things like that. those are the three ways to deal with the terrorists. we say this gets back to the question on the aumf. because right now we are not capturing anybody. we might go out and detain somebody, and it's worked between the military and the fbi like we did with this guy in libya, but there's a lot of other out there that we probably would benefit from capturing. i mean we used to say when i was in the special operations community, that had we not had the ability to professionally interrogate those that we captured, the high value targets or the mid-value targets, we might as well take that cadillac and bring it on home and park in the garage. because the capturing of individuals in this environment is actually, it's the best form of intelligence that you can get. bar none. i have lived it. i have run those facilities and we know how to do them very professionally because we

learned a really ugly lesson in over 10 years ago now. so you have to be able to do that. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. cooper. he's not here. ms. graham. >> first, thank you very much for being here this morning. detached a bit on other terrorist groups in the region. could you please provide an update on hezbollah? thank you. >> you guys can talk. i mean hezbollah is an iranian backed group. they are, i believe we're still designating them as a terrorist organization, our state department. hezbollah is deeply involved in syria. they are fighting in syria members of hezbollah are

fighting and they are actually leading and doing some of these sort of what i would call sort of special operations type training of some of the syrian forces. hezbollah is involved in yemen. hezbollah certainly involved in lebanon and some of the disruption of things in that particular country. and hezbollah is involved in iraq as well. so members of hezbollah are in fact inside iraq fighting with what i would describe as what we used to call the court organization which is which we know is led by members of iran's irgc. hezbollah is a very dangerous organization. they are responsible for killing many many americans. and we need to not let them sort of get a pass on any of this speed that thank you

congresswoman. let me just say very quickly that hezbollah actually has been in a very typical position for the last several years because of its role in syria which has been quite controversial. it's exposed out in ways that never was before. it enjoyed in the past a very solid basically impractical base in the south of lebanon and from there was able to play a dominant role in not just shia politics in lebanon but in the overall lebanese political system. now lebanon is a state that is hanging on by its fingernails, more than 1 million syrian stray refugees, growing signs of sick terrorism, conflict and violence. and even a lot there's increasing signs of grumblings among the shia middle-class community same would happen to protect it or interest? why are our boys going at and dying in syria? but also at the same time radicalization of the shia communities saying why aren't you doing more? the leadership of hezbollah is

clearly, yes, it is clearly a dangerous and extreme the capable and robust organization but this is probably the most difficult political situation into space in many, many years. it no longer can claim to speak for a broad resistance of visual. nobody believes that anymore because they've seen no sunnis believe that because they seem hezbollah men at the killing and murdering sunni civilians. so they've lost that card. they are much weaker because the lebanese state is much weaker. it's a very difficult time for them, and they're having i would say a difficult time navigating this new situation. >> thank you, congresswoman. the only thing i would add is that i mentioned the word sectarianism numerous times in my oral testimony. i find this to be a very important issue that we have to understand that one of the ways that extremist ideologies can become more mainstream is when societies are polarized and people collect have to pick a side no choice but to pick a side. and the only candidates for

their votes are extremist organizations in is very polarized environment. i worry about the sectarian violence in syria being exported to other neighboring countries in creating a wider sector and conflict. hezbollah is one of the organizations that could be a conduit for the spread of sectarian violence in lebanon as a country with a very interesting sort of denominational system of representation is really the kind of country that would be vulnerable to sectarian violence going forward. >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity. >> mr. wittman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, thank you so much for your testimony. general flynn, how worried are you about american citizens becoming radicalized fighting overseas and returning back to the united states? and are there additional steps the u.s. should take in addressing those citizens that travel by train with isis nseers you, in iraq and then later

return back to the united states and the threats they would pose your? i would like to get your perspective. >> first, i think that our fbi and the leadership of the fbi is doing a phenomenal job dealing with this issue here in the homeland. just to give you a little perspective, when somebody shows up to syria, okay and this has been going on for a while, they do a little betting of who these individuals are. if it's somebody 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, here's a we're going to do, here's what you're going to operate, and go forth and do good. any other parts of the vetting don't they look for individuals who have different skill sets who have savvy with the internet will have some leadership skills, who maybe have some in shearing capabilities. so they are 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 ied pipeline they may get put into a different pipeline. those of 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 are 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 to be honest with you if somebody is going to conspire to fight against us which is essentially what they are doing, there also has to be a discussion at least about their citizenship.

>> so you think additional steps to recovery of those people who travel, of course my concern is turkey is a conduit for people traveling into syria and those areas. are there additional steps we should take in working with turkey to be more aggressive with him looking specifically at those folks and have left the country by some kind of provision on the return about the conditions on the return back to the united states? >> the combination of intelligence and law-enforcement is a big deal, gets right 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 information, and many to be able to deal with the writing of partners. turkey being probably one of the principal ones right now because if we know some it is getting on a plane out of laguardia or dulles to fly over to ankara,

the we need to make sure we recognize who they are and they being tracked, the right visas. and in turkey needs to know what they are doing over there. this is one of these difficult things because we are trying to also protect our own freedom to travel and all that sort of business. got to know why are you going there. are you part of an ngo a private organization to provide some humanitarian assistance, or are you going over there for some other ill-gotten gains. >> let me ask this. we've seen what's happened in yemen. it is collapsing before our eyes. our u.s. marines from our embassy staff, the embassy is abandoned. we see the chaos going on. these 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 the government there, that our counterterrorism efforts were successful. a couple questions. what went wrong? and is this an indicator of a

broader weakness or failure of u.s. foreign policy? >> from my perspective 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, the greater arab world. and i think the second, third fourth order effects of libya i'm really concerned about post a period of time in afghanistan

based on what we've already heard we're going to do, and i noticed in the "washington post" today there's an article there about we are rethinking our timeline for departure from afghanistan. i think that's appropriate. so that there led to a mismatch and resources and an end strategy as to how we apply it against this enemy. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman been thank you all for being here and for generations. general flynn, could you follow up a bit on your comment just deb fischer talk about the lessons learned about the mismatch and the threats. would you make that same analysis about eve an hour not understanding the countries iraq for example, when we went into iraq and they have created more enemies than friends. how would you respond to that? >> yeah, i think that that's a very, you know, what you are implying is very true.

and i think that we, you know in the spectrum of conflict when we define the spectrum of conflict we in the military look at it from peace to war. a political dimension of our country has to look at it from peace thank us back to be sure 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 or the point of war. we have to do that. i think that's part of this debate. as the ranking member was highlighted, we have to not just throw military resources at this thing, we have to be far more sophisticated, but that's not comprehensive right now. that sophistication, i don't see it and i've been studying this problem for a long time, and i'm hopeful we can get our act together but it has to be one that is very, very comprehensive and it's going to be a multi-generational problem.

