the co-authors of the independent budget. accompanying mr. blake is mr. davies coates director of the gop. mr. ray kelly, director of legislative service veterans of the foreign war. ms. diane, national what is

latest rector. we are also going to be having testimony from mr. ian at the american legion. mr. blake, you are now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. on behalf of the co-authors of the independent budget seat at the table i would like to thank you for the committee to testify today on the va fiscal year 2016 and 2017 budget. i ask that the report of the independent budget of the department affairs veterans affairs for fiscal year 2015 and 2017 b. knitted into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you mr. chair. let me begin by saying this is probably the best va budget that we've seen in my many years of being being here on the hill. that being said recent media reports have pointed out that the va has had hundreds of billions of dollars and i'm spent resources. over in recent years. we do not dispute that fact. in fact the va is a questionable job of managing the resources

they've been given in they been given in the past. we believe that the problems in the long waiting lists identified over the last year clearly affirmed that point. however we also believe that prior to this year, they've continuously requested insufficient funds to adequately provide healthcare benefits services to veterans. yes congress has given the administration virtually everything that it has requested yearly. that certainly doesn't mean that the va requested what it truly means. perhaps the office of management and budget would have something to say about this. this does not mean the va should be properly scrutinized for what it spends or does not spend. in fact we wholeheartedly support this notion. but it should be scrutiny grounded in fact not in rhetoric or poorly formulated assumptions. the independent budget trepidation at present overview of the actual resource needs of the va to provide the services across the entire spectrum of the programs. our views are not provided by a particular agenda or politics.

despite the closeness of our recommendations, we are an independent assessment of the va budget requirements developed before the administration even released its most recent budget request. it is not bloated with not bloated with unnecessary resources in the administrative support. i would draw your attention to the differences between our regulations over such line items and medical support and compliance, the general administration and it to affirm the plate. our regulations focus on the areas where the service is the linchpin. medical services major and minor construction for the veterans benefits administration of the national cemetery administration and other key areas. couple those key areas were recently identified policy agenda that we released back in january. those include women veterans programs and caregiver support programs. we appreciate the emphasis the committee has put on these two areas. we certainly appreciate the fact that the committee held a hearing back in december to review the caregiver support program at a high priority for the members of many of our

members. those two issues are particular critical issues in this year's independent budget. clearly, there are wide-ranging opinions about how the va manages its capital infrastructure. we have no doubt that va construction of contract management has been a disaster. the only people to stay start for the consequences of these failures are veterans seeking care. particularly in the denver area. but none of this changes the fact that the va has a huge backlog on valid building projects in various stages from initial planning to near completion. nevertheless, we believe the va hasn't shown the level or degree of commitment in its request for resources to get all these projects moving in the right direction or to complete them. we stand with the committee to resolve these construction management problems and we hope that that will be done quickly. last i would like to comment on a couple points that have been raised here. with regards to the question of cost per pair, we are certainly not experts but i would suggest in all of the briefings i've received about the va told pair

projection model that if one wanted to know how much it costs to do a particular procedure in any region in the united states, that that model would produce a number. at least that's what we have been told over the years when we have been briefed on this. so, what i would expect is if the committee wanted to note how much it cost costs to do a colonoscopy that came over in a hearing for the va probably can produce a number. we appreciate the fact of the va is committed to providing, you know, better information with regards to the cost for care. we look forward to having an opportunity to review that information as well. last, the question about the choice program, which the va brought right up into the light of day i think the independent budget probably agrees with the principle that the secretary has laid out that, you know, you shouldn't be obligated to spend the money that you have been given for one singular purpose. i thought that the secretary's analogy that he used about gas versus food is the perfect way to describe the need to be able to shift money around. that being said, i'm not sure that we also agree taking money

away from the program right now that is clearly in a different stage. i think the program clearly has to be given time to flush itself out and see what actually occurs. three months is certainly not enough time to do a thorough evaluation of the utilization of the choice program. so until there has been more time to fully evaluate what will happen, i'm not sure that we fully support what the administration is requesting. with that i would like to thank you again for the opportunity to testify and i would be happy to answer any questions that you were the members of the committee may have. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman ranking member ground in the members of the committee i would also look to think secretary mcdonald and his staff for their words today. i'm very fortunate to sit here and speak on behalf of the american legion for the national commander of the 2.4 million members and over 14,000 posts across the country to make up the backbone of the worlds and the nations service organizations. it's not just for the 20 million members but beyond that who are veterans of the people that have

have warned us had struck by something secretary mcdonald said earlier today this is a team sport. we can't do it by ourselves. i think everyone agrees that the country owes a great service to the veterans. the country owes a lot of things to the veterans. the country isn't just the federal government. it's a piece of that but i think everyone here at the table, everyone here in the room is also a piece of that. we have to work together on this. i spent two of the last four weekends out at the various grassroots events in the region in nebraska and kansas out there with those like myself who were there and actually out there wanting to know out and go into the va hospitals and health out in whatever way they can. we had over 7000 donating almost a million hours of volunteer service to the va. this only works if we are all on the same page, if everyone is on the same page. into and the ranking member, you mentioned earlier hr 216 was

with the wall of the land as an important resource tool that would help with that. i think we agree very much and i know in the legislative hearings earlier when it was discussed i think there's a lot of agreement on both sides of the aisle about that. we have to be able to look back and forth and compare these things. i was speaking with a colleague of mine about the capital investment plan and whether or not they are putting in putting enough money into these things in the american legion about four years ago they were talking about looking at the va construction figures. it was going to take 60 years to complete the ten year plan and to skip it if they went forward with those numbers. but trying to compare the figures together and if they are still there, you are pulling up a budget from one year and holding it next to another having it all laid out where the sql verse can participate. and then chairman miller, when the bill was upin the legislative hearings to the importance of transparency and how you have seen in the armed services they are transparent. we need to have the same kind of

transparency with the planning for the budget so that we can maximize the resources that everyone is putting into this. we have a lot of great organizations. we have a lot of great veterans out there trying to access a better system. bbb that the va system. we believe that the trace card is important because we have to get access to care for veterans. but we want to make sure the veterans still have access to that system. it's there because secretary mcdonald talked about the demand expanding beyond the va capability to meet that. while, we need to make sure the resources are allocated to meet those demands that we but we also can't lose sight of the focus that the va that we want to be the leader is pioneering medicine and the utmost expert in so many conditions. you will get a true medic brain injury can you look at posttraumatic stress disorder, amputation injuries. there is no reason of the va shouldn't that ea shouldn't be the world's leading authority on that.

