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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  May 27, 2015 11:30am-1:31pm EDT

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final point supporting our partners in europe. it is in our interest as a trans-atlantic community to have neighbors that are stable and independent. that's why nato is working with georgia, moldova and ukraine to help them carry out reforms and build strong institutions. of these nations are not the first owns. they are in the sovereign states and have the right to choose and we will continue to help them on the path. because of the neighbors are more stable, we are more secure. ladies and gentlemen for decades as a trans-atlantic
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community we've kept our people safe. we have erased the visions in europe, we've built a loose based order that the benefits us all. but as ever challenges increase, we must adapt. to protect the values of our open societies and to support our partners this required commitment and solidarity the world is changing and we are changing. but one thing that will not change is our determination to stay and stand united. thank you. [applause]
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>> thank you. that was a clear and concise message that is urgently needed. we are delighted that you could join us. i am the senior vice president here at the center and what a privilege it is to have your first public address as the secretary general in washington. what we thought we would do for the next 30 minutes or so is take you up on your offer to ask questions and move to the challenges that we see to the
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south but i'd like to ask you a few questions and i think the most challenging part of my job is to limit my questions. there is so much we can cover. after we have a few minutes here then we welcome our audience and i know they ask very tough questions so we will engage in the conversation. secretary you've been in the job for about six months maybe a little bit longer starting after the summit in newport. and you offered a very frank assessment of the military exercise. but how have they been exercising haven't done this type of defense in quite a long time. what are the reflections that you are seeing.
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>> that goes for the allies and of course russia. so my point is not to argue against exercises. if the forces are to exercise them the challenge. it is undermining the transparency and as it is stated in my speech reviews these exercises as a disguise for annexing crimea and to mask the troops on the borders of ukraine and also to send troops into eastern ukraine to support the separatists so they are using these exercises as a way to disguise the options and by
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doing so without any warning there are decreasing predictability is an increasing uncertainty and that is the opposite of the intentions described which are aiming so there are worried misunderstandings and that's the reason why we are from the nato side transparent predictable. so you can go on the website just to meet sure that they are transparent enough. that is part of the response to get the actions of russia and
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ukraine and we will do even more exercises but we voted in a transparent and a predictable way. >> is it best to return russia to the document that they find or do we need something new? some suggest we need a code of conduct to get to the notification to the aircraft that have turned off transponders as they are flying into crowded civilian airspace. how do we meet its immediate challenge? do we need a code of conduct in the immediate future? >> it was a very straightforward thing to do to exercise the
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military activity. then of course, we are always working on how we can develop these kind of agreements in the government. they are not nato agreement. but of course the allies are taking part in the agreements in different ways and we have a special focus on the risk of air activity. they've increased the activity by around 50% by intercepting a few years ago. they provided a report of the
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military activity and also without the transponders. and nato was commended for the way that we are conducting without transponders to the civilian air traffic. so to turn on transponders. you have painted a stark picture of the aggressive posture of the nuclear issue. at last september's newport summit there were actions that
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you mentioned the high readiness task force and a variety of other issues. as we look forward to next year's summit in july, you mentioned this for the long haul. do you see that as one of the implementations of what happened at newport or do you see it moving into the long haul, the long-term strategic posture? we hosted this last week and argued for the initiative for the strategic adaptation and long-term permanent presence. what are your thoughts as you look at the next advance? to make we are looking at the changed security environment and therefore we have to adapt to the environment and it has to be
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big and fundamental and therefore i very much believe that what they are going to is charge the way forward in this adaptation of nato. that is partly about increasing the collective defense. they have to do more but also of course addressing the elements for instance cyber intelligence and many other where we have to do more and develop the new capabilities and adapt. then i will add that in addition to outlining the next phase.
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it is where we take stock because implementation is also important. many make decisions that are not as good as they should be so its important to make sure they are implementing a readiness action plan in forces and not least of which comes to defense investments and starting to increase. >> a follow-up on the stability i think he mentioned there is a
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bit of a time gap as russia puts forward the state borders. they have a 48 hour deployment and it could be something of a faster speed potential using hybrid tactics. are you concerned about timing and how fast they can deploy the scenario? >> that's the reason we have increased the preparedness. we have the troops based because we believe they will be there
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and this is the combination of the ability to reinforce and i welcome the border countries are now increasing their own investments in the fans. we will establish a presence in the way that we established a command units and that is something new and i think it's important in the nato presence it will also make reinforcement easier. so national presence and increased preparedness but in
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addition to that we have the assurance measures with more troops on the ground so it's the whole combination that provides what is so important for me. >> one last question before i turn to the audience and open up the floor for questions. another aspect of managing relations with russia is about the agenda and i can't let you go unless i ask a question about 2012 secretary clinton argued after the chicago nato summit that this would be the summit that wouldn't of that wouldn't be discussed and we had another summit that wasn't tackled as we headed towards warsaw.
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obviously not just for georgia and ukraine in the alliance, but today's coalition platform suggested they are keeping options open. is there a path forward? >> it has been historical success and of course a combination has really transformed. i think it's important to underline that principle of every nation to decide its own path including arrangement it wants to be part of.
