and there is a huge market they didn't want a new bamboo curtain. how things can go south that they did not keep things open and realize they had good historical reasons to resent the west and the united states. >> the picture that emerges in your talk is of a man who is patriotic, hard-working disciplined, efficient and decent. you also used a phrase moral clarity of the cold war and it was in this time the scowcroft drive the most. but the notion of the moral clarity of the cold war one could question maybe at

40,000 feet it looks clear if you're in the weeds it's a little murkier. you mentioned the family jewels. imagine the iran-contra situation. you look at the cold war the human debris is massive. where does he stand on these issues are how to see reflect? is this just collateral damage because this is about right and wrong? does he have thoughts about these things? if so what is his take? >> in that sense he is kind of a political strategist. if need be he was prepared to be ruthless. he signs off. you know he supports vietnam. a lot of things.

so it is kind of the priority of the us soviet rivalry but there is also awareness of kind of the limits of american power. he is very cautious and you have to be very careful about where the united states intervenes and when it ask. he is inclined to be a little more -- he would act on occasion or did agree with certain acts, obviously the iraqi example. but he is kind of modest. modest. that is where he differs from the neo- conservatives are some of the people now clamoring for the united states troops on the ground and so forth. >> up here. >> amanda. >> the national history center. you have talked a lot about his admirable personal

qualities. qualities. it seems one way to gauge his effectiveness is to ask whether or not he has been able to be influential as a role model in encouraging other people to be willing to listen to reevaluate and so on. has he been able to encourage any of those behaviors? >> i think to the extent with hadley and gates for sure. i think also he has been active in programs with students and interns at his own firm but especially at the atlantic council but also with the aspen strategy group. he established fellowships at the scowcroft's school of diplomacy i think it is called. so there is certainly that. what effect they have had so far is hard to know and i don't explore that but he feels very fortunate to have lived a life a life that he hasn't feels that he has to pass these down and has one

daughter, one granddaughter. he is intent on trying to nurture especially at the aspen strategy group the atlantic council and getting people and meant touring them. most of these people are probably still fairly young 40s tops 40s tops with maybe the exception of the hadley's and gates but there is some of that absolutely. >> our last question here in the back against the wall. >> you talked a little bit about how were the conditions that he thought extremism and terrorism sort of come about or -- i forget the word. can you talk a little bit about his thoughts on extremism or how it comes about? >> i did not really talk to him about that. i did not talk about the

roots of that. i came one of my concluding comments because of his belief in tackling these problems and directly. certainly i think he would see if there is some great problem he would want to have a multiple pronged effort and have forced but also force but also how clear repercussions and deterrence but also want to find ways to have portable water and create jobs and do those things, too. ..

>> i unfortunately have to bring this to a close now but you can join us afterwards for conversation and a reception outside of this room. the book is available for purchase and i suspect citing as well. i would invite you all to come back next week when heather cox richardson of boston college will be speaking on march 2 on her new book to make men free a history of the republica

>> it is in this sense that a we hosted a working group on this topic last december in addition and the global counterterrorism forum. my country cohost was the dutch partner, an initiative on foreign fighters. we reaffirm our total commitment to implement and respect the security resolution in this

topic, the arab league resolution and, of course, all other relevant resolution to counter violent treatmentism. extremism. without going into further detail, i would like to conclude by underlining the importance of carrying out combat against all -- [inaudible] between religion and violent extremism resulting in the total reject and income prehex of -- uncomprehension of violenting treatmentism. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, minister delegate for your comments and for helping set the sage for not only our discussion today but our following of the strategic dialogue between the united states and morocco over the coming days. it's now a great pleasure for me to introduce another very good and dear friend dr. ahmed abadi

whos' the secretary -- who's the secretary general of the ohio happenedis league of scholars. he also heads the working group within the strategic dialogue on education cultural issues. he previously served as a director of islamic affairs in the ministry of islamic affairs in morocco as well as a very successful academic career after his doctorate and teaching at the university in marrakesh. he's studied also and taught at two universities as a fulbright scholar in residence at depaul university and my alma mater the university of chicago -- regretfully for me, many years after i passed through those doors, so i didn't have the pleasure of having him in class.

it's a great pleasure to introduce a figure who really has done a great deal not only for countering violent extremism on the religious field in morocco, but really throughout africa and increasingly, though he's very modest about it the greater middle east. dr. ahmed abbadi. [applause] >> thank you it's such an honor to be here today to talk about this intricate subject given the fact that the dynamics have tremendously changed other the last years -- over the last years. the dynamics are not anymore what they used to be. and now the most rapid spread of violence and hatred we do witness is the one which is happening in the middle east through dash.

this is what i like to call them. this movement try to hijack four major things. the most important hijack matter was religiosity itself. the second matter was a dream of unity. the third matter was a dream of dignity, and the fourth matter was a dream of purity. dream of purity started in the region back in 1900 when some strategic approaches led to the adoption of a new state in the region which is the saudi, which is also why -- [inaudible] at the time and the dream that was vanquished at the time is purity.

which gave the impression that things would be directed towards some venues of scholarship that would save the muslim world from the scattered issue. and this was adopted by everybody, and this became a dream. the dream that was then translated by -- [inaudible] and also adopted by movements in the region such as in egypt and other movements in the region. this dream of pure the city was not a sunni specificity -- purity, it was not a sunni specificity, it was also a shia claim because they also were claiming the brilliant back of the religious practice to purity which is the knowledge of the descendants of the parts. so then there was a new arena of

sight. they are the ones who would realize this purity. in 1984 the ottoman empire collapsed, and many countries in the region found themselves as orphans. and certain decisions were taken in us istanbul. every decision was made there. and it was sent -- [inaudible] like circulars. and then emme momented -- implemented. this dynamic disappeared all of a sudden and people found themselves in the position of orphans. so the dynamic that was trigger ored is looking for a father again. rebuild -- [speaking in native tongue] without talking about the ways to build and to rebuild. this was a dream of unity.

this dream also was adopted by some other movements. the muslim brotherhood in egypt 1929 '26 and then '29. more officially claimed that they would build up the unity in the region by rebuilding the -- [inaudible] and this became, also, a dream in the region. the third dream was the dream of dignity. people were witnessing the washingtoning of the resources in the -- wasting of the resources in the region without having any part, any share of that. this triggered many movements in the region and the dream of unity was not a specifies the city of islamists. it was also -- [inaudible] given a new alternative of unity. through building the larger arab

states in the regioning. and this dream was then spent or then tackled in many other ways. i'm saying all this to say that dash now is trying to recollect all those energies all those dreams and brandish them as being theirs. because people in the region left, were left with many disappointments. those who brandish the slogans of unity did not ralz it. those who brandished the slogans of dignity did not realize it. those who vanneddished the -- brandished the slogans of security come back to some text and the context. and this was in evidence for everybody in the region. dash transcended this by claiming it is dealing with individuals. it is not selling out anymore. you are married come to me.

i will marry you to the most pious and beautiful lady in the world. you are without a job? come to me, i'll make you the head of intelligence in dash. you are not educated, come to me. i'll make all of you a scholar, a pure one. so dreams of purity of dignity and also unity were there offered, and dash is here the stay and to expand. this is how they would say. they join and made the junction with all this by approaching the communication matter by a very high profurb city. proficiency. and now the true war is going on on the cyber of internets, on the psyches. if we do not get this, this will mean simply we do not get it. we are not fighting in the true arena. we are not writing the true

issues. and this starts from the constructing the discourse of dash. to understand why the discourse has all this impact on the receivers, recipients of this discourse. they've developed some items which they use as a rifle that they use to shoot the brains and the psyches. and it's very rapid and very efficient at the same time. [inaudible] the issue of occidental conspiracy to scatter the muslim world, and we are here to overcome. we are here to realize the unity of the muslim world. while the of course city dents is governing the united states of america, the european union union -- [inaudible]

and our governors are not doing anything to fix it. come and help us. two, colonialism. three, the issue of israel. four, double standard. five the iraqi and afghani burmese, central african cocktail. name it. six, the humiliation on the net and on the movies and media and so on. seven, the draining of wells. eight, the value system of -- [inaudible] we need to do manager about that. and -- we need to do something about that. and this is why when you witness their way of recruiting and especially when this recruitment is our exit to some frustrated angry, high testosterone young males in the region. with all those disappointments with all those angers that are internalized in themselves