and we need to make that happen. that comes from everybody working together and everyone being on the same page. the american legion is devoted to that and we need to look at these pieces. i think the request for an additional 770 full-time employees who work on the claims backlog is important i think it is a very good point that they have been given more staff and that they were supposed to have been increasing their productivity but you can't deny the fact that they've been on mandatory overtime for four years. going through four weeks you might have a little bit of a problem. going through four years on mandatory overtime as you might not have enough people to do that. we don't exactly how many people we need in every office and that's why we need to be able to look at the pic figures together. we can do that and we are very committed to being a major partner in helping to drive that. we want the system to be the best system that can be for veterans. i think the committee has been very generous in giving budgets

to the va to work with we just need to keep working for everyone on the same page and i think we can accomplish that. thank you for having the legion here this weekend for having all of the veterans group's speak on this and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much for your testimony. i would like to ask either of you if you would kind of one of the critical components and probably one of the toughest things the secretary is confronted with is going to be closing, outdated, substandard or particularly underutilized facilities. it's not easy politically and it's not easy as the secretary has already alluded. but i would like to know if you feel like that is an important step that the secretary has to look at. >> i'm going to divert to my colleague who handles construction for the iv. >> mr. chairman, if the va is holding property that it is no

longer utilized, they need to figure out how to get rid of that property. but in the process of figuring out how to get rid of it they also need to have that conversation with the community to ensure that those veterans understand there's going to be services still there. that is the fear in the community is my hospital is going away therefore my services are going away. they need to understand the full continuum of care is going to be in the community. and it is just going to be the right size for the community. there is no need to spend $4 per square foot to maintain a building that is no longer being used just to keep it mothballed. >> if i can dovetail onto that. the story that comes to mind is hot springs which is very involved and that community desperately wants to keep their medical center theater i can absolutely understand if you have an unutilized building and a distrust taking up empty money that isn't serving the veterans of the community. in the community. and certainly there are probably

regions where it just not effective, but we have to make sure those veterans are included as a part of the planning process and that they are being listened to. i know there's been determined as amount of frustration in the springs that the community is adamant, it's vehement and it's been organized and has tried to voice its opinion at every step along the way that we need this facility here. this isn't serving the veterans in this area and they are very concerned that isn't being heard, so yes it's important i think to be able to open up to some possibilities with that but what's also making sure we are still serving the veterans. >> any other comments? >> i would only add to one thing we would caution as they make a determination on where the facilities are underutilized or not used that they be innovative also. we have talked for years about using some of this underutilized space for the homeless veterans issues. one of the challenges and homelessness is having the support of housing that allows

them to transition into finding a job and being able to sort of become a productive member of society again so before they choose to close the facilities i would hope that they would think outside of the box and some of the areas the facilities can serve a purpose. that doesn't mean that some facilities shouldn't just be closed especially if they are sitting empty and have been sitting empty for too long. >> where specifically do you think the administrative cost in the va could be reduced and where could the funds be reallocated? specifically we are talking about i guess page three in the testimony. >> well, i would suggest for the perspective of the recommendations we have made, we sort of have stuck to that same visible the last couple of years that we have directed our recommendation that the medical services line where the rubber meets the road providing healthcare. there has been some discussion about the staff like in the

general administration line items which are a lot of the offices here in washington d.c.. we've also had conversations on the side of the administrative cost of exist in this level it across the various levels that exist across the vha. we are interested to see the planned transition to the regional framework. what we would certainly hate to see is a transition to they transition to a five region alignment and where we've ago with 125 to 150 staff to the five regions that are just those people shifted into the regional alignment and you didn't streamline the administrative support at all. >> if i could secretary asked mr. kaufman to ask a question and since mr. kaufman is no longer here in the room, i will ask the question on behalf of the secretary. have you seen a difference in the va? >> mr. chairman to the fact the secretary and his leadership team is still here i think

answers that question. i think that we all have been impressed with what he and the deputy secretary have done in this short time that they've been here so i would have to say that yes we appreciate what he's doing and we hope you will work with them to make sure that these changes have been. >> we see a difference in spots. it's -- there are going to be areas that are slower to change than others but we are seeing pockets of improvement. it just solving just solving the problem in west la in the land management issue in a very short time is something that's been around for years and is an indication that he is going to get things done and expects people at all levels to do the same thing and if i could, my time has expired but could i just get a yes or no? >> i will give a yes.

>> i would agree with my colleagues. >> very good. i agree, to back. there is a difference. and i would also say that hr 216 is scheduled to be marked up tomorrow so we would expect to see that pass very quickly. >> i would like to associate myself with the remarks from florida. i absolutely think that it is a chain in the va and that it's headed in a positive direction. when you talk about the va i've are never going to la and we had four brand-new units and we had to build those into four

separate buildings that stood vacant for two years because the state of california didn't have the money to operate it. we have to make sure that doesn't happen in the future. and i'm very pleased that he was able to go in and resolve those issues. for the first time, we have the budget and all of the other categories. can you give me a response in terms of how you feel about how this is going to help move forward? i just want to hear from all three. >> i would say we offered our support from the legislation a couple weeks ago. i think that he hit on an important point that this would allow for more transparency as they develop their needs can forward. i would also suggest that -- i