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it's something that russia has also assigned to. and the consequence of that is whether another country will become a member is going to be decided by that country and the allies. no one else has the right to deny or to choose the path it wants. we've decided that we will make the decisions on montenegro by the end of this year so this will be after the meeting in nato. i am reluctant if i say anything
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about that it will contribute in a positive way so they have to decide whether they apply. >> okay. we are ready to unleash the audience. we have about 15 minutes. can we bundle a few questions if you could identify yourself and affiliation we have microphones passing around you to sometimes you have to speak very directly. why don't we start in the back. i see questions in the back just wait for the microphone please. >> thank you. i'm a fellow at the endowment
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for democracy. i had the pleasure of meeting you a few years ago and the young activists in georgia now my question on the fellowship i was benighted and i hope that you could help me find an answer when they reshaped the soviet union had helped the organization maintain its strength. my question is regarding georgia. would you think that they would make another step towards the membership plan or if not what we just say that it would be for georgia like with georgia benefit from the long-term partnership versus membership?
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>> this would be a good time to ask for internships. >> thank you secretary general. i want to see if i can push you a little bit. we had a bit of developments taking place in the partnership. how do you see this going forward as a partnership and in terms of the membership about keeping the options open it to see if i can get your take on how useful it would be and what that really help them to reassure them and would it even be productive for russia. >> we will take one more right here.
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>> italy is very proud of being the providing police to the states as we speak. we are one of those nations that would be one of the leading nations contradicting to the cyber center and at the same time i would be interested on what the role could be in those challenges. thank you. >> so the complexities of the south. >> the secretary-general of nato
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that is a good look and they have a close partnership with georgia. we are in the process of implementing the substantial package which is expanding further into partnership with georgia. we are establishing the training centers and we are really doing substantial activities. and in the defense capacity building in georgia which increases the ability to defend itself i think that's important for the region. but when it comes to membership there is nothing more to say
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than what has been stated again and again. i was at the summit in 2008 where we made the decisions. they are restated but what we decided was the first applicant as they were going to address later this year. then on sweden i appreciate what we have with georgia and they are contributing to a lot of the corporations so we have an important partnership that we have to participate in and develop. then you said you would try to push it further but wouldn't
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succeed. it's easy to joke about this about a think it's so important that everything i say about the advantage of the society are the advantages and for the misuse if i was a journalist or a scientist or anything else because i'm the secretary general and then that's the reason that we just have to follow that and the democratic position in the countries to
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decide whether they would like to apply in the same way as any other application that lets me add another. we have a partnership with sweden and finland and there are enhanced opportunities and we are doing more and more together with them and we are sharing information and working closely together with them and we decided to go further in developing our partnership so they are really close partners. to the east we see the
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challenges in the state and we respond in a way that is familiar to what we've done before and in the south we are faced with non- state challenges and that is a mixed and complicated picture with violence and turmoil. we also see the attacks taking place in some of the other organizations. i would welcome that all allies contribute to the coalition and i think we have to understand
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one of the reasons the partners can contribute is because they have developed interoperability. they've learned how to work together in afghanistan so even though this isn't a nato operation it is very useful. then in addition they decided to develop the capacity to because they are on the idea to project to the stability and by building the local forces they
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can take more of this possibility for the security and thereby we can protect the large number of the forces and we are doing that in jordan. we have reduced and we are now in the process of helping them build institution reforms and increased their ability. we stand ready to do that in libya when the situation on the ground allows. and even if we don't call it the capacity building. they take the full responsibility in the future for their own security. and i think that to develop and take more responsibility for
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their own security is important for the countries but also nato and we have to do more of that. >> we will take a vitamin around on the next three questions. we have one in the back right there. >> thank you. voice of america. i would like to ask the here in the united states hear more voices now in the media and on the internet that ukraine and the standoff with russia is mostly a european problem and what would you say to those people that say that it should be putting most effort into resolving the crisis and it should be germany or france leading the way? thank you. >> thank you. should we take one more in the back in the corner please?
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>> good morning. i am a british exchange in dc. it was a fascinating exercise here last year which considered the scenario on one of the most interesting things in the audience and there was almost no agreement on what constituted a breach of article five. i wonder if you can talk a little bit about the challenge of defining the threshold at which it is breached particularly and then in a name like cyber and also maybe speaks likely to dealing with an adversary that the determinedly stays below that threshold. >> fantastic question. i think with time and going to have you responded to this question. >> ukraine is in europe is a problem or a crisis which affects not only the european
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countries but the international law as a violated and undermines the whole idea of the order that is based on the rules. so of course it is important for the global order and when the ball is violated in the way that we have seen ukraine when it comes to the annexation of the illegal annexation of crimea. europeans are in the lead when it comes to trying to find solutions because france and germany in particular are really in the lead. ..