their very prone to respond to the appeal of -- [inaudible] and especially to find there is some tangible state that pretends realizing the dream or dignity, unity and purity. if we do not tackle the content and deconstruct it, the if we do not train people to bulled -- to build up the -- [inaudible] that will allow them to deconstruct this discourse then the war, the battle is lost in advance. and to do so, we need people who will not be just function theirs. we need people to be hosting in them some passion to realize all the ugliness of the -- [inaudible] that are going on there. and this is why it needs some very specific engineering to build up curriculums and programs to train efficient people. to give you just some very rapid

statistics in egypt you have 280,000 officials that are in the payroll and receiving public money in the region. if we do measure the efficiency how high is this efficiency? in available ya you have 300,000 -- in available ya you have 300,000. in the region you have armies of those officials. it is such a waste to not reconverse and to not rebuild capacities among those people. but to do so we need to be anchored both in the text knowledges and context knowledges. if we just limit ourself in the be text, this will not do. if we do limit ourselves in the context, this definitely will not do. and we need the shaping of some

very appealing alternative discourse that will definitely be there and paren on the net -- and present on the net to counter this narrative. this definitely cannot be done in an official manner only. it needs to go and dig for the roots. and this is why there is a crucial need to tackle the children -- i'm talking about video games i'm talking about cartoons i'm talking about some wonderful, colorful heroes such as spider-man "batman," name it the one who said with great powers come great responsibilities. so we need him and others who are having no how to come and help with those issues. i'm talking about colorful video

games, not just with violent content in them. i'm talking also about the education i mentioned. youth need to appropriate to own the initiatives, not just to be dictated what to do. youth are really bored with this very ancient style that we do suggest to them. put in every and each time a novel face on the discourse. they don't buy it anymore. so we need to have some very empowered icons use people who would definitely own the initiatives and trigger some peers education and peers initiative to be there influence and efficient on -- [inaudible] also the curriculas in the

trainings, in the other arenas that would consume a religious discourse, but this religious discourse need to be dose caned -- dosed, need to be definitely oriented to fix and solve the problems not create problems. which means that the religious discourse also need a -- [inaudible] for this we need champions. definitely we need dollars to do so. but dollars, proficiency will not definitely do. and this is why morocco when realizing that the problem is multidimensional and definitely looks like a puzzle and each piece of the puzzle has its own characteristics. and we do not restrict ourselves

from going as deep as we can to tackle each link of the chain of this large problem to give proposals or solutions for each piece of the problem. so the moroccan experience in this regard as my predecessor and friend mbarka said was difficult to handle in its approach, but it's also real u.s.ic. so we need to take each piece on its own and reengineer it and start with an initiative with the concern to bring together all those pieces, to free at thened the global image -- at the end the global image. and this was done under the leadership of his imagine who happens to be the -- his majesty who happens to be the leader of the faithful.

morocco has also jewish citizens, and they are there. we are having christian presence, and we are dealing with it in -- [inaudible] we are trying to be as inclusive as we can because the wisdom of fragility at the end is not specificity of one religion. because this approach of mutual recognition is very crucial to respect and to -- [inaudible] the commanding the faithful insures the coherence between all those links of the chain the pieces of the puzzle. so we have choices, and those choices are are three choices, major ones. the choice of the ritual it's joints and makes junction between text and context. the -- [inaudible] in this makes junction between text and reason. and third spirituality.

which makes the junction between texas and spirituality. between text and spirituality. those choices were very successful at the time, because they influence the region sub-saharan africa, but also the middle east region because the sufi orders were raised in morocco, spread out in the region. and this is what concerns the very vibrant relationship of morocco with sub-saharan africa, because they share those three choices. and then institutions wise we have five dimensions along with the commanding the faithful. we have the high consul of scholars which insures proximity with citizens and insures a training for the imams. we do gather the officials 50,000 of them, twice a month to

talk with them, discuss with them -- discuss definitely, but i do raise the opinion that says it's worth it. then it's tackle the fatwas. and in morocco we do can different -- [inaudible] err schatz is talking about the prayer of passing and pilgrimage. this is in the books and you are just bringing it up again. but fatwa is something which is new and requires jihad. and if it is not governed in in those manner, this may generate some chaos out there. so this is the first dimension besides commanding the faithful. the second dimension is cogitation and reflection research. this is insured by the institution i have the honor to

moderate which is the mohammedia scholars. we have 15 centers of research and five special units that to research in specific domains such as addiction, such as combating violet extremism d violent extremism and so on. producing cartoons that are not just claiming or trying to do some tangible and factual deliverables. the fourth -- third dimension would be the training of scholars and imams. i'm talking about -- [inaudible] i'm talking about the new center of training imams, and i'm talking about building capacities in those ptomaines. domains. the fourth dimension would be the sufi orders because there is a risk for us in morocco and in the region of some infiltrations that would have a political nature, that would use

the proximity in the approach of the respects of the descendants of the prophet that the sufi orders do to infiltrate some other dimensions of shia -- [inaudible] in the region which would definitely disturb the equilibrium in the region. i am with the opinion that says that there should be some mutual respect between those branches of islam and some mutual recognition between those branches of islam, but with the total respect of the specificities of each one of them. the last but not least dimension would be the dimension of trying to insure this cohoorns and harmony -- coherence and harmmy between those component toes, and this is the major role of the commanding of the faithful. this is what his majesty vows and directs to be done in the

country. we are not in the status that we could declare that you cross -- [inaudible] yet but what we can claim is that we are tackling it, we are aware as my friend deputy minister mbarka already said, this is quite intricate an amalgamated matter, but we are confident that we shall overcome. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> i'd like to switch it up to our panel discussion following this presentation by dr. steve grand. we're delighted to have these two in particular join us.

geneive is with the middle east program at the stimson center and heads the rebigs working group within the task force on middle east strategy here at the atlantic council comes from a long and distinguished career in journalism, was the first american journalist posted back in iran since the time of the islamic revolutions, the author of three books on religion particularly islam and politics especially one that i guess was quite prophetic a decade before the arab spring on egypt in particular. stephen grand is the executive director for the middle east the task force on middle east advantage here at the atlantic council and also comes from a distinguished career at other think tanks as well. he brings us his particular expertise as well. so welcome to both of you and just turn it over to geneive.

>> thank you so much. thanks to both of you for such wonderful comments and for great insight into what morocco's success story is. and i think this event is particularly important because we often hear about the failures of countries to counter violent extremism. today we're hearing a success story in all its great detail. and before i ask a few questions, i just wanted to highlight some of the points that i think were very important that were mentioned by our two prestigious speakers, one of which is the value of training local scholars. and the whole sort of academic approach to religious interpretation. and i think that that's particularly important because here we are sort of 30 years after the evolution of what we know now to be modern political islam, and many countries have tried in this. we have egypt as the most, i

guess, primary example where a state has tried to have some sort of association with an institution of religious scholars so that there is some compatibility between what the sort of official interpretation is of islam and what people understand on the street. and as was mentioned the book that i wrote about egypt was actually how this street interpretation of popular islam became more prevalent than actually the state's interpretation, the official orthodoxy of egypt. and that's why there was sort of a disconnect between what was the official more moderate interpretation of islam that was being practiced in egypt over 25 years and what was interpreted in the street. so i think that this point is very important in the value of trying to, as we say, not control the the message, but manage the message. and i think it's also important to note that here in the united

states actually ten years ago a group of religious scholars in california began our own seminary in the united states which is now affiliated with the university of california at berkeley are. it was, it began from a scholar who's actually a convert to islam. he was not born a muslim. so this notion of training and of educating religious scholars i think, is a very important one and, obviously morocco is a great success story. the other point i think that is worth highlighting as her excellency pointed out is that morocco has also been very successful in reducing the number of foreign fighters that are fighting in iraq and syria. so again, this is another success story. we hear about countries that are quite surprising tunisia, for example, has a very high number of foreign fighters that have gone to fight in iraq and syria