believe this is the first time i've seen them take serious this requirement as part of the advanced appropriations process. for the last several years since this was passed, one of our chief complaint has been that the congress passes an advanced appropriations requested by the va and then the next year. as no adjustment or consideration given to how it should be adjusted and this is the first year i can remember where a substantial analyst this review and estimate has taken place, so we appreciate the fact that this leadership team in particular seems to have taken this requirement far more seriously than in the past. >> i think that the funding -- you a lot of veterans not worried about getting their checks if for some reason there is friction between the congress and they can't get a budget passed. i am not as worried about that and immediately but that is an important guarantee for them down the road but i also think that planning component that is going on with our legislation is

a critical handshake with that though and the ability to plan as critical as we move forward funding things and to be able to look down the road and see the anticipated results beyond that so i think they are hand-in-hand with each other and a very helpful. >> one other thing was mentioned before going through a bright process and of course, you know we support closing some of the facilities but keep in mind that it's just as long as you don't close any and florida. but that kind of mentality of the members of congress, so as we work through it we have to keep in mind it is a team effort and that those communities need to have input and involvement as to what we wanted to look like because we are setting up your saying this is the right thing, this is the best thing for the country but when we go to some little place in hot springs

that community feels that they are going to be disenfranchised. so the question is how do we have these other communities and everybody involved in those decisions and you know, don't think that politics doesn't play a part because when you get ready to close it and some senators say we don't do that. we are just interested in what it does for the country, that is not always the case. i want to thank you all for your service and presentation at any closing remarks? to make its been nice to see some of the folks folks were to deal with a semiregular basis. i've already had two briefings on the model and the cost for care since the cost for care hearing which was two weeks ago.

part of the last meeting that he had with the employees on health care model was back in 2009. so they are literally more in tune with the concerns of the committee to get us more involved in the discussion so we know what they are doing whether we necessarily hold that it's important or not we have a better idea what they are doing. >> i think i've been over there about four times, it o'clock in the morning and i want to get the entire committee over there to review like a town hall discussion so that we have a better feel of what's going on over there because i think that it's very exciting to have the employees involved in what we are doing and it isn't some top down but it's the input of the employees and one third of them i also say that veterans are more. thank you mr. tran for the hearing and i will yield back the balance of my time. >> take you very much. doctor abraham?

>> as a new congressman, and fortunately a new member of the committee i am very honored to be here. and just six weeks ago i was a practicing physician privileged to see veterans in my clinic. i am jumping up and down with joy for this program and my question is are you all getting feedback on the implementation of the choice? is it working, is it fairly seamless, where does it stand up from the perspective's? >> the commission to survey through the membership to get feedback we are doing a two-part survey. we cut it off at the beginning of this month and so for a two-month period we found that a good portion of veterans who call for an appointment to the va when they interacted to get an appointment they were not told that they had a choice.

but now that we are in the second phase of the survey we are finding that more of them are understanding in that they have a choice and the employees are being educated to provide a choice. so, we are seeing a trend of access to the last. but at the same time, early on the perception of choice was very positive. there seems to be a trend that now that it's got more people in it that there is a slight downtick in people's opinion of it in the care that they've received. so it's something we will continue to monitor and we'll have a report very soon. >> i wanted to touch on it because recently i talked to a number of different people in one of the biggest concerns there was a lot of confusion over whether or not people were eligible into confusion among the access. we get calls from the office all the time about this and so we have been working hard as well

to try to educate about that. there is a lot to look particularly the 40 miles straight line when you are in a rural area where i'm close to a clinic that they don't offer but they don't offer the services i need as it was mentioned. when you're driving 340 miles to get something areas are there was a lot of concern about that and we have heard a lot of feedback from the members. as far as whether they want to use the choice program or they want to use the va, if the next. we have some people that have been very happy with the the care they got they just couldn't get access to it and they were frustrated and want to get back into the va. on the other hand some people were excited about the options of looking at it so we are continuing to monitor that. the biggest part that we've noticed early on has been a bit of confusion about eligibility particularly in that sort of 40-mile circle and whether that interacted with facilities that didn't treat the condition they

had. >> i think that it is on level in trying to evaluate it and and consider that number one the va doesn't have the capacity to meet all of the demands as we see it at the same time, we don't know for sure the private sector truly has the capacity to meet the demands that might come from the choice program. i think that is a great unknown. i think we forget that private healthcare is a business and they maximize the revenue for the business by not operating with excess capacity. and. answer. and so, it would stand to reason that when people try to access the private healthcare system might find challenges. i mean, we find challenges with private insurance now by trying to get an appointment for specialty care at george washington university hospital right here in town. it could be six months. so it isn't on the va side or the private sector side. until there's a little but little but went on to look at the program itself and even allow the va to get its footprint more firmly planted by expanding its capacity not sure

that we by sure that we can do a thorough analysis. >> we are getting to -- ready to go out to hear that members. we aren't hearing complaints. there is some confusion i get x. amount of miles of travel but then when i apply for this they tell me that i'm not that far away and that's the way the law was written. but early on people were more concerned about being forced out of the system thinking that if they lived more than 40 miles away or had to wait longer than 30 days they wouldn't deal to come into the va and that concerned them greatly. >> that has hopefully been dispelled. i think what we all envision is when he needs primary care such as -- i don't mean to minimize bronchitis but you can go maybe to a choice doctor and when anthony specialty come he has the option to go to the va facility that he wants. we wanted seamless or the

veteran. and i guess my question is are we slowly obtaining medical? the >> i think right now it is a little early and in terms of making the analysis with the utilization of the program is coming and i understand that the secretary stated before that, you know, it wasn't so much about the utilization was right now he was trying to give the warning light of that they might need to be appropriate. and for us is a little early to make decisions about that because people are starting to get their feet wet in the program, but it's something i know we are and i know all of the other groups appear are watching very closely to see how this interacts. >> i'm out of time that i wanted to get your take. >> thank you mr. chairman. we pointed this out earlier that the secretary and his team are here and i appreciate you saying that. i just want to make sure that it's noted for the record because if we are going to be successful in this team approach, it's going to take us all being in the same room listening to each other so i thought that was important and you pointed that out.