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there's also global challenge and the challenge which trans-atlantic alliance is addressing. then when it comes to article v the important thing is that nato stands ready to protect and defend all allies against anything. and when it comes to for instance fiber, think important thing with it was to decide the cyberattack can -- because we've got cyber and potentially dangerous as a conventional attack. and, therefore we are developing our capabilities to
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respond partly to detect who is behind. our main responsibility is to defend our own nato networks. we are developing teams capabilities, doing more exercises with cyber defense exercise. so we are increasing our readiness to cyber defense. but there are also assisting in helping allies in developing their own capabilities to do cyber defense. and as always, every situation, every attack is unique but i think what trust ever like that nato will respond and the proportionate way come if and when needed whatever kind of attack which are launched against us. >> the one thing we learned was
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political leaders need to exercise how to make those decisions when they are fellow threshold levels. it has to be practiced and understood because attribution will never be perfect and when political will is perhaps not there, it's really leaders sitting around the table exploring what would that mean, what would we need what is the intelligence required? that's one area received critical leadership could gain some value and practicing at decision-making process works. >> first of all i believe in exercises. second i think it's important exercising political leaders. third we need utah's political leaders because we have elected them and related to that i think is we have in every nato set up in x. happens why we respond to at some stage after prepared for strategies, your plan exercise, imagine different scenarios but at the end it will be a decision taken
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by political leaders how to respond. therefore, we need the capabilities, the capacity to respond. we need to exercise. we can never have a specific reason exactly are we going to respond to every possible and impossible threat. because the world and if you choose to complex. as long as you their capacities, the capabilities and they are exercised, we have to trust our political leaders are able to take the right decisions spirit that is a very positive note to end on. secretary general stoltenberg thank you so much for clarity, message, and we look forward to watching how nato defaults in the next year on the road to our next summit in warsaw in july of next year. please join in thanking secretary general stoltenberg. [applause]
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a. >> thank you all for joining us. have a great rest of the day. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]
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[inaudible conversations] >> as of this event comes to to a close, officials in jerusalem are telling they a.p. today that the envoy tony perez resigned after eight years on the job. those officials who are familiar with the work of the quartet said the former british prime minister had written a letter to ban ki-moon to confirm his resignation. the official spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement. he took the office in 2007 and was put in charge of helping to develop the palestinian economy and institutions. the ap says he struggled in the position and want official said there had been frustration over his limited authority. >> vice president biden is giving a speech this afternoon on the russia-ukraine conflict and its impact on your security.
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the vice president to speak at the brookings institution in washington, d.c. c-span wildlife coverage starting at 12:15 eastern. >> i road to the white house coverage continues as hillary clinton makes her first trip to south carolina as a presidential candidate virtue of speaking to me this outgoing democratic women's caucus and the south carolina democratic women's council. c-span will cover that live at 1:45 p.m. eastern. right here on c-span2 we will be live at 4 p.m. eastern as the white house national drug control policy director talks with representatives of the safe and freedom coalition. the topic, the criminal justice system. that would be live at 4 p.m. eastern. >> this summer booktv will cover book festivals from around the country and top nonfiction authors and books. this weekend we're live in new
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york city. >> a look now at national security and homeland defense during the presidency of george w. bush. a panel of authors academics and former national security council staff member discuss how 9/11 impacted the creation of the domestic security apparatus and strategic staffing decisions. this was part of a three-day
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conference on the nation's 43rd president hosted by hofstra university. it is one hour 20 minutes. >> welcome, everyone to this afternoon session. my name is robert brinkmann director of sustainable studies that hofstra university. welcome all of you to our beautiful campus. hopefully get a chance to see some our great efforts underway. thanks for all of you for being here today we have a very interesting set of papers and very esteemed panelists will be discussing it. afterwards i hope we'll get a great conversation going from the audience. today with us we have david cohen from university of akron. dane egli from johns hopkins university. terry o'sullivan from university of akron. justin vaughn from boise state university. would also have stephen knott
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from u.s. naval war college. we have a great set of panelists here with us. unfortunately, congressman king could not make it today. due to commitments in washington. today's first paper and we were going to do this we have two papers in this session. after the papers i will have discussion from our two discussants and afterwards we'll open it up for conversation. so without further ado let us start with our first paper which is we must work every day to improve the creation and evolution of the homeland security infrastructure in the george w. bush white house. we will have two speakers, david cohen and terry o'sullivan. >> thank you very much. before get started on what you think hofstra university. this is my third presidential conference. the first one was about a george h. w. bush and i was a lowly
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graduate student back then and i presented a paper on white house chief of staff a very very critical paper and right before a the panel started, sununu walked in to the panel, set right in the front row. he was given a copy of my paper and proceeded to read my entire paper highlighting it as he went along come and glowering at me the entire time. so if i can survive kashmir thought to to myself if identified as i can basically survive anything in academia. so it was a very good training ground for public speaking from then on. i really interesting first experience and the conference was excellent until looking forward to the next one of these of this covers. our paper is part of a long-term project exploring and analyzing the establishment and functioning of the white house homeland security apparatus following 9/11 which would
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include the office of homeland security which is now defunct and homeland security council, as well as the structure function, personnel of both organizations and, of course the position of homeland security adviser. in our paper we pay particular attention to the historic evolution of this new institution, and one of the things that is kind of neat about our project is data from the paper is drawn from interviews conducted by us three authors with some of the former bush administration personal including some very high level staff that were working in homeland security and for working in conjunction with homeland security council. we also draw data from the first presidential documents such as executive orders and homeland security presidential directives. of course, if you go back to september 11 it really was a classic triggering event to use the terminology of baumgartner
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and jones and really bush the bush administration was given a great opportunity to be able to reshape and restructure the organization of the federal government like no other president since breast fdr and abraham lincoln. public opinion provide clear support for president bush's antiterrorism policies, the bush white house embraced the idea of wholesale change that the federal level especially particularly at the beginning within the white house itself. for example, if you look at a the cbs news poll from october 8, 85% of respondents said that another terrorist attack in the united states was somewhat likely or very likely. and typical the mindset of sweeping change let me read a quote from condi rice, the national good advisor where she said we commonly hear the refrain that everything changed on september 11.