there are moderates after the we do need to encourage. somebody sent me a note the other day and said if there's 126 subject matter experts clerics and others in the muslim world that came out strong against isis. why aren't there 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 a need to stand up and make a statement, that strong statement about what it is we're doing or not doing. >> thank you. right now i think there are perhaps some opportunities that we are not using. i'm thinking of the peshmerga in kurdistan. have you had any thoughts about that, why we're not utilizing and doing as good a job as we can't and really facility in greater involved on their

behalf? they're asking for it. 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 could do more and we could give them more support. we could help in training them, getting the more sophisticated and 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 on that. >> we have to be more sophisticated. >> if i could -- go on. to shifting to another region, boko haram. before a senate intelligence committee meeting yesterday, the growing connections between isis and the boko haram was mentioned. i don't know whether you happened to hear that, that discussion, but shouldn't, i mean, where even in terms of the

aumf are we thinking about that connection? and i guess the horrible provincial that that would bring as well? >> i will let bill answer this because i think he mentioned boko haram in his statement. one, number one boko haram is incredibly vicious. i mean, my god, look at what they've done to children, young women. these are children. so, and i can't put that aside but now, so the connection between these organizations is very real. and we know, we know that al-qaeda, so the al-qaeda command control, al-qaeda senior leaders were, in fact, dealing with boko haram in a sort of cursory way when bin laden was still alive. so this is not some connection

that's just all of a sudden happened a boko haram has popped up. hopeful you've seen joe rodriguez, r. command of africom talking about we need a whole sort of counterinsurgency effort. and again i think their are separate nations of africa that trying to come to grips with the with boko haram the. they just postpone the elections. again, this is a long-term problem and these groups are connected. >> thank you. i think my time is up, and perhaps dr. lynch can bring this up later. >> mr. coffman. >> thank you mr. chairman. just a question about isis. i served in iraq with the marine corps in 2005 in ramadi in fallujah in 2006 and in the western euphrates. what i found in the sunni arab population is they clearly didn't like as. we upset the apple cart. they saw the government in baghdad as a shia dominated

government, sectarian government that was against them, and they were against the government. but when they saw later on a path, the fissures between al-qaeda and 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 fissures exploded between the two. i found them to be a very moderate people, boys and girls went to school together in these towns, secular curriculum annual exams and very dependent upon a lot of government services. and so it's hard for me to envision them subjugated to this radical islamic group, isis.

they were temporarily in line with al-qaeda and then they broke up. so what's the prognosis here? and i will refer to each one of you. >> thank you, congressman. i think you are right about that and about the nature of the iraqi sunni community and the resentment both of us and especially of the shia dominated government. one of the great strategic missed opportunities that we've had in the middle east was that nouri al-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 you are also absolutely right about the long-term implausibility of people like this being willing to live under isil to the problem right now though i think is that the sectarianism has gone has

become so intense and so deeply ingrained. you're talking about populations with enormous levels of displacement both internal and refugees, people who have seen family members being butchered on sectarian ground. and an enormous amount of mistrust of state institutions like the ministry of the interior and ministry of the interior and ministry of the interior and the iraqis to go to forces which makes it very difficult for them to look at the iraqi government as a partner. and i think that until they're able to look at the iraqi government and see it as a viable partner, then it's going to be difficult for them to make that leap that they made back in 2006-2007. that's what i think getting a new prime minister in place and time to begin some serious security service reforms institutional reforms is what you need to do in order to win in iraq. reversing that security data security is going to be extraordinary difficult at this point. i think it's up to the right way to do it. something which is

institutionalized and can't simply be dissolved at the stroke of a parent the way that promises to incorporate the awakenings were done back in '08-'09. >> thank you, mr. congressman. i would just reiterate, start research extensive surveys in the muslim world and the iraqi population is overwhelmingly secular in how they respond, some of the national level polls, even within the last two years. and to me if sectarianism trumps secularism the way it has in iraq, because of these identity politics that are being leveraged by groups like isil, then we better make sure that our national strategy to address violent extremism in other places really pushes back on sectarianism. because it's such a powerful force, the force of nature. if we don't deal with sectarianism, isil, aqim and these groups have relatively easy time forcing people to pick a side through violence.

>> really briefly a lot of lessons learned between the ways zarqawi operate on the way al baghdad is operating and that is been a discussion within the ranks of the al-qaeda movement. so they learned lessons in ways zarqawi did things and al- baghdad is avoiding many of those mistakes. and then really three things come incredible levels of corruption, within the governments, 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 by the people come and just a real desperate economic conditions that these people live within, and that'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. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> ms. gabbard.

>> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. each of you has made points throughout this morning about how this sectarianism is a driver for violence how the trust of the sunni tribes and people must be earned in order to take oxygen away that currently exists, especially in iraq for isis. how can this be done with his current strategy? you've talked about new leadership in place, talked about different rhetoric. a different 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 to their ability to any sense of control over the shia militias into their attacking and what they are doing does not exist. and unless you go to a different model of governance and go away from this attachment to this continued policy of one single government in iraq and move to something where you're actually truly empowering the kurds,

where you're not having to funnel everything to the baghdad government where at this point even a small margin of the weapons and ammunition that we're sending is getting to them, and empower the sunnis and empower the shias in some type of three-state solution. how is this current strategy and winning strategy to defeat isis publishing get to the core of this issue? >> i will just quickly, i believe that we are going to not go back to the way things were. the breakdown of the boundaries within this region are going to be an incredibly difficult to get back to, not impossible, i just don't see that happening anytime soon. potentially in my lifetime. i would say that iran is the greater problem. they do not see inclusiveness of sunnis. from the iranian viewpoint.

and i think that they, like you saw in yemen recently with some of the chanting that we saw, you are seeing in iraq things occur that are clearly iranian influenced and against everything that we're trying to do. so i will leave it at that. >> thanks for the question. the problem with iraq you are absolutely right about the role of iran and iraq. it's pervasive and it goes beyond the shiite militia. it's in every level of the government the level of the state, sacred forces, the kurds. i have relations with everybody in iraq because they have a full spectrum strategy for dealing with the close neighbor. i would actually not pose iran as the primary problem in iraq. i think the militias are a primary problem, that iran can

use that instrument when it is useful for them, and if they decide it's not useful for them then they can begin to move to try and shut it down. i think 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 tacit or formal maybe not formal but at least tacit cooperation with iran. the role in iraq is simply too pervasive into real. security forces can't be disaggregated and only working with sunni units. if you want to tamp down sectarianism, you can't than doubled down on a sunni-shia division of iraq and try an older work with the sunnis and fight against the shiite. what you need to do is bring the country back together, tamp down the sectarianism and have a state based on citizenship. there's already been huge progress on the decentralization in the constitution. they are doing with these issues of oil revenues and all these things and no one is very happy

with any of the solutions they have come up with but they're working on them. i think the idea of allowing the kurds to go their own way, i think at the time is not a good one. certainly we should continue to support the path continue to advocate kurdish self-interest but i think the kurdish self interest still are to be part of an iraq in this decentralized federal framework, and that's what it's a good idea to funnel support, military support another things through baghdad. in other words, give them what they need help them in the ways they need to be held by don't encourage the fragmentation of the state. and the key problem there, and i will finish, is that you talked about a three-state solution and we've heard about this quite a lot. there's a fairly plausible shiite subsidy you could imagine and a very plausible kurdish one. there is no plausible sunni third state other than the isil carved out and that they think is not in america's interest to create. you need to keep the sunni parts and the shia parts together in

something that we're calling iraq. so you're going to need to find some kind of bargain by which the state can coexist and can't survive. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. dr. heck. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for being here today. >> the president recently released his 2015 national street strategy on the white house website states the strategy, is a blueprint for america's worship in the world how we address global challenges but as it our nation's interests, values and vision for the future. on page three of the strategy is as we're leading a global campaign in degrading and ultimately defeating the islamic state of iraq in the law. and on page 15 of state we reject the lie that america and its allies are at war with islam. i would disagree with the for statement. i don't think we are leading in trying to degrade and ultimately defeat isil. i would agree with the second statement that we're not at war with all of islam. we are at war with radical islam and islamic extremism yet nowhere in the strategy does that term of your. in fact the only two times the

word islam figures in that strategy is the two instances i just mention. yet climate change appears 19 times. i would ask if you think the national security strategy has enough specificity to adequately inform the documents of the national defense strategy and the national military strategy to actually have a positive impact on executing a strategy for the grading and ultimately defeating isil. 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 and they're knocking on the door of the airbase where we have marines in a training capacity. how can you say that the momentum has actually been halted? >> in any civil war, those are excellent question that i really appreciate your opening comment about validating the idea that we are not at war with islam is extremely important.