i wanted to ask you and any person at the table to respond to this. the secretary also mentioned working collaboratively in terms of how we build and offer medical care beyond this question of the choice act. an example that we talked about last week in the hearing was this hospital in colorado, $604 million on a 1.1 billion. originally supposed to be affiliated with a academic institution and now it is broken. i couldn't help but get the sense that veterans in that area were insistent that data be flagged as a va facility and that might have had some consequences. what are your thoughts on this idea of working collaboratively and involving other non- va institutions in the provision of healthcare health care or the development of the facilities or

organizing how we deliver that health care healthcare in a community like el paso where i don't know that we need a hospital, i don't know that we are going to get a 1 billion-dollar facility and as we may have to work collaboratively. if i could start with you and then work right down the table, i would love to get your response. >> we have mixed feelings feelings abc and other facilities particularly the dod facilities where the va and dod have gone in together and sometimes there's problems because the troops that are stationed get deployed. independent services really start lacking. but i think some of the facilities may be working fine with federal va kind of emphasis switches to have on the area and how it's structured. ..

>> and services are interoperable, then it's a smart move to include, you mentioned the city county, to include private sector it is capacity and expertise in a particular area where there's a gap in va care, absolutely. >> great. >> i think it would be unreadable to think that they should take advantage of the opportunities and partnerships to maximize the opportunity for

health care. that being said you mentioned a rah-rah. part of the problem with over the years was figuring out i can remember a time when the vision for that was sort of a joint facility that had a mix of veteran patients and on veteran patient the uintah challenges with something as simple as identification of the two. and get into more competent issues with like governance and priority of access and services. said to be careful when you get into that sort of gaza. the denver issue is clearly i think it's even more unique than the problems that exist in las vegas and new orleans that are still going on and orlando. the denver project has been going on for 20 plus years now and if nothing else, veterans are being left unsatisfied because there are many promises that have been made and still no access to health care and that's a clearly underserved population. >> thank you. >> i think it clearly is

important, it is clear to a country that takes care of veterans. we have servicing in the past teaching hospitals working in conjunction with va facilities. i think there are some great partnerships that can be achieved there. obviously, the va has to be at the core of that and taking their veterans. there's a reason a lot of our veterans like to go to the va and just because it's something that understands them but at the same time if they're going to be innovative, if they are going to be leading the way like i was saying, leading authorities on tbi, ptsd, et cetera, that's going to involve partnership finding the best people. it's within their grasp to do that. >> that i have 30 seconds? thank you. >> thank you. i would say that while va certainly has many fine doctors and experts they don't corner the market. there are lots of people in the civilian kennedy who could bring new ideas, research, and other

possibilities. so to say that we should be considering public-private partnership, i think would be a serious mistake. >> thank you. thank you all for your answers and for your work. >> like you very much mr. brown. to you have any additional comments or questions? >> no, sir. spent we appreciate it. expect questions to the second panel, post doing questions and to the first panel. there are some issues that we were not able to bring up given the time but mr. secretary thank you, sir, for staying through the entire budget hearing. and with that i request all members of five legislative days with which to revise and extend their remarks. without objection, so ordered. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> tonight road to the white house with american conservative union foundation chair and former hewlett-packard ceo at the politics and eggs breakfast in new hampshire. she says she's considering a run to be the 26 republican candidate for president. >> at nine, kentucky senator rand paul at the annual "american spectator" magazine gala. potential presidential candidate defender the 2013 government shutdown and to criticize hillary clinton over the benghazi a tactic you can see both programs tonight starting at eight eastern on c-span. >> earlier today the former head of the defense intelligence agency talked about islamic extremism before hearing of the house armed services committee. here are some of his comments. >> you've asked me to comment on the state of islamic extremism. today, i have the unhappy task

of inform you that according to every metric of significance, islamic extremism has grown over the last year, would it be the scale and scope of isis and its associated movements the number of violent islamist groups, the territory which the script control, a number of terrorist attacks these groups perpetrate, the massive numbers and suffering of refugees and displaced persons due to these islamist groups. has approximately 15 million people. the amount of kidnapping and rape of women and children by these groups. the number of casualties they inflict, the broad expansion and use of the internet which is very serious or just their sheer barbarism that we witness. i can draw no other conclusion than to say that the threat of islamist extremism has reached an acceptable level and that it is growing. we are at war with violent and extreme islam is both sunni and shia and we must accept and face this reality. this enemy has been ingrained an unshakable vision about the world and society should be

ordered, and they believe violence is a legitimate means of bringing about this ideal state. of violent islamist. of violent islam is a serious comment about committed and dangerous. his ideology justifies the most heinous inhumane actions imaginable and he will not be reasoned with no or will be relived. this enemy must be opposed, they must be killed, they must be destroyed and associate extremist form of their ideology must be defeated wherever it rears its ugly head. there are some of counsel patients, arguing violent islamist are not an existential threat and, therefore, can someone be managed as criminals. i respect fully and strongly disagree. i have been in the theaters of war of iraq and afghanistan for many years. phase this in the up close and personal and i've seen firsthand the unrestrained cruelty of this enemy. they may be animated by an evil ideology but they are thoroughly modern in their capacity to kill and maim as well as precisely

and very smartly message their ideas come intentions and actions via the internet. in fact they are increasingly capable of threatening our nation's interest and those of our allies. furthermore, it would be foolish for us to wait until our enemies pose an existential threat before taking decisive action. doing so would only increase the cost in blood and treasure later for we know must be done now. our violent and extremely radical islamist enemies must be stopped. >> bernie sanders has he will not be attending israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's address to congress in march. he also outlined his economic vision for america a 12-point agenda to focus on climate change, college affordability taxes on health care. health care. senator sanders city assessor considered running for the white house in 2016. the brookings institution hosted this event on monday. >> you have asked me to, on the