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in many ways that is true. one of the things that is changes how we could organize the united states government to defend against and ultimately defeat the threat of terrorism. nonetheless, recommendations for creating what became eventually the department of homeland security were initially resisted and dismissed by the bush administration. because those ideas were many coming from a democratic congress at the thought of sweeping change really had not registered with the administration yet. but the urge to continue with bureaucratic policy as usual quickly evaporated as accusations of warnings that went unheeded after 9/11 and intelligence failures began to leak. so something needed to be done. with great enthusiasm the administration quickly embraced the idea of a homeland security apparatus within the white
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house, and president bush announced in a televised address on september 20 you might recall some of you come to a joint session of congress this notion of creating this white house apparatus along with a cabinet level position that became making the homeland security adviser. on october 8 this plan was formalized when president bush issued executive order 13228, which created the office of homeland security which was to be housed in the executive office of the president. and ohs was tasked with a myriad of responsibilities including getting together federal state and local agencies to provide better intelligence to the president to thwart future attacks. 13228 also stipulated ohs was to be led by the assistant to the president for homeland security homeland security and pfizer. and ohs and its director were modeled after the modern-day version of the national security
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council staff and the national security advisor. that was the model going forward. a major difference between the two institutions was that ohs wasn't christian of an executive order and nsc with the statutory creation born out of ashes could act of 1947 and thus bush had a freer hand to be able to create, adapt and change the ohs than was the case with the nsc. also because ohs was a presidential creation not a congressional creation the director of ohs was not subject to senate confirmation nor required to testify before congress when called. this contact became a major source of friction between the bush administration and the 107th congress when the ohs and director refused numerous requests to testify before congress on homeland security issues. only after the administration announced its plans great a formal dhs did the director of
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to create a dhs director of ohs appear before hearings and in front of congress. you might recall task to head the office of homeland security was tom ridge was a republican governor from pennsylvania who was not only chosen because he did have an impressive coming president but had close personal relations with the bush. having the confidence of and access to the president is a fairly important ingredient for any presidential adviser looking to influence policy. by many accounts range it has both of those things. one former administration official that we interviewed about this corroborates this when he said there was such a major muscle them to try to coordinate and coalesce all of the functions, not to mention all the other functions that eventually were glued together you needed white house involvement in somebody who was close to the president or a
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least have a president eager to be able to make those major muscle movements or this would not have succeeded. and so the thought within the white house that ridge did have george bush's air to a certain extent are the creation of which us was met with skepticism particularly from north of congress who felt the position of homeland security adviser lacked sufficient power and authority. because the ohs director did have budgetary authority and it's important to be able to hold people accountable with the use of budgets. and the news reports regarding integration of ohs were rife with concerned of a perceived lack of authority for the new ohs director. both bush and ridge sought immunity to tap -- in l.a. to -- ridgewood have total access to ms was the full support of the federal government when he stated comrades will report directly to me and he will have
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the full support of our entire government. that was a public statement of support back in fact he would be someone of importance. assessments of the first settlements of the new office reported that ohs really wasn't functioning up to the standard that the bush administration headset. and that many of the established bureaucracies were resisting change. and of course, they had no budgetary tools to be able to punish those agencies, and it became apparent quickly without the budgetary authority that ridge did lacked the necessary clout to reform the bureaucratic behemoth and overcome the numerous turf battles that ensued almost immediately. so by the spring of 2002 numerous media reports are surfacing the bush administration was rethinking its objections to a formal department of homeland security. now one thing that is often overlooked an executive order that created the office of homeland security was
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section five of that executive order which created a homeland security council which was a cabinet level advisory council modeled after a national security council. and like that nsc when security council meetings with the president often occurred in the white house situation room. but one of the things that really showed a different i think between the two organizations was based on office proximity to the oval office, the homeland security adviser never achieved the status of that as a national security advisor for both had an office in the west wing, the homeland security adviser's office was actually in the basement water national security advisor was located just a few doors down from the president. this is a clear indication of the prestige and access to bush that would be earned and not granted outright. if you know anything about west
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wing real estate you know how important it is to have an office as close as possible to the oval office, even if it's a broom closet. that's better than having a spacious office 14 up one floor down. in terms of creating the department of homeland security on june 5 the bush administration kind of shocked the political establishment is unveiling his plan for a new executive branch department known as dhs and bush announced in a nationally televised address. the plan was developed in secret. many people have no idea that the administration was even going down that road. and, of course, the proposed governmental reorganization required the administration to walk back there at the in the nose for the need for a new organization because they had denied for several months. the legislation took just over five months to make its way through congress which is very rapid for such an incredibly
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large and massive restructuring of the federal government. we are talking 22 existing agencies, 200,000 plus employees were taken from other agencies some cratered and mashed together in this new organization which begin functioning march 1, 2003. ridge left his position as ohs director and became the first director of the department of homeland security. very quickly, title nine of that legislation, the homeland security act made permanent the homeland security council and institutionalized that a council that exists today in the white house and is still functioning. ohs no longer exists. in its first year of fiscal year 2002 $27 million to run away just to roughly 130 individuals. two years later only just no
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longer existed. its functions absorbed by the homeland security council staff number of employees down to 35 and the budget shrinks the million dollars to i will handed over to my colleague terry o'sullivan who will bring it home. >> i will keep this brief. needless to say the original mandate of the homeland security act was strictly about terrorism. to prevent terrorist attacks and reduce the volatility of the united states and minimize the damage of recovery from terrorist acts that do occur in the united states. obviously as we all know come hurricane katrina three to four years later was a tremendous wakeup call to this mandate one of the things we did in the paper is to chronicle the position of fema federal emergency management agency, and the fact that it had ads its former director brownie as he was dubbed come into become a stepchild of the ages.