but morocco's a story that's opinion able to reduce the number of -- been able to reduce the number of foreign fighters. and i just wanted to briefly note a few points that dr. apbadi made, and i think generally speaking it's very important as he in great detail explained to us that that issue -- isis did not develop out of a vacuum. there's a long history. people are, i think the media has tried to persuade us that this movement developed overnight, that it developed out of a vacuum. and as dr. abbadi very eloquently explained it has a long history. and many other islamist movements have developed out of these points that he mentioned; a need for dignity, a desire more -- for unity. whats's happened over the last 30 years though is as these movements have evolved, they've become more violent. and they've not only become more

violet, but as he pointed out, they have tried to return to an originalist sort of school of thought in islam that's been combined with the use of modern technology. and so it seems a bit of a contradiction, but actually we've seen the evolution of these movements try to return to this originalist school of islamic thought as he mentioned that refers to the first three generations of muslims after islam was founded yet they are using modern technology x this very combustible combination of these two things has produced this very violent movement called dash, as he explained. and the last point i just wanted to highlight is that this is also not just a sunni phenomenon, as dr. abbadi explained. in the early days of the arab uprisings, many of the clerics in iran particularly ayatollah

khamenei emphasized the islamic awake withenning. so there's always -- awakening. so there's always been this feelings among sunnis and shia that there is a need for a pan-islamic era that would unify the shia and sunni. unfortunately, that has not happened and, in fact as was mentioned briefly, we've seen a period of sectarianism that has really completely escalated the violation in the middle east. -- the violence in the middle east. so this need for some sort of pan-islam you can awakening has always been the dream, as you explained. but unfortunately, as a result of the arab uprisings, as the result, i mean i guess for a quest for identity, for unity for dignity, unfortunately, these two communities within the islamic tradition have not come together. so i guess the question i would like to just given our discussion with is, oh, should i turn to you or --

>> start with your question and i'll add some questions. we'll go from there. >> okay. of the question i just wanted to ask what do you think it is about morocco that's been able to succeed and achieve this kind of progress that a both of you have outlined that we haven't seen in other countries, especially in a country such as egypt which, of course, as you mentioned, has a long tradition of the muslim brotherhood other islamic groups salafists? can you explain to us why do you think that morocco has been so successful? >> sure. i'll respond to the questions as one? >> sure. sure: and thank you, dr. abbadu for joining us today and your thoughtful and thorough remarks and for peter for putting this together and to the deputy foreign minister for her very informative comments. as peter alluded to, i'm a part

of a middle east strategy task force at the atlantic -- that the atlantic council is organizing in conjunction with a number of other experts, including geneive and other institutions around town and the region. and we're trying to look at the entirety of what's going on in the middle east right now and trying to drive towards some sort of bipartisan consensus on a possible strategic approach going forward. all that is to say that i'm in question mode. and so i very for you -- so i have for you really just a set of questions that maybe build upon geneive's and the first is i know you've done such interesting work with imams, such interesting work with de-radicalization, such interesting work on curriculum reform. and i'd be interested in hearing a little bit more about that.

and in particular, what you're most excited about and what you think are sort of best practices that others can adopt whether here in the middle east, in europe, wherever it might be. the second is you talked about the need for passionate individuals, that if morocco and other countries are going to counter the narrative of dash that you need very independent independent-minded, very creative, very resourceful people who are really committed to the cause. and i guess that's a often hard in the region where politics and religion are so tightly meshed. and i wondered if you could speak to that, just the ability of imams in particular to be independent voices at a moment like this where politics are so

tightly held. and then it's clear that you see some very positive things happening in morocco, but i'd like to ask you your assessment of what's happening in the rest of the region, if you can be candid about that. where are you seeing promising things happening? where are you concerned? as you look to partners, where are you finding the most interesting partners? we've seen a number of new organizations rise up. just to mention one, i know that in the uae there's a council of religious elders that's recently been formed. there's been some institutional change. what institutions are you finding most promising and interesting? where do you see scholars coming together in a meaningful way to try to counter the messages of dash in and finally, just your assessment of sort of the trajectory of dash over the long

term. is this something we're going to be confronted with for a long, long time? is this something that will grow bigger rather than smaller in the next daled? you know -- in the next decade? what do you see as its likely shelf life, and how long will it remain a problem? thank you. >> thank you. thank you. thank you for those insightful questions. and i would take it from what you said earlier geneive when you talk about those nuances between official islam and popular interpretation of islam. this is a very crucial item because official islam, because it was carried by functionaries,

definitely the belief, as i mentioned, was there, but it was not salient in us, it was not present in us. and those institutions of official islam in the region suffered from -- [inaudible] the first stigmata is the stigmata of satisfaction. we are there, we are the scholars of islam and our -- [inaudible] dimension proves it. the way we pronounce words proves it, and our organization also endorses it, ask we are there. and we are there. so there is no need for those institutions in the previous time to tackle the

comprehensions. and i would like here to highlight the fact that innovation and renovation was also present since the 1900s when this issue was being tackled. there is a need for renewal of the discourse. in this did not -- this did not shake those fixated state of minds in us to general rate the change. it gave some dynamics, but those dynamics weren't enough whereas the whole -- [inaudible] produced some simple discourse that was comprehensible, and it was accessible by everybody. islam in the 1900 period after

the rise of the alliance with the descendants the discourse became very simple all of a sudden. so no scholars, no quotations. we can have direct access to the text, and then we have the authority to interpret the text. there is no need to -- in arabic or the other sciences of islam. just go in there and you will get it, and you will have some organizations of big scholars who would awe cyst you if you -- assist you if you do fail and who would produce some very accessible booklets that would not be very hard to understand. this is the islam that's crossed and infiltrated populations through pilgrimage and through

the offered free copies of millions and millions and millions of copies that were there in the region and readable adopted by the imams who were not anymore willing to go to the expended and extended versions of the books of knowledge of islam. and this was there and it was tackling some burning issues in callly life. in callly life. this was the understanding. the second stick stigmata is that when socialism came in the region and pan-arabism came in the region, this institution suffered many sorts of humiliation. so it lost its credibility. it was of not as present, as respected as it used to be

before. the third is when finish. [inaudible] with the ottomans in the late decades of the 19th century started to combat each other unfortunately, the shia or were brandishing the fact as well you are on payrolls whereas we are independent. we receive -- [inaudible] from the population, and we do not fend on any other -- we do not depend on any other official institution. so we are free-minded, and you are not simply. this also relinquished some of credibility of this institution. the fourth stigmata was the fact that well the system of offering dignity to those scholars was not of the most efficient. the payrolls were very poor, and

many of those scholars were -- [inaudible] to look how to cleat the expense -- to complete the expenses of the month. it was not offered by this institution. so this was not generating enough motivation those institutions which weakened those institutions. and now there is a very crucial need to avoid the waste. i was talking about thousands hundreds of thousands of hose officials. we need -- of those officials. we need really some building or capacities and some empowerments in those institutions. why morocco? well, we had the chance strategically spooking to -- speaking, to be the far west before those wonderful lands were discovered by the european and the asian mind.

because they existed, and people were here. and they were discovered by those minds and cultures. as everybody knows, 1492. this far west position gave -- [inaudible] to witness the tidal waves erupting from the epicenter of the world and then not arriving to our shores until they were -- [inaudible] so we had the time and the french would call it -- [speaking french] to deconstruct those concepts that were erupting from the epicenter of the world. and we did it -- [inaudible] we like to say we did it our way somehow. [laughter] we made the difference also between islam and muslims many morocco. we made the difference very early because we said well, we

are welcome in islam, but we are refusing the -- [inaudible] and all those amnesties that came afterwards. we have our own dynasties. and those, even some extremism in this regard i would not like to go into details, but we made the difference. and this is why the ottomans never came in morocco. so we had our own proper schools of thought in morocco religiously wise. and also we succeeded in solving a very crucial problem in the muslim -- [inaudible] which is the fact that shia and sunnis are having this difference. the descendants of the prophet t need to be in power needs to be in power. this is a shia condition. for the legitimacy of the power.