state of islamist extremism. today, i had the unhappy task of informing you that according to every metric of significant islamist extremism has grown over the last year and whether it be the scale and scope of isis and its associated movement, the number of violent expo-- >> i want to welcome everyone here today. i e.j. dionne for this purpose i'm a senior fellow here at brookings, and it's a great honor to welcome senator bernie sanders as part of our ongoing conversation on the future of our economy and it should economic growth. for those of you out there who want to comment on twitter the hashtag is #sandersatbrookings. i want to say at the outset

before i do the formal part of the introduction that it is a pleasure to welcome a self-described, proud democratic socialist here to brookings. you know these days the word socialist is thrown around as an epitaph the socialist i know are insulted when president obama is called a socialist because they argue he is too moderate to be democrats which was. but the thing we forget is the vibrancy of the democratic socialist tradition in the united states. and bear in mind we're talking democratic, small d socialists i.e. scandinavia, not the old soviet union. and that in the american tradition we are talking about people from eugene debs to norman thomas to michael harrington to people that they like barbara ehrenreich. this is a lively american tradition that has influenced policy in our country in a great many ways. and so it is refreshing to have

a senator who doesn't run away from a particular part of our american tradition. senator sanders is june united states senator from vermont. he spent 16 years in the house of representatives, the longest-serving independent member of congress in american history. is devoted his career to public service addressing the growing income gap and the shrinking american middle class. is also been a strong advocate for rebuilding our nation's infrastructure and protecting our environment. is also the mayor of burlington and he is the ranking member of the senate budget committee and former chair of the senate committee on veterans affairs. i just want to note that we sort of worry about these days about congress being able to do nothing. and i think it's worth noting that when two sides are willing to seek agreement and are willing to recognize the urgency of government action, you can

actually have things happen. and very recently senator sanders with senator mccain and others negotiated a very comprehensive bill to deal with the problems in the va medical system. so when we have senator sanders and senator mccain working together, we can produce miracles and public policy. and while senator sanders will not be talking about miracles today, i will close by saying that he is a fan of pope francis. welcome bernie sanders. [applause] >> let me begin by thanking brookings for hosting this event, and thank e.j. for moderating and thank all of you for being here this morning. before i begin my remarks in

trying to explain what's going on in our country and where i think we should be going, let me say a few words about myself because my journey, how i got here, is to say the least a little bit different than many others who have been on this platform. i was born in brooklyn new york, in 1941. my father came to this country at the age of 17 without a penny in his pocket and without much of an education. my mother graduated high school in new york. my family was never really poor. my dad was a paint salesman. he never made much money. my mother's dream was to get out of the three and a half room rent controlled apartment that we lived in throughout my entire life, but we never made it out. she never leave -- she never lived to see the trees. and what it learned as a kid is what lack of money does to a

family. and that kind of stress pressures that the family that don't have the money they need what happens to them. and that's a lesson that i have never forgotten. my wife and i have been married for 27 years. we have four kids and seven grandchildren. and without being overly dramatic, the truth is that my involvement in politics has everything to do with what kind of country i hope that they will be living in. as the longest-serving independent in an american congressional history, let me very briefly describe my political journey which is an unusual one. i first came to vermont in 1964. in 1971 there was a special election to replace a senator from vermont who had passed away. and iran for the united states senate on a third party called the liberty union party, and i

received 2% of the vote. next year i ran for governor of the state of vermont, and i received 1% of the vote last night i was on the move heading down. two years later i ran for the senate, todd removes that race because of that against them. i received 4% of vote and been around for governor in 1976 and receive 6% of the vote. and then i decide to give the good people of the state of vermont a break and i stopped running for office. but five years later some friends of mine suggested that i could do well in the race for mayor of the city of burlington which as you know is the largest city in the state of vermont. and in that race iran against a five term incumbent a democratic mayor. i ran as an independent, and no buddy but nobody thought that we had a chance to win.

nobody. in that their remarkable election, the point i want to make here is a profound political lesson that i learned we did what has not been terribly much today. we did coalition politics. and that is we put together an extraordinary coalition of workers and unions environmentalists, neighborhood activists, of low income organizations. very first press conference i had was at a low income housing project of women's groups of college students. that's the coalition we put together. and that type of politics of me bringing people together around the progressive agenda is something that i believed was right then, and i believe is right today. i should also state that that campaign for mayor cost something like $4000, and in the process i personally thought of

thousands of doors in the city. on election night when the votes were counted, we won the working-class wards of the city is something like to do one, and we won the election by all of 14 votes. it was, in fact, the biggest political upset in vermont history, and after the recount, the margin of victory was reduced to 10 votes. now without going into any great length there, and there have been books written about this, i took office with 11 out of the 13 members of the city council those with the democrats and republicans, in very, very strong opposition to my agenda. and trust me, if you think that the republicans have been obstructionism to president obama, you ain't seen nothing with what happened in my first year as mayor of the city of burlington. but what happened, this is also a lesson that i've never forgotten, by doing what we could do this by the opposition and reaching out to people, what

happened is a year later the slate of candidates that i supported won a huge victory against the people who were obstructionism. and the other lesson that i will never forget is that the year following when i ran for reelection, we almost doubled the voter turnout almost doubled of the voter turnout from what it had been when i first one. and the lesson that i will never forget and what i believe is that when you stand up for people and you keep her promise kelo will, in fact, get involved in politics. so i think it was true then and i think it is true today. in 1986 i ran for governor of the state of vermont as an independent, received 14% of the vote. in 1988 iran for the u.s.