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it's important to note even after katrina, peterson and it remained on the floor into the state remains in the department of homeland to good even though there is an expansion of a natural disaster mandate. but this was attention that clearly exist in the white house apparatus as well and continues. we argue to be essentially a point of contention as well. that the dhs but also in the subsequent obama administration change in which the staff of the homeland security council was put under a national security council. i think it's become evident that the national security council mandate is still largely at the floor, and are some questions as we start to discuss indie conclusion about whether there should be more of an
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institutional, particularly a leadership role that deals with the natural disasters, these growing sense of natural disasters because as we all know, natural disasters are increasingly a problem with the united states, slow ones but acute ones as well. tremendous over $1 million weather disasters that are on the rise as we even saw this last winter. the question of what homeland security is continues to be an ongoing issue. briefly the lessons learned i think among the many that we don't have a chance to get into here is that it's very clear from the rich discussions we've had, that the flexibility and adaptability of the small team of people, many of whom worked together in other agencies, the department of transportation and otherwise, with key to being able to burn through a lot of the red tape and the turf in the
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beginning. so ohs and hse staff, the people that were passed to that were being ending and essentially able to subvert in many ways but say the hidebound nature of the high security comes which was the big government since 1947 and many of the other bureaucratic you know issues and problems with moving forward, especially -- they essentially were in many ways the midwife of what became the more normalized institutionalized department of homeland security and even as the case may be within the white house a more integrated hsc and nsc. i think it's going to be an interesting discussion to talk more of these people. it's a larger project and among other things we are hoping to find out some of the details about how people saw some of
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these transitions in the later stages, especially the obama administration as that occurred. it's evident that this small team from a leadership perspective, small team was able to help corral agencies and people that might not otherwise have been willing and able to do so to respond quickly. as one of the participants said multiple times that they unlike the 1947 homeland, our national security council did not have the luxury of time. basically the hsc and standing of ohs on the whole apparatus to the threat of terrorism, potential additional terrorism was like trying to change a tire on a truck was going tonight with six miles per hour. kelo did an amazing job of adapting to the circumstances of the time and cut into the red tape and essentially setting the stage for normalization in the
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greatest reorganization of government since world war ii and since the creation of the department of homeland security. i will leave it at that. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for the presentation. we will move on to the next paper which is strategic staffing after 9/11. george w. bush's national security guard by justin vaughn of boise state university. >> thank you, professor brinkmann. i'm honored to be your as all but acknowledged. this is a conference series is an extraordinary reputation and i'm delighted to be a part of this years event. before i get started thanks to the calico senate and hofstra for putting this on. as the program indicates the title of my papers strategic staffing after 9/11 and to
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focus on the george w. bush administration's utilization of what are often called presidential policy czars. and particularly how bush used his policy czars to manage key aspects of the war on terror at the very stunned and in different ways in the years following the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001. the research i presented my paper and i will talk about briefly this afternoon comes from a broader project about czars in general. my partner in the project and i are publishing a book this summer with university of michigan press that focuses on the evolution and rise of presidential policy czars as a manager will tool. for those of you are starting krista shaw the early, it comes out in june. it will fit in a stocking especially if you are celebrating the holidays in july. and i'm happy to autograph them.
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we can talk after the panel about that. in the meantime, the research that went into that book was motivated by the hullabaloo that president obama's alleged overreliance on czars tossed during his transition into office and in the early months, even years of his presidency. we found this development of this phenomenon to be fascinating and mysterious. and spent a good number of years learning more about that. before i discuss what we learned and particularly how it relates to the presidency of george w. bush i might clarify exactly what we mean when we use the word czar. we define czars as member of an administration pass with coordination responsibilities over a particular policy problem that said administration is intent on either solving or at least appearing to solve.
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what i want to talk about this afternoon is where czars come from but the pressures are that lead administrations create them come and what czars are able to accomplish. i will talk about the battle but in general but particularly with respect to the expense of george w. bush's post-9/11 czars. president uses czars when new complex problems facing the nation become salient. creating political and policy need for action. john laub and william simon and administrations response to the energy crisis in the 1970s. interesting half to tie to that i notice we're sitting in the audience when he was suffering hazara school of business frank azar was also energies are after nixon resigned. more recently barack obama has
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used ron klain to coordinate an agent from the interagency response to the ebola epidemic. in both of these cases nixon's use of energy czars and obama's use of ebola's art, presidents appointed these on their own initiative. to our policies problems and there were political reasons to be seen as solving them come if not actually solving them, and president's own development of those phenomenons. other times such is the case with george h. w. bush and the institutionalization of the drug czar in late 1980s the development of a czar is actually spurred by congressional action and not surprisingly, by the preferences or things facing the president. following september 11 the george w. bush administration cratered at different moment
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three distinct czar dems. dorothy homeland security czar which they talked about at length. is a national intelligence czar which had the fortune of having as a featured in the of this conference who will be in the panel condition following december and then the so-called wars are. between these three cases we see examples of both presidential initiative and institutional responses to congressional pressures of the ways i prefer to the difference between those causes for development of a czar is an offense of our defensive approach to creating czars. so and present of doing things of their own volition, you see the president kind of engage in offenses, politics was when they're doing as response to external pressures it's more of a defensive approach.