and the sunnies would not care much about this. but in morocco we made the junk, and we have the descendants of the prophet in our -- [inaudible] this is how it started, as a matter of as a matter of fact. and since then, this was the case. so we did not live this -- [inaudible] that was lived in damascus or lived in baghdad or in the other capitals of the region. even the other capitals of region. this definitely contributed along with the choices, the three choices i mentioned in ritual and sufiism contributed in solving some of the problems that are in the region. i do evaluate very much the atlantic council initiative

which is to approach the problem in a multidimensional manner to realize that there are links of the chain and pieces of the puzzle and each piece has its own engineering and its own architecture that needs to be tackled on its own. and then there is this concern of harmmy and coherence -- harmony and coherence between all those pieces. and the terrorism i'm talking here comprehension wise. this goes along with cogitation and along with research and collection of day and analyze of data and deduction of the, what could be solutions. and this is what think tanks do at the end of the day. but proficiency that you alluded to is very efficient and definitely would make some

difference in tackling the extreme u.s. issue. i also in terms of the past practices, well i'd like to highlight the fact that we do believe in the celebration of effort this many morocco -- in morocco. nothing comes easy, so we need to construct it from scratch and then have the passion to to irrigate it and to look after it and to clean it and to follow it up. we cannot just initiate it and then leave it. we need to follow. and for this at certain points we'ven been suffering because -- we've been suffering because we lack human resources, we not find the scholars and we need to build them up, scholars that would understand both the text and its originality and in its

details, of course, and also the context in which this text is to be implemented. and make the junction between those two -- [inaudible] aztecs has its own sciences to be understood, the context has its own sciences to be understood. and it's very hard to find them in one person. and this gave us many problems, because you would have many adjustments to do to make the text fit in the context without losing its originality. because then it would be attacked by those who do claim the exhaustion of the dream of purity. and this is what they are very good at. so we need to avoid it by making sure that this talks on celebration of the effort and respect for the people who do

it. also to not speak this wooden -- [inaudible] as they say, those people when we do train them, they are having offers from other countries, from other places. and very handsome offers. so to conserve them is not something very easy. so this is another problem that we are trying to tackle as well. and they would come from the windows of unity because, you know islam is islam. anywhere it is served, it is served. we are era of internet. i can work from distance and keep up with what you're doing and whereas now it needs some daily tackle and daily work. and this is why i do come to your second question which is

passionate individuals. because there is passion in the other shore of the chess square to make it -- [inaudible] a little bit. passion is very vibrant there, and this is why it is very contagious. you cannot face such a passion with a faint attitude that used to be there and brandishing wisdom as imposing an attitude of calm and of serenity which serenity is very useful at some point, but, well, efficiency need to be, needs to be with serenity otherwise serenity by its own could be efficiency-free which is not decan -- desired

results. one of the wise people of our institution once said you want to talk to tigers, do not send rabbits, send tigers. [laughter] so we need some tiger-trained, good scholars type to go and talk with those tigers. because we do perceive, and this is a paradigm shift that needs to be performed, we do see this as a disease in comprehension and in understanding. because they simply are not getting it. they do have this very big desire for unity purity, dig thinkty -- dignity. it's there and it's a fact. anybody has the same desire, but this is not the way. and we need to be very good in demonstrating that this is not the way. and giving alternatives. this is the way.

and then it needs to be working on field, to be touchable tangible. and this is what morocco is trying to do. we're trying to say it's possible. look. we are not as i said there yet, but we are coming and getting to it. so this is why in morocco we do recruit -- [inaudible] to come. and once you face them and tell them well, you pretend that you master the text let's verify this, and humbly and lovingly we need to demonstrate that, well, they to not master the text. and these are the short comes. this is what they need to complete and we are here to complete this. to do that, to be able to do that, you need to build up some authority, otherwise nobody will listen to you. who are you to pretend that you

would verify my knowledge of the text? and this is why some previous work was done which is to produce, to publish to create initiatives, to present studies and propose solutions for the burning issues. talk about human rights in islam, talk about women issues in islam, talk about extremism in islam, talk about global warming in islam but in a very sound manner this would be recognized, adopted by the masses. once you create in this authority and you have a crew of scholars that are charismatic and that do have man and woman, the aura to convince and to say let's verify and then to be listened to, then you can start to work. so you need to snatch

recognition from them. not to come and impose on. because the teem of the state that would -- the time of the sate that would impose a scholar as a scholar even though he is not, she is not a scholar is over. so now it's some touchable and tangible authorities that need to be built. then after this we would direct the context. the context is intricate amalgamated and complexified. what are your tools to decipher the context, to understand and to know its various dimensions? do you have the keys for that? what are the keys? i'm talking economics, i'm talking history, i'm talking name it. all those keys that would allow you to understand the context. then some respect would be triggered, and then we can talk.

then we can talk. but it's a true tango that needs to be danced before convincing the tigers to join the crew. also the question before last yes, there is hope in the region. the awareness is there. the awareness is there and we as humans, homo sapiens we do have in our genes competitiveness. we have lots to compete. we have lots to measure ourselves. so you moroccans are doing, so we can do the same. well, and we love it. and we cherish it. we appreciate it. this is what we are targeting as well. let's trigger some competition over there. and then people would measure themselves, would rook at your prangses -- would look at your practicings. if they're good they will be

adopted, and this is what we are aspiring more. we do not want in morocco ourselves to be the redem to haves. we just want to be a part of -- [inaudible] in the world which happens to have crossed from the extreme level large to just large to tiny to very tiny. i'm quoting from -- [inaudible] so there are some good practices. unfortunately, sometimes they are amalgamated with some politics. and this is this unsubtling of the -- insulting of the other intelligences. some countries would aspire to instrumentallize other countries, to prevail and to be the ones who are doing it and this is for the fame of our country by putting our dollars in there so we need some recognition. why you, why them, why not me, you know?

and this ruins it at some point. and this is why we need some psychological accompanying to make it happen. because it is not very easy to make -- [inaudible] it takes some expertise there. so things, good things are happening in the region, but there is still some work to do. and it takes some very sound realism. but this sound realism should not take away from you hope and confidence. and this is another equation to solve, of course. trajectory of dash the last question yes. dash is the mutated version of al-qaeda. which is the mutated version of the muslim brotherhood. which is the mutated version of

the wahhabis and the movement of -- [inaudible] to be in the region. in the shia dimension you've had the sa what harry movement and you've had the southern movement and the other movements that were quite alike with the slight difference that well, those movements claim to detain the secrets of the knowledges of the descendants of the prophet. but in the region it was there. so dash is the mutation of all those aspirations and it has many ans access to haves in the region. -- ancestors in the region. dash now has efficiency because of three main factors. the first one is in this venom

of fear that spread in the sigh can key of the world -- in the psyches of the world. in the region there are 30,000 throughout the world and in the fibers of internet you could count maximum sum, two million. we are talking in a world of seven billion homo sapiens. are we not able to face this? but the venom of fear just impeach you, stops you from taking initiatives. because you lose over 50% of your capacities. but once this fear becomes rotten fear, then it becomes more dangerous to cure. and there are bargain on this

they are really relaying on that how to extract away the venom of fear from the psyches. we are not very accurate in using satire. movies in hollywood could do, but we are not spending billion dollars in this direction. video games could do, but we are not doing enough. and we're just restricting ourselves to this very serious format of, you know, discourse which is not, which is not the true arena of this. so the fifth factor is the factor of fear. the second factor is the mastery of the new technologies. it's like me talking using a mic and having an argument with my friend back there without a mic. i would be heard whereas she

would not be heard. so we need to provide her with a mic because she might have something more interesting than what i am saying right now. so empowerment is a solution to this building of capacities. and for this we need to engage new dynamics that would convince people who are professionals in this domain to join. and i think that the white house summit that happened last month -- last month, yeah, as a matter of fact -- triggered some of those initiatives. the third fact or is the counter-narrative. counternarrative is very important, because it tackles the content dimension. and we need as i said in the beginning, to develop some -- [inaudible] to be able to do so. so this, these are the

characteristics of the joint project that you all aspire to. and i'd like to congratulate the atlantic council to have triggered this initiative of, these initiatives of studying the issue from those barriers and complementary perspectives. thank you. >> before turning opening up to discussion, let me just pose one additional question for you, dr. abbadi. the efforts you have outlined are primarily prophylactic in the sense of trying to prevent the spread of violent extremist ideologies or perhaps to counter the argument. but there are, unfortunately, some however small, a number who have already gone over to the other side. and you've given us hope that at some point in the future dash

will be defeated, and then we have these people who went over, and we can't jail them all what do we do with them? ..