congress. and in that election i was told by my democratic friends that i would be a spoiler taking away votes and enabling the republican candidate to win. in fact, the republican candidate did win with 41% of the vote. i got 38%. democrat got 19%. two years later i ran again for congress defeating the incumbent by 16 points. in 2006 with retirement of senator jim jeffords and with the support of democrats i want for monsey arrested since you against a foe who i think was the wealthiest person in the state of vermont who spent three times more money than it ever been spent in our state previous to that. i received 67% of the vote. in 2012 i won reelection with 71% of the vote. as mayor of burlington might administration took on virtually every powerful special interest in the city in the state. we had a very active city

attorney's office. against the wishes of the developers and the railroad, we created an extraordinarily beautiful people oriented waterfront a bike path on lake champlain. we develop the first municipal housing land trust in the country or afford a house sake of idea that has spread worldwide. we won national recognition for urban beautification by planting thousands of trees throughout the city, often using a lot of volunteers to make that happen. we made major progress on our streets and sidewalks. we implement the largest of our little program and the state's history by building a new wastewater facility to prevent untreated waste from going into the lake. wiest guarded a youth office which created a day care center convoluted program afterschool program and the teen center, all of which 25 30 years later are still in existence. today with the first city in vermont to break our dependence on the regrets of property tax. we made major changes in the

burlington police department to move towards community policing but we started very active and successful arts center in women's council. and i said all of that to invite all of you to burlington and the state of vermont. a beautiful place. [laughter] in 1990 i became the first independent non-democrat non-republican elected to the u.s. house. during my first year there along with 40 by four of the house dems would put together the congressional progressive caucus which today is one of the largest and that the more effective caucuses in the house. wanted my first post in the house was a vote against the first gulf war. i believe that history will record that that was the right vote as was the vote i cast years later against the war in iraq, a war which has cost us many thousands of brave young men and women, untold suffering for those who returned, and has driven up our national debt by

trillions of dollars. it has also that were in my opinion has also opened up the can of worms which we now see in that region of the world in which we are trying to deal with today. today. one member of the house financial services committee, i was one of those leading the fight against the deregulation of wall street. and i will never forget having alan greenspan up there visiting the committee, telling us how great deregulation was. i didn't buy them, and i don't buy it now. i also opposed the free trade agreements that came down the pike nafta cafta permanent normal trade relations with china. i never believed then and i don't believe now that forcing american workers to compete against people make pennies an hour is a good thing for the united states of america. while in the house i took on the pharmaceutical industry, and the outrageous prices they charge our people. and how it is that the end of

charging us for higher prices for the same products then do the people that are charged to the people of any of the country. took the first congressman to take americans over the canadian border and will never forget women buying the same exact breast cancer drug for one-tenth of the price that they were paying in the united states. as a united states senator and former chairman of the senate veterans' affairs committee, as p. j. just mentioned, i worked hard in a bipartisan way with republicans in the senate a number of senators including senator mccain, jeff miller in the house on what turns out to be one of the more significant pieces of veterans legislation passed in recent years. i also led the effort with representative jim clyburn to put some $12 billion into federally qualified health center's which has resulted in 24 million americans lower income americans now getting health care, dental care which is a huge issue for our country

low-cost prescription drugs, and i am proud of that. with senator bob menendez i hope it passed the energy efficiency block grant program which put billions of dollars into weatherization and sustainable energy as we do our best to try to reverse climate change. that is my life and political history in five minutes. let me to do something more important now, and that is the future of our country. on saturday, just as last saturday, i've been invited to speak in harrisburg, pennsylvania, and my friend and i were driving back to d.c. and we drove through gettysburg and we stopped there for a while at the battlefield of monuments and the museum. and while we were there we, of course, saw the lincoln statutes and we read from his gettysburg address. and you all know about lincoln's extraordinary gettysburg address where he said a hell of a lot more than i said, 10 times as

much time as he said it. but he said of a hope that this nation would have quote, a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth end of quote. what an extraordinary statement. and as we drove back from gettysburg to washington, it struck me hard that lincoln's extraordinary vision a government of the people, by the people, for the people was in fact, perishing, was coming to an end and that we are moving rapidly away from our democratic heritage into an oligarchic form of society where today we are experiencing a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. today, in my view the most

serious problems we face as a nation is the grotesque and growing levels of wealth and income inequality. this is a profound moral issue. it is an economic issue, and it is a political issue. economically, for the last 40 years the great middle class of our country once the envy of the world, has been in decline. despite coming here's the important point to me, that we've got to into despite an explosion of technology, despite a huge increase in productivity, despite all of the so-called benefits of the global economy millions of american workers today are working longer hours for lower wages, and we have more people living in poverty than almost any time in the history of our country.

today real unemployment is not the 5.7% you read in the newspapers. it is 1123%, if you include those people who are working part-time when they want to work full-time or those people who have given up looking for work entirely. we don't talk about it. pope francis does by the way but we don't talk about the fact that youth unemployment in this country is 18% an african-american youth unemployment is nearly 30%. shamefully, we have by far the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth. you hear a whole lot of discussion about family values for my republican friends, but nothing about the fact that almost 20% of our kids are living in poverty. despite the modest success of the affordable care act, some 40 million americans continue to have no health insurance while even more are underinsured with

high deductible, high copayments, high premiums. we remain today the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending almost twice as much per person on health care as to the people of any other nation. now as all of you know there are a lot of angry people out there. all across the country. some of them are in the occupy wall street movement and consider themselves progressives, some are in the tea party movement and consider themselves conservatives. but let me give you an explanation as to why they have every right in the world to be angry. since 1999 the typical middle-class family, the family right in the middle of the economy, have seen its income go down by almost $5000 after adjusting for inflation.

incredibly that family earn less income last year than it did 26 years ago back in 1989. the median male worker, that guy right in the middle of the economy, made 700 -- $783 less last year than he did 42 years ago. while the median female worker heard $1300 less last year than she did in 2007. ..