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so for example, as dave already covered president bush named tom ridge to become director director of homeland who not long after the attacks of 9/11. because he was initially housed in the executive office of the presidency and ridge was on the official responsible to the president. that created a firestorm when a controversy erupted over whether or not ridge had to testify before congress. that controversy was never satisfactorily settled and eventually they negotiated a private conversation with key members of congress that wasn't on the record and therefore i guess didn't intrude upon the bush administration's claims of executive prerogative. the other to czars we'll talk about, however, examples of defensive czar politics the
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national czar came out of the 9/11 commission released its report in july 2004 and it was the institution or the vistage was great by an act of congress. bush administration initially opposed this creation although it was in large part supported by the findings of the 9/11 commission but despite its opposition did implement the decision in a way that was generally consistent with the preferences of congress. the president signed a law that created the position and among other things into law in december 2004. in 2005 john negroponte who had served as ambassador to the united nations into iraq was announced as a patient's first intelligence bush transit. he was a high profile choice and received a lot of kudos when he was selected but it's also worth noting was an individual who came to the position without
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prior expense in the intelligence field. the war czar was also the result of external pressure chaired by james baker lee hamilton bipartisan blue-ribbon iraq study group issued a report in 2006. that included suggesting the creation of a high level position charged with coordinating actions between the department of defense department of state and all the other various agencies that were involved in the ongoing war efforts at that time. the white house was pretty enthusiastic about their suggestion to add on what they viewed as another level of bureaucracy even though they knew the growing perception at least was that both wars were going quite badly by that point. unsurprisingly given the administrations lack of enthusiasm about this position, when they turn to staffing, they have trouble attracting top shelf talent.
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many of the people they wanted to have in this position realized that it would be a toothless role and he didn't want, they did not relish the idea of competing against vice president cheney and other important administrative elites over war and foreign policy politics. in fact the bush administration was rebuffed several times when they attempted to fill his slot mainly by well-known retired generals. and eventually the administration satisfies and settled on lieutenant general douglas lute who took the position in 2007 and held for several years, including into the obama administration. between these three cases we see a range of causes underlying why the positions were actually created. all three, 2003 having come was there response to simultaneous political and policy crises.
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but one was a unilateral presidential action integration of the homeland security and the selection of tom ridge. another was the result of congressional action was the creation of the intelligence czar's position that john negroponte took, and then a third was acquitted by the administration but unenthusiastically so. that was the creation of the war czar position that douglas loot filled. so in that sense the post-9/11 bush administration experience with the czars track so we know about the broader history of the czars in the white house. administrations just as often adopt czars under pressure from congress and the public as they did in a unilateral attempt to push their own agenda. in other words, president uses czars just as often at the request or even assistance of other branches as they do of their own volition. this is important for a couple of reasons. one, the controversy surrounding
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czars portrays the czars as unilateral tools by which presidents can subvert the constitution and rude to achieving their nefarious goals. number two, it's important because the success of czars oftentimes depends on the source of their position of the administration's interest integration of a particular czar is a major factor. is not the only factor but it's an important factor involved when it comes to determining how successful veterans are -- a czar is going to be. enthusiasm matters that is not all that important. and infect every case of when the president opposed the creation of a czar but when forced, when the hand was forced, empower them. case up with the aforementioned george h. w. bush and the drug czar experience. osha campaign in 1980 against the idea of creating a drug czar but when the law was passed when president reagan signed it, thus
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requiring that the winner of the 1980 election would have a drug czar in 1989 he did a 180-degree turn and said if we're going at this position let's make the most of it. it became a high level emphasis of the early years compromise tenures of the bush administration. conversely bill clinton campaigned in favor of creating a czar to oversee the nation's response to the aids epidemic in 1992. but then once he became president did virtually nothing to empower any of the individuals that help the position over the next eight years. whether not a president is on board initially with the idea of creating a czar is a good indicator of how successful a czar will be but not a perfect indicator. in our book we learned that any given czar his ability to lead
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is highly conditional and it depends on a range of factors which include of course whether or not the position is a result of presidential offensive or defensive action, but also their expertise, managerial experience experience. if you're a there are pioneer in the position of simply replacing a previous czar. extent to which that relationship with the president and as dave pointed out with respect to their project the individual czars proximity to the president. begin at the expense of a george w. bush's national security czars or post-9/11 czars have some center nose but different expenses with respect to these factors. let's quickly discussed each in turn. tom ridge has been no served as bush's homeland security czar for about a year and then became secretary of the department of homeland security in november 2002 and served in that capacity for two years. despite the garfunkel over
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congressional testimony and a much lampooned proposed alert system, notwithstanding, reaches tenuous india to station pretty well regarded he had an important voice come if not the most important voice at the level of other central figures and he was responsible for giving shape to the department and helping develop a national screw strategy that was released in 2002. ridge didn't possess any substantive extent any of homeland security but it did bring with him significant managerial experience for his time as governor of pennsylvania along with pioneering nature of this opportunity that he was given as a nation's first lead official in homeland security and combined with president bush's commitment to the issue enabled him to become a comparatively successful soar. ambassador negroponte's stint have a lot in common with tom ridge prolific ration of his position was a congressional initiative of he was a well
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known and valued member of the bush team. he again did not possess substantive experience in the area in which he was assigned intelligence arena but he did have significant managerial and diplomatic credentials. ended the political terrain inside and outside the white house when. his relationship with and ability to personally brief the president enhance his prospects for success. overtime is institutional perch was eroded and various other leaders in the initiation successfully waged turf battle allowing them to get beyond the purview of this position. eventually he would lose important conflicts with the department of defense cia the fbi, and ultimately would lead the director of national intelligence position and move to a different position, the department of state. and all he was successful substantively but politically we can say he was not successful. his office perform even as it