there's been huge debate about whether we should use the term islamic extremism or violent islam or extremist islam or those sorts of things. i fall into the school thing i don't take it matters all that much what we call them. i think this is something we concern ourselves greatly but whether we call them isil our daesh or isis or al-qaeda, i don't think it matters very much. i think this notion that it will be interesting to talk about it more but i think forming a search is not dependent, its semantics. i really believe that. in terms of momentum, i mean i think if you look at these kinds of civil wars, there's constantly going to be a surge and a flow and see a movement here and they decline. and the retreat there. we've been seeing this in theory now for the last two and a half three years. basically a stalemate. this village gets captured, this village gets lost. you can read to much into the daily pushes and flows. i think the defeat in kobani was extremely, it was big because they showed that they were not

unstoppable. they put a lot of resources and propaganda efforts into this and they feel. that was big for blocking the momentum. i think we've seen them pulling back from aleppo. we have seen them, their failure to move into irbil and baghdad. and so i wouldn't say and do what i would agree with you. there are signs they have reversed, that we're pushing the back but we stop the forward momentum and broke the patina of invisibility which was actually important. once they don't look vulnerable that's when those drives and other factions will start believing that it's safe to flip sides again. i think that's how i would describe what is still obviously a still very fluid situation. >> so the national security strategy lays out the world which is very complex array of threats. i don't believe that the

national security strategy prioritizes what the united states should do about those threats. prioritizing sort of the here and now, and then sort of what like what a harry truman said post-world war ii which was, and i will quote him, you know, he rightly understood that the soviets were a quote animated by a new fanatic state, unquote. so we have to prioritize, to take the strategy, the national security strategy and prioritize inside of it against the threats we are facing. the fact that we even use isil and the word islamic in the framework of islamic state, it actually recognizes that, in fact, in that document in the president's letter on top of the document he uses islamic state in the levant. so it recognizes we the united states are recognize the fact

that if somebody called islam 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 cannot allow ourselves to define something that actually they are calling themselves in a sense, and so if the enemy is calling themselves that, why do we have such a difficult time? and everything as a real small binder thing, but the word or the acronym daesh, that recognizes the latter part of the acronym talks about, it describes al-sham.

al-sham is the levant. so it actually to me in my framework of who we're trying to understand what is we're facing, and i've studied these guys and i don't with them, talk to them. that actually benefits them. so anyway we're using and i can to describe this in the editing is because iraqis asked us to use it but the acronym actually describes al-sham which says you basically are controlling the levant which is essentially what they want to do. we have to be very very careful about the words that we use. when we use words like mujahideen or jihad, those are recognitions of their courage and studies a word like -- which means that's about as ugly a word as you can call an air of -- arab. we don't use it. we should. >> mr. smith. >> thank you. two follow-ups. one on the notion that al-baghdadi and isis is somehow doing better than al-qaeda did and governance. there have been just as many stories out there, like i said mosul is a disaster. and if i'm wrong about that please correct me but from the governance standpoint, and there've been just as many

stories of isil cutting people's hands 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 they have going for them is the baghdad government. sunnis have no place else to go because, frankly i haven't seen much improvement with al-abadi. maliki is terrible but the sunnis still look at the baghdad government as shiite, and basically sucked arenas and. we've had massacres of sunnis by shia militia groups here recently. i think that is more to do with the fact that sunnis are unwilling to break away from al-baghdadi and isil than it does that their governing better. am i missing something? is there some evidence that they are governing better? that they're not doing the same sort of violence against their citizens, that al-qaeda and iraq did before? or the taliban did, for that matter. >> ranking member smith, if i

may, thank you for the questions. i think the biggest difference is that they are governing, even if they are governed poorly. most of the al-qaeda and the associated movements have never really tried to establish formal governance. >> it's a separate point. we'rewere talking a little bit about what al-qaeda in iraq -- al-qaeda in iraq controlled territory before the anbar awakening and they did run shadow governments of 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 in iraq -- >> perhaps one metric would be the flow of foreign fighters into iraq and syria. something about the way they are portraying the governance of iraq and syria is 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 compromising. they are seen as uncompromising.

they are purifying islam. these kind of macho terms. and while it's horrific stuff for the base, as 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 the means by which they are governing is appalling. and it's seen as for some, a more appealing alternative, like you mentioned, the maliki government in baghdad. >> and one final point on guantánamo, conversation back and forth about that. i would not take series lead in the argument that we don't need to detain enemies. we do. the question is do we need to detain them at guantánamo? nor would i argue with the point that look, you're not going to close guantánamo and have the file the islamic extremists it

okay, we are good. i understand that but it is not necessary, use it to detain them at guantánamo? the entire reason that guantánamo was set up was the belief that made we've somehow sidestep habeas corpus, but the supreme court has shut that down. is there any reason that we couldn't take these people, as we have in many instances and detained him here in the united states? >> so we definitely need to be able to capture because if we only kill that can is a more problem. >> got that, but we're? >> when you look at prior to 2003, there were many non-afghans detained in afghanistan. i'm not going to argue with you where because i think we have to decide. we have to make that decision but to be able to do tactical interrogation -- >> i've got all that.

my question -- >> if we bring them into the united states and they get rather habeas corpus rights, that stops the process of being able to get the kind of information that you can get through very professionally done and derogations. i'm telling you -- >> i've heard that argument a thousand times. >> i been involved in thousands of interrogation operations to be able to get to that point. >> you are telling every law enforcement personnel in the u.s., every fbi agent gets no useful intelligence out of anybody that the capture, because once they randomize them they can get information out of? >> it's a lot slower. i've been on both sides of it. and it doesn't mean that we can't have professional law enforcement representatives and bald in the process from a detention and interrogation process. >> i disagree with you on the fact that some of my random instantly shuts off the gathering of information, but putting that point aside, --

miranda. there's no reason as you do with other people, you have to do that in guantánamo too. the same things apply in both places. i guess the central question is there's a reason we could do the same thing here in the u.s. that we do in guantánamo. guantánamo does not give us any particular interrogation or detention advantage. >> you just have to make sure there's the timeliness issue intent to make sure that the conditions are set for that. again that's kind of a legislative, executive discussion ever bring them into the united states what does that mean legally? i'm not a lawyer, don't know that i just know there will be a different set of circumstances will bring them inside the united states because we don't have designated combat zones anymore. wherever they go we have to be able to capture these individuals to be able to get the intelligence out of him. >> there is a difference between guantánamo and the u.s. yield back. >> mr. nugent. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

interesting discussion about guantánamo at absolutely, in my home area, we have the largest federal prison effort and i would just suggest to you when you detain these folks whether it's gitmo or the u.s., that's the issue. that's going to be the issue to the bad guys and their associated friends and fellows so i think, i agree with the general when to bring them back to the u.s. in a former law enforcement officer it creates a whole bunch of other issues that we have not had to deal with when they're held at gitmo. the one thing that i'm struggling with, with the president's request for an authorization, and you sit on

the head, general, is a clear comprehensive strategy. what would that look like? i guess that's why i'm struggling, what does a clear comprehensive strategy look like in regards to dealing with the issue that we have in front of us? we had the king of jordan here and his comprehensive strategies you can't just look at isis or isil. you've got to look at it across the world in regards to islamic extremism. >> so i mean can we talked about this business about clearly defining the enemy and making sure its company had said. i think those are sort of two parts of this and you just addressed certainly the second one. i think the third one is that we have to retake a hard look at how we are organized as a nation to deal with the tactical problem of what's happened in iraq and syria, but also we have to look at how we organize as a nation to deal with the wider longer term problem of this radical version of islam. specifically, it's the department of defense, the department of state, the central