the seeds are here and those seeds i mentioned, i mentioned need to be initiated to a loss topping of the spreading of those seeds. because they grow and process is there. especially minister mbarka said if we do not integrate the other dimensions, social economic, sectarian dimensions and other dimensions to stop the process but the seeds are there and they definitely to spread unless there are even more efficient, more reality. that would rise and give some other venues to this. reintegration, peter, is capital of course. and this is what i was alluding to when i said tigers need to be

recruited, to talk to tigers. and this is what i alluded to when i said we needed to take paradigm shift to counter this phenomenon, the disease, that we can cure. it's a disease in comprehension and understanding and approaching, and we need to present like when you're trying to prove that some water is polluted you need to produce some pure water in exchange. to be picked up instead of the of the water. and this water should be delicious, should be, you know all the characteristics that will allow the picking up of this initiative. we were inspired in morocco by what was happening in the addiction fields. the most efficient agents to combat addictions were the former addicts. those people --

[inaudible] the conviction to do the combating of addiction would be the most efficient. and this is the same for the former fighters, or foreign fighters, to very articulately recommend that we have professionals, this would work with those people rather than just put them in jail. we definitely need to extract the network and the names to prevent a dangerous, but also we need this work to be done as well. they would be efficient and this is what you have witnessed in morocco with many of those former fighters in morocco. just one example. we have some other examples under cover who are operating

very efficiently in this field as well. but this definitely takes the development of curricula, because once you follow up the expense of former addicts you would see the training provided to those people are not the simplest, but they are very fruitful. it pays. it is working to invest in this direction. >> thank you. let's open it up to questions. not only for dr. abbadi but also trying to and mr. grand as well. >> hello, thank you so much for your comments. and the information you give us today. i'm from american university. my students are here. i have a question because you mentioned religious education, we education, counter narratives.

but what has morocco done in terms of economic empowerment and development? you mentioned people might be drawn to some of the messages of the violent groups such as if you don't have a job come join us, we will make you work for us. so can you talk a little bit specifically what has morocco done in terms of economic empowerment for both women and men in morocco? and then also how does also rule of law change the project has been done in morocco in the past years? and finally my third question i'm sorry, it's about funding. so we know that a lot of funding that goes to violent groups such as isis comes to a lot of countries through internet or organizations in different countries. can you tell us what morocco has done to make sure that the funds are not channeling through morocco? thank you.

>> thank you. on behalf of my friend peter and on behalf of the atlantic council, i welcome our students who are here today. you made my day actually. everybody is important, but students are definitely, we all agree upon that hope and the future. in morocco after the unfortunate events of 2003, his majesty the king initiated a new initiative which is the national initiative of sustainable development. and this initiative started in the most deprived areas of the nation. this is where it started. various cities and very

important facts were mobilized for this issue. if you're asking my opinion how was it governed, i would say not in the most perfect manner or way, but it started, and now we're aware that they didn't go as it should be going and this is why a new great responsible lady was appointed last night to follow up this, along with an observatory but was initiated for this purpose to make a follow up in details and to make this money be spent on some virtual projects. it is taking an awful lot of

energy but the process is there and the awareness is there, too. we have witnessed that there is an organization. architecture is one of the fastest when we to build cities or -- without playgrounds without gardens, with a green spot. this generates frustration. humans need to be in proximity with the beauty. of the medevac this is the bottom line of any rigidity beauty and happiness. there some religion or from other rigidity is a generated frustration, and this means simply that it was not understood in the right, popular way. so this dimension which is a quest of image of duty and what you would call in morocco the

places of life, to allow a decent style of life and decent education and decent prosperity that would be realistic but yet optimize, you some service in this dimension. young people need to play. they need to have fun. they need to learn. they need to interact. and we need to assist them with this, but making affairs, not dictating what needs to be done. -- making it bears. also funding for the projects, witnessed a new form of creativity. because many funds were launched for this reason to can the most famous of those funds is the mohammed the fifth foundation.

under the presence of his majesty, but there's a wonderful lady, once again, this is not a coincidence because creativity with our ladies, of course, doing a wonderful job in this regard. we are not there yet i do confess, but the work factors in. we're trying to do our best. funding for daesh, of course economic intelligence is one of forms of efficiency in any sectarian approach. if we lacked this form of intelligence, it's a very dangerous. and this is why in morocco we've had, this is in conjunction with your question about the change of flow, you are aware that three years ago the commission was launched to reform justice the system of justice, this is a great, heavy work of course.

but we have some text about combating terrorism and about having the right to follow up with bank accounts and so on to discover those activities. and i can say that we have some initiatives and funding al-qaeda before and daesh now in morocco. >> over here. >> thank you very much, dr. abaddi. i'm with the moroccan american center. i think that you made clear today in your presentation what we really have here is a battle of ideas at the end of the day. i fear that there's a certain skepticism both in the united states and in europe about the prospects of winning this battle of ideas in part because i

think it's not very visible to people here in the u.s. or in europe. what it is that people in the muslim world are doing themselves to take on this battle of ideas. if you share that point of view, what do you think can be done to provide some encouragement to people in the u.s. and in europe that indeed you are tackling this battle of ideas at home? >> simply say, not an invitation -- open invitation to anyone who decides to come by and see maybe give some piece of advice. but talking ideas it is definitely based on training, on time investment, and money investment and also engineering

of the approaches. because you cannot conduct reflection on the problem that would take from you as an individual 250 years and combat it in a chaotic way. the governance dimension, all the think tanks, you know is a very crucial dimension. because this is what in the think tanks we are talking about person-years and the work that would be delivered and maybe one year without taking 300 person-years. because of them it will outsource and will be done by the many constituencies and collaborated and given birth. so governance dimension is very important. governance definitely indicates

the crucial necessity to know how to ask your questions, and we need some verification system and processes to verify if the questions are really rightly posed. because sometimes you can ask, pose a wrong question, and a we take from you years, thousands a maybe millions of dollars without any results. so this link which is how to ask and pose questions is very crucial, talking about ideas. what makes daesh appealing is that they just came to the dreams, purity, hijacked them and formed a geographical

factual, tangible piece of land using everything in the region to market the fact that well they are doing it. they are providing unity and purity and this is islam without hypocrisy. those are ideas at the end of the day. so we need to provide counterbalances as well. and this definitely passes through asking the right questions and having the decent, efficient capacities to answer those questions. then implementation wise, this definitely takes some challenge. because to communicate some idea, you cannot anything think some pluck it out techniques.

you cannot just produce an idea and just put it on the shelves. you need to market it. and to market ideas you need to have some very good disposal to do so. and it takes also some ideas. this cannot transcend the capacity of the world the free world, the muslim world could be a partner in this. but we need to be aware of the fact that those are at the end of the day ideas that are being in the fiber of the net and invading the psyche of young desperate youngsters. and, of course, candidates to be recruited by those ideas. >> thank you. my name is danielle and i'm a student at new york university. my question, i don't know about

asking the same question as the person before me, but in a non-muslim country such as the u.s. or other european nations, how do you combat the rising number of fighters going to syria and iraq joining daesh? because i know that you mentioned before the morocco have a lot us social programs that help educate young scholars imams. but how do we translate that to countries who don't necessarily have come you know a muslim background or muslims system in their country? >> thank you for this very timely question. because this requires another counter narrative, the context is different. but this definitely passes through the discourse that is

being adopted by daesh to recruit among those people. they use guilt for this. they will talk about colonialism. they will talk about the invasion of the west to the rest of the world and that you are free citizens of the west, you need to do your duty and serve in the ranges of freedom, to free the world. we need to demystify discourse and produce counter narratives that will definitely face those items that are used to recruit youngsters from the west as well. >> and the challenge now also of course is the power of social media.