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lost power gradually the city to other key agencies and individuals within the administration. this would continue after he left with subsequent czars having decreasing amounts of power. finally douglas lute was arguably the least successful of the three national security czars of the bush administration. he was no one's first choice for position at the white house wasn't all that excited about creating in the first place. as such he came into the initiation facing an uphill battle. his first son was in the job or not message is not worthy and it wasn't until the last several months of the bush administration that president bush took advantage of his presence. he ordered lute jupiter an exhaustive quote soup to nuts strategy review of what was going on in afghanistan. the report was a major effort but it wasn't presented to the bush administration the national security council until
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november 26 2008. so he was three weeks after barack obama had defeated john mccain and less than two months before the bushes would move back to texas. the report was well received but went nowhere. lute would end up staying on in this position under the obama administration but also in a situation where he was relatively powerless. he stayed in the war czar capacity until 2013 when he became permanent representative to nato which is a position held steady. we can't consider him a successful czar because he didn't do much to counteract the problem that motivated the creation of his position in the first place. he can't credibly be blamed for his lack of success right? the administration's lack of enthusiasm along with his lack of political capital and nonexistent relationship with the president insured his marginalization. so to summarize, analyzing george w. bush's national security czars provides an
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interesting and useful lens through which we can do the evolution of the administrative dimension of the war on terror itself. bush's post-9/11 czars each express different levels of support and success but taken together they provide a reasonable approximation of the experience of presidential czars in general. as we've seen over the past half century. the stereotype of these are is an unconstitutionally empowered super bureaucrat who operates with the president undivided and unlimited support. the reality is the experiences of rage, negroponte and lute shall as far more complex and far less threatening. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. we have two really interesting papers by some that have -- best expert and then we move on to a great discussion as well. our first discussant will be dane egli. thank you.
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i want to get onto the committee as quickly as possible but as long as we're doing shameless advertising muppet encourage you to go on amazon and get my book beyond stores which talks about this issue in the context of the current historic inconsequential events in the war on terror, homeland security and the need for resilience your the enemy is persistent patient, and among us. of this idea pushing our borders further and further out and trying to avoid that which is inevitable is what we are facing now. this generation here, the students are going to have to be prepared whether it's a czar who lacks the budget complex authority and jurisdiction or it's a structure that is uncertain. we're going to need you to be versatile adaptive and critical thinkers. so i'm really encouraged to see this younger group, and for hofstra to host of this. looking at the papers, gee, i
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really like this one. as one of the co-authors i must say but it really appreciate the czar. the analysis of ambassador negroponte's position i think if he were here, he might have some reactions to what you said. i listened to some things and having been there when we stood up the odni, very interesting. i think everything we hear and read and listen to right now needs to be taken in the strategic context of post-9/11 and fight with the war on terror and now this conflict that continues with the current version of al-qaeda isis and other threats, that there's a timeline in history. these are historic times where we are try to get a handle on things and we learn as we go. so i think the other factor i would take from these papers is personalities matter to individuals again trust and have a habitual relationship with some of these leaders all of a sudden find themselves thrust into an opportunity to lead and
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opportunity when governor ridge is sitting in harrisburg, pennsylvania, and a certain, not from the coast guard shows up and that he can talk about what would if you could department of homeland security even look like, those conversations i would argue started in forums like this among classrooms at them on your experience. so my encouragement from the papers and from the experience with these individuals is go out and get operations experience and learn something that you can integrate your academic experience with so that you will be the ones they come to to set up the next the future departments, the future is ours. you will be the ones we look to to sort out these difficult problems. this is not a stagnant discussion frozen in time but rather an ongoing context. when i worked for dr. rice and stephen hadley in a national security council i was there about three months and i was asked if i wanted to shift to position an element of security council. so i did a little poking around,
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looked as one of the new guys on the staff of about 100 a senior officer from each branch of military. i quickly came to the conclusion i wanted to about into something like a national security council. when you look at the construct the enterprise that was about to be formed really was designed to be integrated into the national security. if you read richard book from the council of our relationship rights all national security, all force projection for all international influence begins at home. national security and homeland security the lines were. we stood up the north commit out in colorado springs. we don't enforce our combatant commands begot homeland defense and homeland they could. it's difficult. because this issue of national security is a broad enterprise designed in 1947 by the national security act but the fact is when you start looking at the threats, opportunities and the moving parts, the former threats in sri lanka over jakarta i once
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because of globalization and the issues of the day are really and homeland as well. we have to look at how do we get structures that best suit that. so again and there will be future changes to the u.s. government structures whether we stand up to czars or whatever we call them. the nomenclature may change but will have to have versatile adaptive nonlinear leaders who are able to think on their feet and bring your experience your approach, your personality to get solutions to quantify and help leaders make better decisions at gravitas and reputation will only get you so far as a czar that you would eventually have to put together a team and ensure the viability nonredundant unique contribution that that agency or organization uniform is can shooting to the u.s. government. leaders like dr. rice leaders
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like fran townsend the first homeland security adviser leaders like steve chabot will ensure that you and your organization will find a place if you are contributing and a way to the current issues du jour, the threats does you were. the last comment i would make all these are stimulated as i listen to both papers here be circumspect the critical be thoughtful as you read papers like this because we did our best to chronicle what's happened. but the fact is we look back and we see gaps. in the obama administration presidential policy directive number eight on prepared is presidential policy directive number 21 and executive orders deal with prepared to stand away that would kind of address some of these concerns. is concerned as we focus we have a fixation in a post 9/11 world on counterterrorism,