intelligence agency and the intelligence community as it supports our national interest. and then i think we have to look at how we are organized internationally. i use a nato model as a model, although it's got its shortcomings, but we need to have some sort of arab world nato, if you will, like structure, and not deal with each one of these countries as though they are individual countries dealing with individual problems. they are all dealing with those kind of problems and i think we need to put somebody in charge of the. i think we need to designate someone in charge that has not only the backing of this country and the full line of authority from the president of the united states to execute authorities, and it is probably civilian led but it is somebody with that kind of crabby cost i guess but also internationally accepted to run this sort of campaign. should to be somebody from the u.s.? i believe it should be somebody from the u.s. doesn't mean that we have to of

large numbers of boots on the ground. it just means we're to come together organize ourselves first, make sure that we are organized correctly internationally, and then make sure that someone is in charge of this effort and and friendly tell. >> in public that this is going to last for generations. i mean to this is not something that is going to go away. >> to the other panelists -- >> and the aumf is not that, it's only a component of it. >> and that's the mistake i think people think that aumf is a comprehensive strategy. is just part of the toolkit. the other panelists in regards to a comprehensive strategy, do you think today, today at this point in time that we have a comprehensive strategy, today? >> no, i don't. i think we have we did a very good job of reassembly a coalition and stopping the immediate crisis now it's time when we need to formulate a

long-term strategy. i think the question is exactly right. in terms your specific question about what that strategy might look like i could would've existed before about preventing a class of -- >> i appreciate that spirit i want to second and third something general flynn said that if we're going to have any success in dealing with isil and with extremism in the middle east, we have to make sure our allies are on the same page as we are because the event as much a problem as a solution. extraordinarily destructive in syria and abuse of human rights. a comprehensive strategy at the cost of that component of political reforms and everything else, or else it's just spitting into the wind. >> i think thus far we've been dealing with issues and an ad hoc basis, and perhaps that's because of instability associate with the arab spring and, frankly, it was a pretty tumultuous few years but i think any strategy has to recognize that al-qaeda and isil -- >> do we have full comprehensive

strategy? >> no. i think al-qaeda and isil have poles into the realm of nonstate actors where we are largely forced to operate in judicial terms, and outside the national system. >> thank you, mr. chairman. yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank all our witnesses for being here in particular general flynn, a fellow rhode islander. general, welcome back before the committee and thank you for your years of service. so i would like to, probably the question would be for dr. lynch and also to general flynn, whoever wants to go first. clearly this rise of radical violate extremists didn't happen overnight but it was allowed to fester in many ways mainly with the religious community for whatever reason, as i understand it, was allowed to preach hate and violence and a lot of the

leaders in the middle east kind of looked the other way, for whatever reason. it kind of took a long time to get here. it will take a long time to get out of it. let me ask you do the statements for example president of c-17 in egypt which i found -- president al-sisi, surprising but a welcome statement when he spoke to the religious community there, or establishing sunni imams in the greater middle east who have denounced the violence of isil or islamic extremes of -- extremism more broadly, do the moderate or counter the nature of the grievances and the threat from jihadists in the region or are these steps having the reverse effect of reinforcing the jihadists ideology and narrative? can you comment on that? >> i think it's a fantastic question, thinking. i think that the issue with

statements like those by president al-sisi is that the statement itself. it's that he doesn't have the standing to issue those things because when he is presiding over a fairly repressive police state and putting tens of thousands of political dissidents in jail, it's her difficult for him to then said oh, but you must be moderate and you must participate in the political system. so he gets back exactly to the conversation we were having a moment ago about the need to understand that if you want to have leaders who are capable of making, leaders in the middle east who are capable of making the kinds of statements that you and i would very much like to see, they need to have to stand from which to do so. and right now they don't. the saudis have been in a very difficult position on this. the egyptians have been in a difficult position. so the traditional leaders of the airport are not in a position right now to make the kind of goes for moderation and against extremism that we need these. >> so real quickly this shift

in this and the strengthening of this ideology started well before 9/11. 9/11 just brought it to the fore. it really was, you know it just showed how dedicated and how long-term their vision is of what it is that they believe. and i believe that president sisi's remarks back and the late december, january time frame he was talking to the egyptian people as much as he was talking to the arab world. and we shouldn't lose sight of that. so despite the challenges that egypt faces internally to try to get back to a sense of strength and stability we need leaders like that, frankly, more of them around the arab world that are willing to step up and say the kinds of things that he said that took a lot of courage, but he also knows, he also knows he has to change inside of it on system just in egypt alone to be able to get people to serve come

back around to be more moderate. they are dealing with some very dealing with al-qaeda and did it with elements of radical version of the muslim brotherhood in that country. i was very heartened when i heard the president al-sisi come out and make those remarks. >> so are the things that we can focus on in our strategy to help encourage that kind of moderation? but let me ask you also given that there are certain actors in the region such as uae and jordan, among others who appear to be supporting u.s. interests how should the united states support an organization partners in the region to serve as potentially moderating influence within the greater middle east? >> thank you congressman. so i think one thing we can do we know the u.s. government is gun shy to talk about what is moderate islam and what should islam be another leaders in the muslim world don't always have

the credibility talk about moderate islam and have had authority. the one thing leaders can do is try to collectively decrease the perceived social legitimacy of violence, which is not talking about what kind of islam is right or wrong but it's lowering the threshold that sparks sort of repulsion against terrorist organizations so that they step over that line more quickly. this is something to think we can do collectively. >> let me add one other comment and that has to do with the rule of law. i think that it's a strategic advantage of this country has. if there's one thing we need to export around the world, not so much democracy but the idea of rule of law. so people are governed by norms and behaviors are acceptable internationally. and i think that's a problem in this part of the world right now. >> thank you all. i yield back. >> as you all know they've called votes. i think we'll have time to probably get two more folks in. mr. cook. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

general flynn, first of all i know she went to the university of rhode island. >> first land grant university in the country established by abraham lincoln established that law. >> i know, but my daughter with her and my son-in-law. i just want to know why the out of state tuition is so high. [laughter] >> i defer to my college. >> going back to dr. heck's question about the airfield, which is in the news right now and everything else, and i think a lot of us are wondering whether this is a symbolic thing in terms of a targeting, in terms of mortars and indirect fire weapons. because the fact that there are marines there, a chance to embarrass the marines as you know fallujah i think was a major, 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 you know, they had tremendous casualties or what have you. that's number one press story. can you comment on that? and secondly i want you to address our lack of human intelligence. i know you talked about feedback >> from the prisoners. >> so the fact that this tactical action by isis is going on right now in essentially the village or town of baghdadi is a strategic victory for them. it is doubtful if strategic information victory for them. and they are very close, and there's been i've been there a number of times when we operate out of there, very effectively.

if i were those marines in there, i would be looking to make sure that we have that we have the rules of engagement very clearly understood to be able to deal with anything that happens against those parameters of that particular base. what i would love to see i would love to see an unleashing of some iraqi force with the support of our u.s. marines to go after and we take that little village, because 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 there. in terms of human, we lacked the kind of human intelligence that we need, that we used to have actually, that we developed it over time but we don't have that kind of level that we need today. and interrogations is actually a part of that. >> since i still have two minutes, i just wanted, you talked about the plans and everything like that.