and if you look at even recently these two young, well, teenagers, who went through turkey to join isis in syria they were informed by social media. it's a big big problem. as you point out, social media has no parameters. there's no real way to control it. there's a big discussion even in the private sector of trying to shut down twitter accounts. and as was mentioned, it's not just isis. it's salafis, all sorts of other nonstate actors who have real active media accounts. they have millions of followers. some have 12 million followers. so it's almost uncontrollable unfortunately. but it's through this kind of messaging, and as was pointed out how do you counter that? it's a big challenge. because their microphone to the metaphor is much more powerful than anybody else's microphone.

but it's a big problem as with social media. >> of course, of course. >> thank you dr. abaddi, for your presentation. i would like to ask you if you the art unique institution multilateral cooperation in the region to produce what you have survived the called this conceptual and intellectual agreement to fight the ideology of daesh? i do also agree with you when you said that it's all good enough for a tiger to roar if it can't be heard through social media. so what is being done to close this gap this apparent gap and know-how and use of social media precisely? thank you. >> of course i will start by your second point of the question. it's computer engineer simply. we need our units of computer

engineers in our universities throughout the world to be aware of those challenges. and definitely look at programs to fit in the new challenges and the new context. so it's a professional work. yes, passion is omnipresent in all those initiatives, but it's professional and it needs to be funded. it needs to be reengineered to respond to those challenges. of course, the element of appeal is crucial here. you can have the most professional people in the world in social media, but if this course is not appealing, they will be beaten. because you can have some very

simple tools and monitorings, but yet appealing, this would definitely beat the most professional if they are not appealing. as for your first part of the question, i cannot pretend now in the region there is some serious work about deconstructing the discourse and providing counter narratives as efficiently as we would hope it to be. but we are at least trying to do our share of the work. at least let's say it's possible. or the american very inefficient slogan yes, we can. >> one more. right there. >> thank you very much, dr. abaddi. i work with search for common ground and we are partnering with you in rockland very much share the perspective that you

bringing today. you know, when we use this word counter narrative we are often mistaking it for a narrative that is trying to demonize the other side. that's what's refreshing with what you're saying is that it's actually recognizing that the people attracted to daesh are trying to respond to real needs. for dignity and forget the -- for dignity and for unity, et cetera. my question is how can we continue this detective work in a context where other actors operating in the same environment are choosing to use violent or kinetic force and actually further sort of demonizing and inadvertently contribute into the narrative that attracts more people to these groups? so how do we continue and ensure there's effectiveness in what we're doing to address these causes juxtaposed with other actors that are using violent force? >> thank you.

success has a tremendous tremendous and delicious taste. once we do taste it we get addicted to it. so in such instances we definitely need to generate some samples to taste it. and just by fraction, the stages of job to work and make it possible to taste some of the outcomes of what you're doing because it allows you to gain confidence about what you're doing. whereas if you just let it grow and grow without samples to be tasted demonstrated, then it will be very hard to continue. this is why the approach should be based on this, to make it possible to evaluate and to

measure through indicators how successful we were in tackling the issue. and this is what provides sustainability in tackling the job. >> thank you very much. please now join me in thanking not just dr. abbadi, but doctor grande, as well as minister mbarka bouaida for the time today. [applause] >> before ago, dr. abbadi's last metaphor, if there's any left, there should be some moroccan delicacies outside if there are any left. but please do enjoy. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> today the national press club host a discussion on the policy implications regarding henry clay use of a personal enough account while serving as secretary of state. you can see that live starting at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. later, vice president joe biden speak of the national defense university about u.s. policy in iraq and efforts to combat isis. join his remarks live on c-span at 12:30 p.m. eastern. >> wednesday irs commissioner john koskinen spoke about budget cuts to his agency and the effect on taxpayers. his remarks were followed by a discussion analyzing future funding cutbacks. the event hosted by the urban-brookings policy tax center is two hours.

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everybody. nice to see some reunion taking place in the front row. thank you, everybody for coming today. my name is ted gayer. i'm the vice president and director of economic studies here at brookings and i'm delighted today to welcome irs commissioner john koskinen who is here discussed how the irs deals with an increasing workload in a time of budget cuts. i like to put one week reminder before important reminders on my council it's nice to have the commission are you on april 8. you forgot your one week reminder of at deadline next week am so we're glad to have

your again, and today. some of you may know i the textbook with my friend co-authored with my friend harvey rosen. cycled off my shelf. have the textbook is devoted to taxes and with a quote in there that is kind of bonus question if anybody can name the case. 1899 supreme court decision and in that there's a nice little quote that we pulled. it says the power to tax is the one great power up on which the whole national fabric is based. it is as necessary to the existence and prosperity of a nation as is the air he breathes to a natural man. it is not only the power to destroy but also the power to keep alive, end quote. i thought it was a very appropriate quotation to kick off today's event. clearly the iran's continued to be an essential part of our system of governance responsible for collecting tax or but that amounts to about 18% of our economy. commissioner koskinen is the irs

is 48 commissioner. he manages approximate 90,000 employees with a budget of approximately $11 billion, a budget as i'm sure he will lead to today that has been shrinking over the last five years or so maybe more than five years. previous to coming to the irs he served as the nonexecutive chairman of freddie mac from 2008-2012 and a fact chief executive officer in 2009. prior to that he was the president of the u.s. soccer foundation. a lot to talk with you on that one. is also served as deputy mayor and city administrator of washington, d.c., assistant to the president and chair of the president's council on year 2000 version and deputy director for management at the office of management and budget. he has also 21 years of private sector experience in various leadership positions helping to turn around large troubled organizations, detecting a

pattern. the idea for the commission to give a keynote speech and then we will follow up with a panel discussion moderated by howard gleckman. on that panel will hear from rosemary marcuss and ian olson, both of the iran's. eric toder of the tax policy center and david williams of intuit. all of their bios are in the package should've received when you came in this afternoon. so with that i will ask you to please join in welcoming the commissioner to the podium. [applause] >> have to be careful not to do something with the computer this year. i'm delighted to be here. i've got over the course of the years have a number of good friends both at the urban institute and at brookings, so it's fun to be here and have a chance to talk with you.

its particularly good because rarely do i the group that actually commemorates tax day every year. where else could you find that except probably in washington? it's normally the point where i would deliver my standard public service announcement. remind everyone to file their taxes by april 15 but ted has already taken care of that for me. but we still have a lot of leading minds on taxes and budget, so it should be superfluous to make that we might because nobody here would file their taxes at last minute i'm sure, right? including me with a little luck. before they can of life is a special thank you to rosemary marcuss, ahead of our research division, who helped put together today's event and will be on the next panel. rosemary is retiring soon after more than three decades, wonderful public service after the irs, the bureau of economic analysis and the congressional budget office and she will be missed by all of us at the irs.

she's done a terrific job there. i also want to recognize someone else will be on the next panel is ted noted the need olson the taxpayer advocate. nearly 60 months as the irs commissioner i found nina's advice and recommendations for improvement a great help to me in charting a path forward for the agency. turning now while we are here i need to thank tax policy center for selecting my favorite sub judge for this is tax the event. on a question that the irs budget cuts affect taxpayers and the tax system, is really something that keeps me up late at night. and it's something that i think all policymakers in washington should be losing sleep over. and i'm grateful to the tax policy center for posturing and discussion that needs to continue until we achieve the right results. my view is simple. i believe that the underfunding of the agency is the most critical challenge facing the irs today.