a lot of the pundits here on capitol hill don't understand that. it might be a good idea to get off the capital, go into the real world and find out what is going on with working people. meanwhile, while the middle class continues to disappear, the wealthiest people in this country in the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well and the gap between a very, very rich in everybody else's growing wider and wider. the top 1% now own about 41% of the entire wealth of the united states while the bottom 60% on less than 2% of our wealth and this one is incredible. today, the top one 10th of 1%,

that is the wealthiest 16,000 families now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. one 10th of 1% owns almost as much as the bottom 90%. is that really what the united states of america is supposed to be about? i don't think so and i don't think most americans think so. today the owners of wal-mart and the wealthiest emily in america are worth $153 billion. that one family owns more wealth than the bottom 40% of the american people. in terms of income is supposed to wealth, almost all of the new income generated in recent years has gone to the top 1%. in fact the latest information we have shows in recent years

over 99% of all new income generated in the economy has gone to the top 1%. but the middle class, gdp doesn't matter. doesn't matter because the middle-class and working families are not getting any of it. it all going to the top 1%. in other words while millions of americans saw declines of family income, while he seen an increase in poverty throughout this country over 99% of new income generated goes to the top 1%. an example. the top 25 hedge fund managers read more than $24 billion in 2013. that is equivalent to the full salaries of more than 425,000 public school teachers. does anyone really think that is

morally acceptable, economically acceptable? is that really what our country should be about? but income inequality is not just a moral issue of whether we are satisfied about living in a country where we have seen a proliferation of billionaires at the same time as millions of families struggle to make sure they're able to feed their kids, it is also a profound political issue. as a result of the disastrous supreme court decision on citizens united, billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase the candidate of their choice. brazilian and now owns the economy and they are working day and night to make certain that day on the united states government.

according to media reports it appears that one family, the extreme right-wing koch brothers are prepared to spend more money for neither the democratic party or the republican party in the coming elections. in other words one family, a family which is worth about $100 billion may well have a stronger political presence in either of our major parties. now i know that people are not comfortable when i say this. i want you to take a hard look at what is going on here take a deep breath and tell me whether or not we are lucky not a democracy or whether or not we are looking at an oligarchy. when you have one family that has more political power in the democratic party, then the

republican party which can spend unlimited sums of money not only on campaigns but i'm ink tanks i media, i worry very very much about the future of democracy in our country. and that is why it is absolutely imperative that we pass a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united and in fact why we must move forward towards public funding of elections fear i want young people out there whatever their point of view may be who likes the idea of public-service studio to run for office, get involved in politics without having to worry about up to billionaires to get the support they may need. given the economic crisis we face, a little bit about the political crisis. even the economic crisis then i laid a little bit about what it is. what should we be doing? how do we disappearing middle

class and create an economy that works for our people. there's a 12-point program which i call agenda for america available on my website. let me briefly summarize it. first of all u.s. the average american what the most important issue here she is concerned about and the answer is a four letter word. jobs. we need a major federal jobs program to cut billions of americans back to work at the fastest way to do that is rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, roads bridges water systems, airports, railroads and school spirit it's been estimated the cost of the bush cheney iraq war we should never have waged will total $3 billion by the time the last veteran receives needed care. a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure could support 13 million decent paying jobs and make our country more

efficient, even safer and with senator barbara mikulski i introduced the legislation two weeks ago. further, we must understand climate change is real. it is caused by human activity and already causing devastating harm. we must listen to the scientific community and not watch tv and lead the world in reversing climate change said this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. that means we have the technology to do it transform our system away from fulfills, weatherization and sustainable energies like wind comes oler geothermal and other technologies. when we do that, we not only reverse climate change, we can also create many jobs. we not only need to create jobs for the country, we need to raise wages. the current federal minimum wage

of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage. we need to raise it over a period of years to at least $15 an hour. no one who works 40 hours a week in this country should live in poverty. we must also demand payback would be for women workers who today earned 78 cents about the male counterparts make for doing the same work. we must also end the scandal of overtime pay. evil mcdonald's may $25,000 a year as managers who work 50 or 60 hours a week or because they are managers they don't get overtime. further, we must make it easier for workers to join unions by passing legislation. in my view this is relevant with the transpacific tartar ship trade agreement coming down the pike we need to take a hard look at rate policies which have resulted in the outsourcing of land for good paying jobs.

i think the evidence is overwhelming. it has failed. it makes no sense to me to continue a failed policy of which we need to trade policies and demand corporate america is to start investing in this country and not in china. in today's highly competitive global economy millions of americans are unable to afford the higher education they need in order to get good and jobs. all of you know that hundreds of thousands of young people have literally given up on the dream of going to college deeply, deeply in debt. a few months ago a woman in burlington, for not care crime was she went to medical school to become a primary care physician for low-income people. that was a crime. the result was that she has $300,000 in debt.

that is nuts. what we've got to learn this in countries like terminate scandinavia people competing against us understand the future of their countries depends on the the education their young people get, their college education and graduate school is free. we've got to learn that lesson. free public education does not have to end at high school. president obama's initiative for two years of community college is a good. we've got to go further. further as the nation we cannot run away from the fact that their greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on wall street caused the worst economic downturn in this country and in fact the world since the great depression. that is a fact. it's easy not to talk about it but that is the fact. today, six each wall street

financial institutions have assets equivalent to 60% of our gdp. close to $10 trillion. if teddy roosevelt, a good republican were alive today i know what he would say. what he would say is when you have six financial two shins. it is time to break them up and i've introduced legislation to do just that. were the only major country without a national health care program. i believe strongly in the medicare for all sing her peers this ends. our republican colleagues are going to begin their effort to try to cut social security benefits.

at a time when senior poverty is increasing when i meet them in vermont people get high and 12 $14,000 a year. we should not cut social security benefits. we should be about expanding those benefits. as i mentioned a moment ago we live in a time of massive welfare inequality and we need a progressive tax is soon in this country based on ability to pay. it's unacceptable to me that a number of major profitable corporations have paid zero in federal income taxes in recent years and million or hedge fund managers often enjoy an effect did tax rate that was lower. it is absurd to reduce a hundred billion dollars in revenue because corporations from about the stash their money in offshore tax havens like bermuda

and other places around the world here at the time is now for real tax reform. so let me conclude by saying this. the struggle we are in now is not just about protecting social security or medicare or medicaid or making college affordable to our kids or raising the minimum wage. it is something deeper than that. it is about whether we can put together a vibrant grassroots movement all over the country that says to the billionaire class, sorry. governments in this country is going to work for all of the essay not just the top 1%. thank you very much. [applause]