i used to be a plans officer a hundred years ago. we're talking about the budget and everything else, notably the garden is a temple of august compared to just out of control. you've got to do this, this and this. we used to have a fault with all the ops plans and everything else. 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. if you could briefly comment on that. >> right. we did not. we do not have, if you look at the menu that the national security strategy clearly is currently is in terms of the layout of the drowned world, and particularly this problem we're facing right now our military is so stretched thin and, frankly, underresourced and parts of it are not trained to the level that we would expect them to be that the american public would expect them to be at. and the sequestration, and you all know this is just joking

the readiness of the united states military. 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 it's going to get even smaller, and that's the danger to our national security. >> thank you for your service. i yield back. >> mr. scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, thank you for being here. i will try to be brief. general flynn, i want to go to one of the signature made about the fact that terrorism is ebbing and flowing. we shouldn't pay too much attention to it. h. is going to happen the way the middle east is if you will. ii would like a summit for the record, and wonder if you've seen this. this is the dia intelligence assessment from 2004-2014. in 2004 we were dealing with 21 total terrorist groups in 18 countries, and today we are

dealing with 41 terrorist groups in 24 countries. certainly respect your opinion and agree with it on many things, but i would suggest that that is more than an ebb and flow. that is a significant growth and an ideology that is dangerous to the world. what would you assess the population of islamic extremists or terrorists whatever we want to call them in iraq to be the total number of them? >> thank you, congressman. i want to clarify what is talking about ebb and flow i was taught by civil war dynamics and not terrorism but i was talking about the fighting on the ground in syria specifically. i'm sorry for that confusion. >> for the record the u.s. working to undermine assad and move them out, i have read some of her statements. i personally think the u.s. made a mistake, and when we undermine those leaders in those trenches

we can create a vacuum that allows these extremist groups to expand. that i've read some of your statements there but the total number for iraq if you would. >> i just wanted to clear that the because the evidence for was really about the civil wars and the question we should've gone after assad is a question for another day. i would take you to go country by country you get wildly different estimates. so, for example, there's an islamic state affiliates supposedly in algeria which might have 20 people in it -- >> but look -- >> so in iraq what i would say is, that was your specific question, you might have something along the lines of what would you say bill, maybe 5000 dedicated dedicated isis or isolate fighters combined with a whole set of local forces who have aligned with -- >> let's use that number. i'm trying to move fast because i'm trying to get my colleagues a chance as well. how many fighting age men are in that country's because good question. 17 million maybe?

15 million? >> okay, but those are kurds, sunnis and shiites and therefore, talking only about the sunni committee -- >> here's my point and this is what i want to come back to you want general. if there are 5000 islamic extremist terrorists, whatever want to call them come inside the country that has 5 million fighting age men no matter what battle we win, if we get the rules of engagement right, they've got if they are moderates, that's a 50000 to one margin. and if 50,000 to one isn't enough of an advantage, then what is? so this is where, 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. so, general flynn my question

to you specifically. if we get the rules of engagement right, which i sorely don't trust the president on, but if we get the rules of engagement right there's no doubt in my mind that we can win any battle over there. but if they in iraq have a 50,000 to one margin versus the islamic terrorist and they can't control that, what good can we give? >> so i was asked a question back in 2002 when i was first in afghanistan, and i was asked how many enemies are we facing in afghanistan at that time, 2002, this was april or may timeframe 2000 to timeframe 2000 today and i said were looking at about 35000. so the next question was if we kill or capture all 35000, can they go home do we win? the next part of the answer was no, because there's another half a million on the other side of the border. 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, these other millions or whatever that number is, we're going to be at this a long time. and that's why the military component of this makes us feel good when we do something we kill somebody, we get a leader but it's all the others that are they ready to join this movement and fight against our value system. and that's just something that we're going to have to that's the wider strategy. >> and that's were i think training and equipping of our allies becomes the most important part of this strategy. spent across the region -- >> absolutely. >> i think we've got time for a couple of questions if you'd like to go ahead. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for your testimony. ..

the and the effect that is having. you see the emergence of the islamic state affiliate in libya, completely and governed space and it is a civil war total polarization and that has said the polarizing effect on the east and west, egyptian are worried about it, tunisian are worried about it and so basically the lesson is you get the collapse of the state and i am worried about this for all kinds of reasons but that is one of them.

>> bill has something to offer on this as well. the negative is it is rapidly growing it is getting worse particularly in the areas you just talked about and the other part is as mark just highlighted the breakdown of the nation state or the order of the nation state if you will, the positive is there are countries that understand it and are trying to come to grips with it and that is -- seven countries are trying to work together, there is an economy is there in the center and southern part, good models for the rest of africa but the size of the population in the 15 to 30-year-old category of young men with nothing better to do that insulin these groups is the fastest-growing population demographics on the planet today.

>> thank you thanks for your time. >> thank the gentlelady and thank you all for being here. as many topics as we got through today we didn't get to everything. you got something you want to add? >> al shabaab had twice as many attacks as they did in 2013. boca raton will be the second most lethal terrorist organization in 2014 when we finalize the data. there were quite efficient the first attack in chad taxing in cameroon and another group in nigeria among the most active groups, and associated with

this so what we are seeing is increased levels of terrorist attacks and fatalities in west africa and east africa and the lot of fluidity in north africa. >> it is helpful to have some objective measurements to gauge these things. they don't tell the whole story but they enable us to compare. the other topic we didn't get to today which i think we need to understand better is this competition among groups. you alluded to it, we did not have a chance to get to it but that is a very significant factor we have not fully explored but we did get to a number of things. we are getting cut short because of it. i appreciate you being here and assisting the committee. the hearing stands adjourned.

[inaudible conversations] >> february is black history month and the c-span bus is on the road visiting the top historically black colleges in universities to speak with their faculty and discuss public policy issues and highlight their role in america's education system. at 9:15 during washington journal we will be with brian johnson, the president of tuskegee university in tuskegee alabama. then visited save the university and talk with the provost. >> live coverage coming up on c-span2 looking at national security, starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern conversation from the brookings institution on the civil wars in libya and yemen. then we go to the u.s. institute of peace for a discussion on

terrorism in pakistan and this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. live on c-span2 the white house cybersecurity coordinator speaking at the atlantic council. keep track of the republican-led congress and follow its new members through its first session. new congress, best access on c-span, c-span2, c-span radio and c-span.org. former u.s. ambassador to the un john bolton spoke on capitol hill about what he thinks is wrong with president obama's foreign policy and why he thinks national security will be a major issue in the 2016 presidential race. from the defense forum foundation this is an hour. [inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon. chairman of the defense foreman foundation. we had the great honor of organizing this wonderful group we are so grateful you came organizing, many years ago in the 80s, we were established with the specific purpose of giving congressional staff the opportunity to hear from experts speakers on critical national-security issues, primarily to do with national security in defense of our country. over the years our leadership under the leadership of president susan shiltie, we focus bun freedom, democracy and human rights. she has been one of the greatest ways of measuring her greatness is she is now on a list to be

exterminated by the north korea inns. she has done so much work for human rights. she has had threats on her life. we are proud of our tradition of non partisanship. and we focus on urgent national security issues that the new congress will be addressing. i would like to acknowledge, i would like to acknowledge one of the great living american leaders serving on the armed services committee and sharing subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. extremely knowledgeable on the chinese threat. and anti satellite inabilities and cyber war capabilities and

in every sense a growing threat to the free world, and recognized because the chinese lay low. the chinese are waiting threats around about taking europe in two days and what have you with tactical nukes and what have you but the chinese are the ones we have to be concerned about. the last session, defense forum foundation covered that the issue and i thought it was very successful. i would like to introduce to you had great american congressman, would you stand up? [applause] >> he sends his apologies. he has to go because of an important meeting. cc one 8house and congressman robert whitman's congress,

making use, thank you so much. appreciate it. a great south korean leader whose successful efforts getting congress to pass the resolution, if you could stand up. [applause] >> she is also on the list of the north koreans. counselor we are very -- ambassador from the western sahara, good to have you here. had the privilege of few years ago of riding around that place needed a few more water wells i think, i have never seen such

desert going down for 500 miles but at any rate so honored to have you here. speaker, board members, one of the founders of the organization, a truly great patriots, so honored to have you. also a board member, i am serious, known to all of you. [applause] >> as an old friend for many years, several administrations, ambassador john bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control in national security, during his you and ken year he was a tenacious and outspoken advocate of u.s. efforts to prevent iran from developing

nuclear weapons, not current today and let's hope his legacy continues but i have grave doubts from what i see from this administration. to bring african peacemakers into somalia. and south korea's nuclear-weapons and missile programs, moving strong sanctions resolutions through u.n. security council. working with the french ambassador he led the security council's efforts to approve a unanimous resolution to end the hezbollah war on israel, to authorize you in peacekeepers and create an arms embargo against hezbollah and also

assembled an international coalition blocking the bid of hugo chavez to join the security council. he also advocated human rights while serving at the u.n. and the security council we are honored to have him with us today. and before i have him come forward i would like to point out in today's issue of news that he is mentioned as a potential presidential candidate for a very good reason for many years experience with john, john, great honor to have you with us. [applause] >> thank you very much for those kind words. thanks to you and suzanne and the defense forum foundation for inviting me. always a pleasure to be here.