in the serious ramifications of five years of budget cuts are becoming increasingly visible in worse and if action isn't taken soon. this is not just about the agency. it's about the entire tax system. we are coming to the point where significant reduction were the significant reductions aubrey taking place in the irs budget are degrading the agency's ability to continue to deliver on its mission both the during the filing system and beyond. i'm sure most of the people in this room know how critical our situation is but in case you're just back from a few months in an article or missed this morning's "washington post" or released this afternoon a store in bloomberg i will recap it for you. the irs budget level as ted for fiscal year 2015 of the $10.9 billion is $1.2 billion less than it was five years ago. the irs is now at its lowest level of funding since 2008. if you adjust for inflation our budget is not comparable to where we were in 1998. while our budget has been

shrieking, however, the taxpayer growth taxpayer base is grown by millions. we've also taken by many new responsibilities such as implementation of a foreign account tax compliance act and the tax related provisions of the affordable care act. since 75% of our budget more or less is personnel, the agency has been absorbing the budget reductions mainly by shrinking our workforce. as a result we ended fiscal 2014 with more than 13000 fewer permanent full-time employees compared with 2010. we expect to lose another 3000 more or less through attrition by the end of this year. you might think that shrinking and agency would force it to do more with less. that may have been true for us in the early going, and we've heard the comments on the hill and elsewhere that our funding is delivered lowered to make sure we think twice about spending. the irs does need to be as efficient as possible and be careful stewards of funding that

we receive from taxpayers. we now save over $200 million a year as a result of non-labor cost savings put in place over the last few years. but after five years of budget cuts and the hiring freeze that has lasted for four years people need to understand that the irs is going to have to do less with less. it means both enforcement and taxpayer service will suffer. the problem is that our levels of staffing are insufficient to deliver on our mission. consider the 13,000 employees we lost since 2010 and include 5000 t. enforcement personnel. these are the people who audit returns, conduct collection activities and include the special agents in our criminal investigation division to investigate refund fraud and other cases. but we estimate that often audit and collection case closed issue will translate into a loss to the government of at least $2 billion in revenue that otherwise would've been collected. essentially the government is

forgoing billions of dollars to achieve a budget savings of a few hundred million dollars. since we estimate that every 1 dollar invested in the irs budget produces at least $4 in additional revenue. accusative effect of the irs the cuts in the irs budget and enforcement personnel of a sense fiscal year 2010 results in an estimated seven $8 billion every year in lost revenue for the government. as some have called this amounts to a tax cut for tax cheats. on the services side this year we were forced to substantially reduce hiring a extra seasonal help we usually have doing the filing season. as a result our phone level of service at the start of the filing season was just 54% and as we got closer to the end of the filing season it dipped below 40%. that means more than six out of 10 people who call could not reach allied a sister. that is simply a process group especially consider that our goal for the phone level of

service in a given year is 80%. the negative impact of our underfunding expand to the business sides will. it might sound like good news to some corporations that were conducting fewer audits, but the ones we do are likely to be more burdensome because with fewer examiners with specialized training to understand complex business issues. as for tax law guidance needed by businesses we're having to target our resources more to retail issues involving individuals and their 1045 informs. that means guidance sought for more highly specialized issues in a corporate they will likely suffer as a result. the risk to our tax system always by underfunding goes deeper than uncollected revenues unanswered phones or unpublished guidance. service and enforcement need to be viewed as two sides of the same compliance going because our system is built on the notion of voluntary compliance. if people think they're not going to get caught if they

cheat or if they're just fed up because they can't get the help they need from us to file their taxes, the system will be put at risk. consider that a 1% decline in the compliance rate translates into $30 billion in lost revenue for the government every year. as everett dirksen would have said, you were into real money. in describing the situation with fighter cells and it's important not going to point out what the irs can't do but also will begin to and are still doing. while the agency is cutting in discretionary areas over which we have control, we continue to deliver on core functions. a great example is the current tax filing system which has gone smoothly in terms of tax return processing and the technical issues around it and the operations of our i.t. systems. through april 3 thing i is has received more than 99 million individual tax returns on the way to an expected 150 movie. 150 million. we've issued more than

77 million refunds for more than $217 billion. one thing i've been trying to get people to understand is that delivering the filing season doesn't happen automatically if it doesn't happen by accident. it happens because of the talent expertise and dedication of our workforce. get ready for this filing season. irs employees built into the systems that we use the backing of the affordable care act the front end the tax extenders legislation passed in late december all without missing a beat. i told employees a year ago during my visit to irs offices around the country that if we could pull this off it would be an amazing testimonial to the skill and dedication of irs employees. and that's exactly what it is. in the public sector when things go well they often pass unnoticed. so i did part of my job to make sure the public, the press and the congress understand the magnitude of this achievement

and (c)(4) the great accomplishments that it is. let me give you an illustration of the disconnect between our funding levels and our responsibility to last december just three days after cutting our budget by nearly $350 million, congress passed legislation requiring the irs to design and implement two new programs i july 1 of issue. the punchline is those programs, the able i'd answer the case requirement for employer organization professional employer organizations didn't come with any additional funding funding. but we will play the hand we are dealt and will do the best we can. that's because we have no choice but we do statutory mandates even if those mandates are often underfunded, implementation comes at the expense of taxpayer service and enforcement. it's a strange position for us to be an. i irs is such a capable agency that congress keeps giving us a

new responsibilities. we deliver on those responsibilities and we deliver smooth filing season year after year and then they tell us well, we will get less money and see how you do next year. up until now we have been able to manage but i'm extremely concerned that the cracks are beginning to show. i've said it before but i think it bears repeating. i never found an organization in my 20 years in my private sector experience that said i think i will take my revenue-producing arm, set it off that off to the site, started for funds and see how it does. that's what's happening now to the irs. so my view is what i want people to understand is that this is a real threat that the capacity of the agency over time to meet its mission to people need to know what's at stake. problem goes beyond not having an -- enough employees to adequate run current operations the continuing underfunding threatens our ability to properly develop our workforce so we have a viable operation five to 10 years down the road. as i mentioned part of the

problem is simply having fewer people. the high water mark of the agency's workforce in terms of size was in 1992 and since then we've lost more than 30,000 full-time employees and we're at our lowest level since the '80s. current composition of the irs workforce also present a challenge. the problem is simple. our workforce is maturing at a rapid rate. in fact, a portion of the workforce over 50 years of age has been growing steadily during the last several years. today more than half are in that age group and we estimate that by mixture more than 25% of the irs workforce will be eligible to retire. by 2019 that number will be over 40%. meanwhile, the number of virus employees under 30 has been steadily declining and it is now less than 3% of our workforce 1900 people out of 87,000 essentially the irs is facing its own version of the baby bust. the risk to our future workforce is generally overlooked in our

funding discussions and yet this issue is critical to the future of the agency and will only grow in importance in the months and years ahead. as i've noted a long the wait my turn will end before the full magnitude of this problem is visible to the outsiders. but it would be irresponsible to just slide a long without beginning to address the situation. talking that issues, one of my biggest concerns involves our inability to fully improve and modernize our information technology systems. because of inadequate resources the irs is operating with antiquated systems that are increasingly at risk as we continue to fall behind in upgrading both hardware infrastructure and software. despite more than a decade of upgrades to the agency's core business systems we still have very old technology running alongside our more modern systems. it's a model t but has a great gps system and a wonderful somesuch and rebuild engine that ultimately still a model t. we have many applications that we are running when john f.

kennedy was president. about the only good thing you can say about them is that the code they use has been out of date for so long that it has the unintended effect of creating problems for hackers who may be hacking in and tried to figure out the system works. so that's our case for adequate funding of the irs by think we need to broaden the discussion. i am increasingly convinced the irs needs to do more and take a different approach and one that doesn't just rely on resources. our goal is a nerd to get enough funding to hire back 13,000 people and go backwards in time and perform the way we used to. we're not going to build the irs back to the year 2010. we need to be looking forward to a new improved way of doing business. this involves looking at the future in a more comprehensive way, and considering that we can take against the latest technology to move the taxpayer

experience to a new level. and do it anyway that is cost effective for the cover. in particular we are focused on how best to use our limited information technology resources, our goal is for taxpayers to have a more complete online experience for all their transactions with the irs. the online experience should give everyone confidence in knowing that they can take care of their tax obligations at a fast secure and consistent manner. the goal is not unrealistic or not try to go to the moon or mars. we're simply saying that people should expect the same level of service when dealing with the irs in the future as they have now from the financial institutions whether it's a bank mortgage company or brokerage covey. the ideas that taxpayers would have an account at the irs where they or their prepares can log in securely, get all the information about their account and interact with the irs as needed. most things, the texas need to devote fulfill their obligations could be done virtually and they would be much less need for in

person help either my wait in line at an irs assistant center or by calling him by phone to improving service to taxpayers and also help is on the compliance front. we need to be faster and smarter in that area. with a more modern system the irs could identify problems in tax returns when the return is filed rather than coming back to taxpayers years after the fact while the meter is running on potential penalties and interest. we want to interact with taxpayers as soon as possible so those issues can be corrected without costly follow-up contact or labor intensive audits. it's not in all of this would be new. to the extent we been able to even with our budget constraints we have made significant improvements in our technology to serve taxpayers. one of our more popular features on irs.gov is the where's my refund electronic tracking to the taxpayers have already used it more than 187 million times this filing season and different close to surpassing the total for all of last year.