>> i am going to -- [inaudible] hold on just a moment. .. [inaudible conversations] are reconnected their? thank you for that hedged caution, political speech. >> i was very quiet. i have a whole lot of questions i would like to add. i will try to limit myself to a few and then i want to bring in the audience. i am going to have a bias i will ask members of the media to ask questions because they are bringing this to other people. i will open it up to everyone

before we are done. i want to start with one philosophical and one political question. the philosophical question is what do you actually think of the market economy? is this long list of proposals you do not propose public ownership of the means of production distribution and exchange and you are very critical of the way capitalism works. what is your view of a market economy in general and capitalism in particular. >> well, i think i come down somewhere -- [inaudible] who i think by the way has played an extraordinary role in the last several years in raising issues internationally but have not been raised by such a prominent figure. i think casino capitalism, runaway capitalism which is

what we are experiencing right now is a disaster. there is no way to defend internationally the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90% of the worlds population. i think it's impossible. it is impossible to defend the incredible inequities we in american society today. what i believe when i talk about these issues are what i look at his countries like denmark the danish ambassador coming a year and a half ago. and it's not that the government is going to take over. that is not what we're talking about. what we are talking about in a demo craddick civilized society, the basic necessities of life should be available to all people. it exists in scandinavia and elsewhere.

should everybody have a right to health care? the answer is yes. should everybody regardless of their income get as much education as they need? the answer is yes. and the united states when you have a baby some years ago today the family medical leave act you get three months long if you work for a large company without pay. how many americans know that all over the world when men get six eight months off in order to bond with their babies. when you get old you should have strong retirement security stronger than we have right now. so e.j. capitalism does a lot of good things. it creates wealth you got a lot of entrepreneurs coming up with fantastic ideas. that is great. but we cannot at the end of that process have a situation where a handful of people always though much of so many people have so little. the government plays an important role in making sure all of that have the opportunity to succeed in life.

>> you have to do is come up at like to be more specific here this is an ambitious program, trillion dollars investment in infrastructure of broader rather than narrower social security, free higher education and so on. how are we going to pay for this? >> well we've addressed the issue of income and wealth inequality. two things at the same time. in terms of social security everyone understands if someone makes $10 million here, someone is making $118,000 a year. those people pay the same amount of the social security trust fund. with the cat. you have people at $250000. you expend social security and be able to expand benefits. in terms of other infrastructure, for example we lose about $100 billion every single year as corporations and wealthy people stash their money in the cayman islands and elsewhere. we can generate a significant

sum of money which should be used for infrastructure and education. >> many years ago, they made a very interesting point. richard sammon and ben wattenberg wrote a often come along and say our programs have failed. let us continue. i raise that quote because while you do say we're better off economically than we were six years ago you have a pretty tough litany of what is wrong with the economy as it exists. the real unemployment rate is 11.3%. youth unemployment 18%. i'm sorry, african-american unemployment 30% and so on. yet you voted a number of programs to get the economy moving including the recovery act, otherwise known as the stimulus. if somebody listens to you and says bernie sanders as saying

the programs the last six years have a word what you say back to them? >> you know history and i was on the floor at eight and half hours a years ago in opposition to president obama's tax proposal. i have been very critical, but what you will find this history will judge president obama a lot better. i will tell you programs e.j. that have not worked in a strip of down economics or tax breaks for the rich a marcher corporation committee regulation of wall street in an economic analysis will suggest that is true. has the obama per program has the stimulus package worked? of course it worked. it created millions of jobs at a time of need desperately needed those jobs. so, i would argue in terms of an

structure, putting money into infrastructure and creating jobs, our infrastructure is crumbling. i'm proud to defend single turned health care. they have a conservative premier a single health care system because it is more cost effective and provides health care to all of the people. >> more generally i guess when you look back on the last six years, what would you have done that we didn't do to get the economy moving, to give us some of the problems you're talking about here. >> i would've been stronger than president obama. i think he missed the opportunity politically at doing what roosevelt did when he was elected and making it clear to the american people what is happening and why is this happening.

when he was elected, this economy was on the verge of collapse. the financial system maybe wouldn't make it. at that point, what he should have done is what roosevelt did. look in the camera and said the economic real estate me and i welcome that he traded. i think that i think that's a president obama should do. these people have destroyed millions of lives because of greed and recklessness. i would take them on and rebuild an economy so that it works for all people and not just the very wealthy. i voted for the full de bergerac. i think its sense and good things as been mentioned in my remarks. $12 million in community health center is important. i would've gone forward trying to fight for a single-payer or at least greatly expanding medicare, making it simpler and more inclusive. >> what do you say to folks who put a heavy emphasis now on the cost of retiree baby boomers.

basically you say if we simply lift the cap we can cover that problem. is that your answer to that critique? >> we are exactly where people anticipated we would be. no great surprise. people cannot. they know demographics. right now i couple of points. a lot of information goes out there. social security is not going broke. 6.8 trillion and the trust and can pay out every benefit. social security does not have a deficit. his paper by the payroll tax recipients or is yes. should we strengthen social security? absolutely. the way to do that is to lift the cap. >> is there a place for something like wall street and a bernie sanders economy? >> look, banking plays an important role and i'm not a

pretty conservative. but banking is about, traditional banking is over, i make money and rooted in the bank. the guaranteed interest rate in the banks invest money into the economy. what is happening with the years. instead of being agreed for the economy, taking money and in getting it out to small businesses medium-size businesses, wall street has become an island unto itself or its goal is to make as much money in whatever way you can do it. i don't want to again be too dramatic to appear. i happen to believe the business model of wall street is fraud interception. as you know recently picked up the paper. another large bank with the government. so their job is banking plays an important role. it helps get money out to the