i worked with bill over the years in many capacities, beginning when we started on the western sahara, and issue a worked on for 25 years now, without a satisfactory solution one of those things that is an obligation of the united states to help resolve give the people the territory of the western sahara opportunity to vote on a referendum of their own future. [applause] >> something the united nations has failed to do the last 23 years unfortunately but thank you all for coming today. i want to talk about the issues that congress, the new incoming congress will face on the national security front. it is important before we survey the situation internationally to talk a little bit about the new congress and how they got here and what it means for the of future and this very important

domestic american political issue here that was important in the 2014 cycle that i think will be more important in the 2016 cycle. a lot of a freshman, house and senate members in my view a tear election in substantial part to their strong advocacy of american national security. un number of factors in the external world helped propel national security back in to public attention, isis be heading americans caught a lot of attention but i think also the people in the country are ahead of there would be leaders in washington. i think they have a deep sense of the importance of protecting the country, of the risks we face around the world, dangerous of the weekend in effective

american leadership. it is continuing reputation of the political conventional wisdom in washington. if you listen to the political operatives and the media and they will say foreign policy doesn't matter, nobody cares about national security, doesn't affect their daily lives, they don't vote on the basis of foreign policy they vote on the basis of a dozen other issues ended turns out that conventional wisdom is wrong. even if it weren't wrong it would be disastrous 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 the people who have more common sense than many of their leaders i think it is going to be evidence in the 2016 cycle the national security will be at the center of the debate for some of the reasons i'm going to explain. the international environmental get more perilous over the next

two years. if candidate for the republican nomination, the nominee of the democratic party, we know how that is going to be bad if we are not prepared to have a debate on america's brand strategy it is going to place the nation in even greater danger and fact is right now our situation has deteriorated around the world, congress hasn't 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 as his very first thought what threats does the united states face around the world? i think that is 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 he said about america's role in the world reflect damage being polite here -- a deep ambivalence about american power. cheese said in the state of the union message last year for example the long-term deployment of american forces around world risks inciting extremism. the word he uses because he doesn't use the word terrorism when he can avoid it. think about that. that is a statement, the deployment of american forces is the problem. tell that to germany and japan and south korea where the long-term deployment of american

forces has not only been critical to our national security but has helped in measurable ways to create a democratic climate in those countries in a climate respectful of civilian control over the military, something that is extremely important but we haven't fostered extremism in germany, and south korea. he said very early in his term of office when asked if he believed an american exceptionalism, the first person who has to be asked that question but he said yes, i believe in american exceptionalism as brit is the leading british exceptionalism and grigsby leading greek exceptionalism. if you pars that sentence what he says in the first third and he believes in american exceptionalism he takes away in the second two thirds. there are 193 countries in the un. he could have gone on just --

just as the ecuadorean believed in ecuador exceptionalism. you get the point. everybody is exceptional, nobody is. our president doesn't have confidence in the american role in the world and you can't have a strong and sustained american economy without a sustained and strong american presence internationally. the reverse is true as well. you can't have strong international presence if you don't have strong domestic economy. just as the aphorisms predicts today we have fog weak economy and weak presence in the world and every risk for the next two years our adversaries can read calendars as we can. we tried to take advantage of that. they don't know who will be elected in 2016 but they know obama has two more years. just looking at the array of issues that we face in a short

survey, you can see unfortunately the grave consequences 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 the ukraine and the threats that other nations in the region face. 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 in the cold war to prevent that happening as well. the third world war of the 20th century when the soviet union collapsed many people said peace was at hand, it is the end of history we don't have anything else to worry about.

what we're seeing in ukraine today is history never ended or if it did it has returned with a vengeance. it was annexed by russia. and military control over provinces of ukraine. i don't know where this will end. i don't believe the agreement that was signed a few days ago will hold for a long period of time. it is not much different from the agreement announcement in september which broke down. three four months we will see if this one breaks down as the territory moscow effectively controls and ukraine continues to exist. not just what is happening in ukraine that is a problem. some people say it is a struggle in a country far away among people of whom we know little, some of you in a room will know that phrase. that is what neville chamberlain

said in september of 1938. but it goes well beyond the ukraine. what has happened here is vladimir putin has driven a wedge into the nato alliance. i think he sees the prospect for an outcome for russia far beyond territorial aggrandizement at the expense of the ukraine. pcs the possibility unthinkable, a few years ago of shattering that nato alliance because it may well be that his next targets could be the baltic republics, latvia and lithuania. the russians had in years gone by already engaged in cyberwarfare, they have large ethnic russian population this and i think if vladimir putin believes that lower costs he can take aggressive action against those countries and nato fails to respond for the first time ever when at nato county was

imperiled, could collapse. there's no american leadership. this deal was notable for the absence of the united states. we are the leaders of the nato alliance. the president doesn't want to be the nail alliance he might do us the courtesy of telling us that. of course he is not going to. that would be in politics and if there's one thing that is consistent in the president's foreign policy is his concern for the domestic political implications of what he does that make no mistake i think the europeans and i mean specifically angela merkel of germany have looked at the situation and said we are not going to see american leadership for the next two years. in germany they have their own problems, economic dependence on russian oil and gas crisis in the euro zone, general disinclination to use german power for good and sufficient

historical reasons. they rely on american leadership and when it is not forthcoming i think angela merkel has decided she is going to look out for german interests and cut a deal that even she may consider unsatisfactory in order to try to stabilize the situation in ukraine. until such time as america gets a president who is prepared to try to prevent the use of military force in europe to change boundaries. there is nobody watching what happens in ukraine i think more carefully than the leadership in beijing. because they are saying the world's preeminent political military alliance responding in effectively in ukraine and there is no comparable alliance structure in east and southeast asia. in china today all those the conventional wisdom in the united states is china is undergoing a peaceful rise and

will be responsible stakeholder in world affairs that is only one potential scenario. it may be the most desirable but it is not necessarily the most likely. as well as its economic strength china is engaged in a massive buildup of its ballistic and nuclear forces building a blue water navy for the first time literally in 600 years, it hasn't advanced cyber is of the warfare capabilities and satellite capabilities weapons systems modernizing the people's liberation army ground components, and essentially now making sort of almost belligerent territorial claims in the east china sea and south china sea. many people in the united states a that is so far away, all these islands that are three inches above the water on a good day what possible interest can they be to us.