i was trying to note a dozen new of 187 million taxpayers. there are some people just can't resist punching the button to see where the refund is. an example is to get a transcript which was launched last year. it's a secure online system that allows taxpayers to view and print a record of the irs account in a matter of seconds. so far they. so far this your taxes have used this application to gain more than 15 million copies of previously filed tax information. in both cases without the online applications, all of those people would've been remitted to either calling us on the phone trying to call us on the phone, our walking into one of our assistant centers. without them we been able to provide better service than we would even though it's hard to imagine how it could get worse but it's better than it would be if all those people on the phone or standing in line. so while we have a few of the building blocks in place we still need to engage in a full court press. i went to duke so i'm using

terms like full-court press today just because it seems right. in an organized way to build a better online filing experience. into the towards this future state i should mention that the irs will continue to extremely value partnerships we have with the private sector. these partners run the gamut from tax industry from tax professional return preparers to developers of software under the product to the are critical to our ability to run a system that helps millions of people each year fulfill their tax obligations and we will look to our partners for assistance as we continue down this road. i would also point out that as we improve the online filing experience we recognize the responsibility we have to serve the needs of all taxpayers. whatever your age income or station in life. improving service to taxpayers must include special consideration for those who are not comfortable in the digital environment or cannot afford to or don't have access online transactions. in the end our ability to

improve both online and traditional challenge of taxpayers have will depend as we've said on future level for the agency funding. even with our budget constraints we're going to continue to find some funds to support these efforts to build for the future even at the expense of other areas of activities. otherwise if we just wage a guerrilla style fight every year through the continuing funding challenges focusing only on the present, we wake up in five years and be no further down the road than we are today and in fact we we five years farther behind. so that's our story. the challenges facing the irs today laid policymakers with a very clear choice to a decision to adequately fund the irs will give us the tools we need to fulfill our mission and build for the future, a decision to keep underfunding the agency will punish taxpayers, reduce the revenue to fund the government and inject risk into our system of voluntary tax requirement. i will continue urging congress to make the right decision.

i took this job nearly 16 months ago because i think the critical of the irs place in the lives of taxpayers and in the operation and funding of the government. i know i speak for the thousands of professional dedicated employees of the irs when i say we are committed to continuing to do all we can to build for the future in the interest of serving the american taxpayer. thank you, and i would be happy to answer any questions you may have. [applause]

>> mr. kostin, thank you very much for your very interesting talk. a plan is that the commission and i will chat for about 10 minutes and you'll have about 10 minutes to ask some questions i would ask you to please make questions do not speak essence of the limited amount of time with respect of your fellow audience members. deaconess questions. >> speeches afterwards. >> afterwards. and dependable at 11 opportunity to discuss the commissioner, i want to start by saying i didn't think you'd make us a less popular but then you to talk about going to duke last -- [laughter] i couldn't help but notice in the last few days to candidates have announced for president. one of them said this the irs is to become too powerful and we should scrap the code and abolish the irs and preserve our liberty. deficit i think we got to abolish the irs.

to try to put this in corporate terms and i know it's not an exact analogy but it is as if people want to run for chairman of the board would like to eliminate the enterprise. how does an organization respond to that? >> as i said in the past, i understand that there are different ways of framing issues as you go. i think in both cases what people are basically saying and i think resonates with most people in the public is the tax code is too complicated. so some people talking about abolishing the irs have sent everybody ought to be able to follow on a simple, small card. the only way to do that is if you have a very simple tax code. i've made it clear from the start that while tax policies the domain and province of the treasured partner, the white house and the congress once i've said that i also told a member of the congress everything they wanted to do simple by the tax code we will

do our best to try to help to support them. because it is beyond the pale of understanding. i don't know how anybody understands the full sweep of the impact of the code. chairman camp of the ways and means committee before he retired introduced a very comprehensive or postal for taxes from and at the way of framing it that tax code was longer than the bible without any of the good news. i told them my rule of life is i will give him credit for that statement for you and that i'm just stealing it for my own as we go forward. as i've said, lets you think you could run the government with no money is people going to file on a short form for even a larger form, somebody has to be there to collect the money. somebody has to make sure that the numbers are right, that some of his reporting the right amount of income against which they are applying a simple form which i assume will be simple. i view it as a cry against the complexity of tax code and a

desire to make it simpler. and from my standpoint if we could do that, he would be a great step for editing the irs employees would agree. >> that said it's been a long time since congress only asked the irs to collect money. you now run a large welfare organization, income tax-cut child tax credit to you responsible for managing a huge health insurance program. is it realistic for congress to continue to expect a tax collecting agency to do all of these things that really have nothing to do with collecting taxes? >> that's a good reminder that what i should've said as well if you're going to have a simple little card that you develop your adjusted gross income, you gross income, even had to figure which are going to do with all these programs, tax credit programs that would run. e-reader have to abolish them would have to be more complicated form so the people were eligible for the credits. it is again ironic as shown in

december that at the same time people attack the irs they keep giving us more things to do. to some extent particularly in the social welfare area that's because they understand even though they may not say it but we are very efficient and that contact will get the job done. in fact, one of the points if i had more time i would've noted in terms of efficiency and some members on the talked about, well, we purposely cut your budget to make more efficient. you always see the issue their updating, and the irs spends half the amount to collect a dollar of revenue and tax administration are germany france england canada and australia. we are spending has as much. the arc to some others between the two of them but that will give you some indication how efficient we are. you are exactly right. i have met with tax administration from around the world at a number of tax credit programs for social programs. and i think again because people

have discovered it's a simple way to reach out to the constituency. we have 150 million individual tax returns so they cover the gamut of people across income strata except for those who don't make enough income to file. if they're working at all they can then file and be eligible for the income tax credit. but it is true that we are the earned income tax credit is an interesting duality. on the one and we have an obligation to make sure everybody who is eligible is about the program and applies to we reach 80% of people eligible pars because about 30% of the beneficiaries turn over every year. people get a better job, without qualification or they quit working and are no longer eligible. and yet at the other hand we have to make sure that only the right people get the right amount. it's one of the major challenges we have to. because and thus look at the educational tax credit draft report from the inspector general, congress has a way of

giving us requirements to pay tax credits and then giving us a third party information after the credits have already been done. on the education reform area we did educational tax credits we don't get the information, not required to get information until the end of march but people are expecting their credits in january february and into march. so it is more complicated than you would expect and it is true it's a good point most people thinking of the irs and paying their taxes have no idea the amount of money and the amount of time and effort we spend what programs congress has given us to run and in effect a social welfare agency. i would be happy to give some of these programs over to somebody else, whether it's hhs or the labor department and our lives would be a lot simpler. >> you have obviously been pushing very hard to get congress to give you more money. i'm not sure what you think it's likely you'll get more money but let me ask you to get out your crystal ball for a minute and just ask, if you don't get

additional funding, not even talking about more cuts in your budget but if you don't get additional funding, what with the irs look like in five years? >> that's our concern. when i got there, the deputy commissioner and i've been talking about what the vision of the future ought to be. the answer to the question of what she the irs look like and that's what i talk about what the future ought to be for an individual taxpayer. the concern i have and that's where we begin, i'd look at the demographics. the charge should with 6-under 50 people under 2587,000 the it became clear we have a significant problem in the workforce so that if again my point about guerrilla war fighting to the budget each year, you will wake up one day and someone said recently we don't do something about this and we keep a been constrained and having to restrain hiring and look at the aging workforce we will go out of business wanted to simply we will not have anyone there.

the knowledge will be gone and we will have a significant challenge. .. >> whether they don't have access to the web or complicated questions that need to be answered, can get through on the phone or get service at a walk-in center. but i do think if we go just flat for the next five years with inflationary sources and no additional responsibilities --