the interest to us is how bubble because not only are there potentially important mineral reserves in and around the east and south china sea, and they have said it publicly, they intended to make the south china sea into the chinese lake. they claimed the borders that go back, the claim goes back some time, establish the provincial capital on one of these islands that branches 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 is a little bit like praying that the claims are resolved peacefully. it is admirable but it is not going to guarantee an outcome that we were the others see as satisfactory. 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 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 morocco so if the chinese can turn the south china sea into territorial waters they will have their hands around the throats of the economies in east asia, trading partners and friends of the united states that result in net huge strategic shift in the region. we have a president who despite much trumpeted pivot toward asia have done essentially nothing to 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

relationship or an even more perilous 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 time about 287 ships at sea, the united states navy was at its lowest level since 1916. it goes along with president obama's budget for the army for the fiscal year we are projected to have a ground force level equal to the level of the army in 1938. another good year. this is the reduction in american capabilities that will not be made up over night 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 politically unpopular thing of defending and expanding the military budget in a time of tight fiscal constraints. we should do its unashamedly and will be defending the reason we need to get the military budget as ronald reagan did when he took office after the carter administration. in a time of economic difficulty. he said the defense expenditures for defense are not just the budget line item. that exactly is the attitudes of we have got to follow. i mentioned president obama brag about his pit that from the middle east toward asia. i suppose that is because he thought things were going so well for us in the middle east the we could afford to turn our attention away. in fact they weren't at the time and things are in even worse

shape now. across the middle east and north africa what has been a crisis here and the crisis there and the crisis in the next country has emerged 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 it accelerated dramatically since the arab spring which the president badly misread to the detriment of many american allies in the region. allies who were not jeffersonevent democrats but at least had the virtue of a holding deals they

had made like hosni mubarak but instead we have a region where terrorists and warlords are increasingly taking root threatening their neighbors, destroying the existing government and ripping up boundary lines that have been in place since the end of world war i. really began in somalia in the early 1990s, but we see this problem continuing in sudan and across north africa, libya being of a prime example of a country that has just disintegrated since the overthrow of gaddafi. we have northern nigeria declaring its and caliphate, it is attacking cameron and probably elsewhere across from a region. we have seen terrorists nearly toppled the government of mali, terrorist attacks against oil and gas facilities in algeria got little attention in this country but one of the worst

terrorist incidents in egypt, we have seen the low muslim brotherhood come to power nearly snuffed out the opposition, had there not been the 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 and drugs and human beings, nobody has got control over it. yemen has collapsed as a state, allies of iran now control the capital. another capital where our embassy officials have had to flee because we can't protect them. so in what used to be the country of yemen you have al qaeda and the arabian peninsula as a base and the surrogate for iran at the back door of saudi

arabia, this is the country president called an example success story in counterterrorism policies. moving to vote no. you have isis litter recreating a new state out of the remains of what used to be syria and iraq. we are at the point where realistically you have to say the country of iraq, since the breakup of the ottoman empire doesn't exist anymore. i don't see the kurds ever going back into the country that looks like what iraq used to. they are independent and the only force would change that which they would resist to the end. the sunni arabs of what used to be iraq are not going to go back into a country dominated by political forces that operate under the well of the ayatollahs in tehran. syria has come up part. the kingdom of jordan is threatened and will leave there because of the latest act of

brutality by isis, step up and act like the real leader to the embarrassment of many people in the united states who wish the we have a leader of that kind of strength. but the fact is isis continues to develop support all around the world. it is a threat in the region and jordan but it is a threat to the oil producing monarchies. we have in pakistan, taliban simply waiting for the ultimate american withdrawal and many of you heard the famous taliban saying, referring to us you have the watches, we have the time. they are right. at least under this administration and give 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 at 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 iran on steroids right now. a grave threat not only on the subcontinent but for terrorist attacks around world and i saved the best for last, iran. a state sponsor of terrorism, it has been since 1979 the largest source of financial support for terrorists around the world. 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 pressed for for over a decade, they would have to give up uranium enrichment. uranium enrichment capability will be legitimized by this deal and the substance of the deal itself when we finally see it

announced is simply a deal that will try to maximize the amount of time that we have, when it violates the agreement. it will be a destabilizing event all over the region. and other countries like said that iran is on an inevitable track toward nuclear weapons. they will try to get nuclear-weapons as well and is already volatile region will be more dramatically at risk. we have allies in the region, we have is real. the prime minister 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 the leader of our closest allies. would signal does that send to the terrorists state sponsors of terrorism, nuclear

proliferators, 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 that treat us when our time of trouble comes? it really is a low point in recent american history also i am sad to say there's a lot of competition for that dubious honor and i think the low point today to come back to libya has been the events before, during and after the attack on the consulate in benghazi on september 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 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 on american national security look at how little we have done since that attack in benghazi. the administration has arrested 1 person, brought them to the united states after some unknown amount of interrogation and will fry them in a full due process criminal trial in u.s. courts. no retaliation. no retribution to the terrorists. criminal trial in the united states for one person. the lesson i think benghazi sends and the administration's performance is an ambassador is the president's personal representative in the country to which they are credited. the lesson is under barack obama, you can kill the personal

representative of the president of the united states and do it with impunity. that really is the low point. the president doesn't seem to understand that. that is why i think it is important to have this broad national debate on what america's role in the world is. do you believe as i think the overwhelming percentage of americans do that we are a strong and positive and benign force in the world or do you think america is too pushy, too successful, too assertive and with trying america will make a peaceful world? that is the with the president looks at it. it is looking through the wrong end of a telescope but that is the debate we will have. i think we will have that debate in 2016 and the candidates who are likely to win are the candidates who can explain supporting a strong american presence in the world is critical to our liberty at home.

thank you very much. [applause] >> we have time for questions. yes, sir? >> can you touch briefly on turkey with their proximity to the mayhem in northern iraq? it seems very -- something for them to -- >> i think turkey has been increasingly a problem for the western alliance over the past 10 or 15 years. we first saw it in the run up to the second gulf war when we could not get that wreck was a parliamentary majority in turkey to allow the transit of american military units across the country into northern iraq. turkey was then and still is the nato allies. this conflict was on their border but it certainly has gotten worse under the prime

minister, now the president. he made a clear decision to move turkey away from the canal ataturk version of the second westernizing country. he has done this in a variety of ways, purging the military, purging courts, suppressing domestic dissent. i am worried about the direction turkey is taking further away from low west. i don't know if he has ottoman style ideas or if it is more focused on turkey but i do know as mayor of istanbul, democracy is like a street car, you ride it to the stop you want and then you get off. i find that a pretty chilling proposition and i just worry when i read that he is considered to be obama's best

friend among foreign leaders. we should be vigorous in our diplomacy with turkey, we have got to do what we can which is limited but we have got to try to bring them back toward the west end to maintain them as a strong member of the nato alliance. i am very much afraid they're sleeping -- slipping away. >> on the peace process there have been some statements from the right sector saying they won't even observe the ceasefire. is this something that is in control of the government of kiev and also the secretary general overseeing this process said that there were some russian soldiers identified in eastern ukraine they could find no evidence of the russian military so how do you -- sorry.

that was silly. they can find no evidence of heavy military equipment in there. >> they didn't look very hard, did they? the deal is very shaky. the odds of it being sustained are small and i think vladimir putin has been pursuing a strategy of fight and talk. i honestly don't know what his ultimate objective is. certainly this conflict and the annexation of crimea represent only a small percentage of the total territory in ukraine, you might expect a real russian irredentists what to want to carve out of the country so i don't know if it is because vladimir putin is -- doesn't feel he is capable of going as far as he might but i think because of the price of oil in international markets, russia has been badly harmed and

vladimir putin may feel that he needs a respite from the fighting in the short term, for the russian economy to recover, get some of the sanctions were lifted but that is why i don't have any confidence in will be sustained. certainly since the last settlement for the last cease-fire along the lines of the september principles was assigned and broken, russia's territorial control in the disputed eastern province has grown considerably so if you do that every three you four months the amount of territory effectively under russian control will be much more substantial. i think the worrisome aspects of about the deal in minsk on the political questions below the level of the cease-fire, what it means for autonomy in the eastern provinces the two eastern provinces and what might serve as a precedent from vladimir putin's perspective for

increased autonomy for other provinces that he considers in the russian sphere of influence. this is an effort to gain a breather on the part of russia. it is satisfactory from the united states of germany, they want to figure out what to do with braniff and the crisis in the euro and they don't see the united states playing a role at all so i think their strategy may be to try to freeze the problem in ukraine until they deal with their other problems and hope america comes to its senses but i don't think this is over by a long shot and i fear it is not over in other countries once a part of the soviet union. >> you have just outlined a number of specific instances in which the obama administration has made things that many of us would consider to be mistakes

given american strategic objectives and principles are around the world. i am always shocked by the statements that every once in awhile flowed out from the white house that suggest there is an ideology behind it. if you think global warming is something that has more impact on more people than the murders of a few americans being held hostage by isis than you probably don't think the loss of people in benghazi, a few americans serving in benghazi even if they are representative of the president you probably also think that does not come up to major point of concern and in fact the state department at the time of benghazi was i think too often heard saying those people knew what they were getting into when they signed up for overseas

assignments which is really a shocking thing. throughout your career you have always focused on some very specific and sometimes very small issues. you defended the situation in western africa you were very much involved in the lockerbie crash. what does it take for america to be shaken out of ideological drift that basically makes us think foreign policy doesn't matter? it is only crimea they have had ukraine -- we all know because we know music. at what point do americans become alert to the fact that these individuals little particles actually form together to la masse that really matters? >> it happens from time to time. it happened on 9/11. what is amazing to me is 13

years after 9/11 we appear to have forgone about it or at least some people appear to have forgotten about it. i don't doubt the president's policy is driven by ideology. a lot of people have theories on it. my theory is fairly simple. if you went to ivy league schools, he believed what he was taught. he is not the first person to hold those views. as you went to the faculty lounge of our great universities today he would slip right into the conversation. he happens to have been elected president. that is what the danger is. i am very worried that if we don't look at events around the world and from what seems to be clear conclusions that it will take another tragedy, a tragedy of great dimensions to bring america back to its senses and i feared for many years that that next tragedy involves a weapon of mass destruction. that is why i focus on iran's nuclear-weapons program all these years north korea and the

risk of proliferation generally. if the terrorists get their hands on a nuclear device god knows the north koreans will sell anything to anybody for hard-currency. how will that play out for the united states? i just think that the risk of this kind of terrorist attack is so acute that people have to be we have to have this debate to make people aware of it but if we do have the debate will come out the right way. >> last year i was monitoring of hearing up here, the witnesses where general kelly, commander satcom and the commander of the coast guard. they were discussing the national security threat coming from the south, the absence of our military assets in caribbean central american region and more

accurately general kelly was saying the communication assets, we can hear what is going on, chinese arabic, a new environment in the caribbean, russian activity. in summary, identified what was going on south of the border in the region as an existential threat. could you address his comments? >> secretary kerri has taken that into account and decided the monroe doctrine is outdated. i think obviously we are threatened by a lot of interest by adversaries and potential adversaries in the western hemisphere and we have governments all around the western hemisphere like cuba, venezuela, nicaragua and other south american countries that would be receptive to these

sorts of overtures from these adversaries. even the obama administration indicted high officials of the iranian revolutionary guard corps of years ago for conspiring to murder the saudi arabian ambassador in washington by infiltrating assassins through mexico into the united states. a pretty stunning document when you read it. yet the president's response to all of this is to throw away half a century of american strategy and in effect try to get open diplomatic relations with the castro regime in cuba. another signal to our adversaries that everything is up for grabs. ignoring the strategic realities that we face in our own hemisphere is something we do at our peril. it is a problem for the united states. every president says we need to spend more time on the western hemisphere and every president doesn't do it.

we really do need to spend more time and more concerned with the threats we face here in the hemisphere 01 of them will materialize. we are quite concerned about it. the trouble as my entire remarks demonstrate there are so many problems that have festered for six years because the president won't address them. when you laid them all-out it sounds pretty gloomy and it is pretty gloomy. if we are not prepared to face up to it as a country or even if we faced up to limited number of these problems others would still remain to endanger us or our friends and allies. it is not going to get any better. the president is simply wrong if he believes not talking about foreign threats, challenges, will make an easier to resolve. obviously it makes them harder but take one or two more.

>> korean freedom alliance. first of all i would like to say that i was really moved by your excellent description of the failure of the obama administration. that national security problem of the united states -- i noticed you haven't mentioned much about north korea. my concern is that issue. that problem, north korean problem as well can be solved by pressure with the obama failing to do that because he is afraid of work. like in crimea, ukraine problem when the united states says we don't want a war, war is too dangerous, the enemy can win

without fighting a war but north korea, we pressure north korea not afraid of war, that is a way to solve the problem. >> an important question. i didn't mean to slight north korea, i spent a lot of time on the north korean problem. isil view it as quite an honor that they attacked me. my view is the only long-term solution to the north korean nuclear weapon threat is to merge the two koreas. that is what we said we going to do in 1945. the division was supposed to be temporary. a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then but the moment is at hand to make the argument to china that if they are serious that the north korean nuclear capability in dangers stability in east asia,

in pairs china's economic growth and risks for peace which i think is all true, then china needs to do what it has the unique capacity to do and bring that regime down. it supplies 90% of north korea's energy, it supplies incredible amounts of food and humanitarian assistance into north korea largely to keep the regime in power, keep the north koreans on their side of the border. among younger chinese leaders there increasing recognition the north korean regime is an ugly piece of baggage and ultimately it is in china's interest to see the two koreas united. much of the problem is in south korea which sees unification as a costly burden to them. that is a bad reading of what happened with the reunification of the two germanys. this would be an enormous accomplishment if we could reunify the two koreas.

it would help korean economic development overall north and south and would stabilize the region but it takes time. the chinese have to be talked to at some length we need to talk about the american forces on the peninsula. i would be happy to move them from 38th parallel where they would no longer be needed to a base near pusan where they would be available throughout asia. the chinese see the threat of americans on the yellow river. they saw the movie in 1950 and didn't like it then, they don't want to be on the yellow river. we can find a way to work this out with china. it takes time and we are not even approaching it. as you alluded to instead we just ignore north korea these past six years. that is better than making concessions to the north koreans in hopes they will give up their nuclear program which is no more likely than iran giving up its nuclear program but six years of

ignoring the north doesn't mean they have been sitting there. they have made six more years of progress and if you don't think north korea isn't a global threat ask yourself why north koreans were in syria building a nuclear reactor that was a clone of their own reactor until the israelis destroyed it in september of 2007. that is the very definition of a global threat. i think that the relationship between the iranian nuclear weapons program and the north korean nuclear weapons program is one of the issues nobody wants to talk about. i would be amazed if there weren't substantial work between the two of the. we know they are cooperating on ballistic missiles. it would be remarkable if there wasn't cooperation on nuclear front. that ought to be troubling to everyone. maybe we will take one more here if there is. i am sorry.

i apologize. you are too far to the right. >> concerned that i have is for as important as it is for the u.s. to have enough military power to defend its interests overseas it seems a large number of our allies take our strength for granted and are not spending enough on their own defense. what can we do to assure that our allies hold up their end of the bargain? >> it is a legitimate question that has been asked for a long time since in the nato circumstance for example the downward trend in expenditures by nato allies has been going for a long time. i think what is required is and perhaps it is happening now unfortunately there's a silver lining in this debacle in ukraine, at least in eastern and central europe they understand

what is at stake for their own safety's sake and what happens when the united states fades away but americans for a long time have said we got to tell nato allies to do more and we just act like it doesn't make a difference so i think a new president would have to take that very strong line inside the nato alliance to say we are not going to do this as business as usual again. there would be a lot of support for it. ..