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security to the exclusion of these rising emerging persistent natural disasters. and so that context of a lot of the work including mike is resilient. you have to have a habitual ongoing posture and readiness for that which is inevitable. and initial as in many other countries if we shut down the economy come if we are not prepared to flex in this direction homeland security whether it's a czar or any other structure, we have to be adaptive, scalable applicable to that which is inevitable from natural disaster, man-made disaster for any disruptive event including extreme weather. resilience doesn't care what the disastrous. it will make us better the matter what it is. the solutions just like the example of homeland security council, the example of czars they are attempts by leaders to face vexing problems with creative solutions. that's where i draw encouragement from come from the young audience the students
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better counter and the creative minds across the group. we've got to figure this out and why not someone who still inside of the beltway down there, we need your help. we need conferences like this we need papers help us think through this issue. thank you. [applause] >> let's move onto professor knott. >> thank you professor brittain, fellow panelist for some great presentation. i'm going to be very quick as well because of want to get to the audience questions. and i'm looking at an organization like the department of homeland security very much from the outside. i would be interested in all of your responses to what i'm about to say, i can take this and somebody very much from the outside. president bush was initially against this legislation before he was for it. and i've often wondered the
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extent to which the electoral or political pressure issues possible for the switch. i believe that occurred in 2000 come if i'm not mistaken which is the author, an important off year elections or by pressure looking at dhs, i wish president bush by the would have stuck with his initial opposition. it seems to me there was some tinkering that need to be done but not this sort of wholesale massive merging of 22 existing agencies into one. and done relatively hastily. as was pointed out by one of our speakers. looking at it from the outside it looks to me like what you just did the effects of the, spent a great more bureaucracy, more red tape more layers arguably less presidential discretion to do the fact that there's more congressional oversight involved, more testimony. i know if congressman gingrey are that has been a big complaint of his. this is just a constant calling
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a dhs official up to the hill, in endless fashion. so did looking at from the outside, it seems to me you could make the case the department of homeland security is exhibit a of a federal government that is simply too big, too cumbersome, and in an arena involving security. that strikes me as something we should all be concerned about. in other words is a dhs to important to fail? and it seems to me the track record over the past 10 or 12 years has not been an encouraging one. and if you look at the damage done to fema and argue believe the damage done to the secret service, there's been a real cost to some of these agencies in terms of losing their autonomy. i just want to be this sort of a naysayer and ask you guys all to respond to this notion that
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what happened in this significant piece of legislation was not necessarily good for the security interest of the united states. thank you. [applause] >> no need. >> just a slight correction on the timeline. after 9/11 as we talk about in the paper, bush administration was definitely against a large-scale reorganization in terms of creating the department of homeland security but something changed with the beginning of 2002. bush himself decides to rethink his position against it and i believe it was around april 2002 that secret negotiations take place within the administration. read peter baker's book because has to nice description of the secret negotiations with tom ridge as part of a small group,
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gonzalez, the white house counsel, alberto gonzales andy card and their immediate deputies are implemented i think the director was part of it. they meet in the room in the white house in the presidential emergency operations center. and i believe it's about three to four weeks of considering leaving and the peoc is essentially the white house overbuilt during fdr's a time when they were concerned there was no bunker to protect the president a bit of a surprise attack. in fact, peoc, the peoc room is the one that became famous on 9/11, the one where dick cheney was initially listed by secret service and carry down the hall into the room which is underneath the driveway near the east wing. so these negotiations take place for a few weeks and then they unveiled a plan which was a
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complete surprise to just about everybody in the administration. took everybody off guard members of congress did not come even the highest level people in the white house did not except for the people immediately involve. i would agree that dhs has had some series of missteps. we talked about hurricane katrina. i think putting fema into dhs and downgrading the fema director's position from want of being a cabinet level position in which it was during the clinton administration to where it became dhs was a great mistake to something that predated dhs when the bush administration came in and he put his former chief of staff when he was governor of texas in asp fema director. they became a process of downgrading that agency and that position. that kind of brings me to
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something that was mentioned only which i believe you said personalities matter. and i think that is something that is often overlooked, special in social science the many social science would say people don't matter. organizations matter. the individuals who don't and i think that's a terrible mistake incredibly shortsighted and really not very sophisticated and not realistic. ..
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the story of how this 180-degree change happened in secret. i think it was motivated out of a couple of things that i agree
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with your assessment of the consequences of that change. one was as the paper indicated that there was a lack of comfort with how well they were able to proceed with the limits on authority and spending that ridge and these otherwise kind of un-institutionalized individual able to. and they saw so they're going to need congressional support to do anything bigger and more effective. they saw the option coming down the road at them, which is joe lieberman's plan. so i think they just didn't want to do a better job and if you want congressional participation participation, which is what we would need to do a better job, our choice will be joe lieberman's proposal. or we can get together and
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quietly come up with our own. that's what they did. i think it was motivated by politics but also policy desires. and then unfortunately by making that massive reform and creating this unwieldy organization that lost the sense of mission end up undermining the very purpose of the initial development itself. >> i see the lack of morale. i see the quote-unquote damage. i see the challenges. i will take a little contrary and you may be self-serving because i help stand up dhs. i am a career coast guard. leadership matters. leadership matters. it's not necessary the structure of the workstation although that certainly has some hurdles, some difficulty but if it secretary chertoff showed us there some high points, the revolving door of people coming and going from the dhs is a symptom of a
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problem, it's not the problem. i think if you look at craig fugate, the current administrator for fema you with a there are some very good things that happen. so notwithstanding the challenges that i think are well articulated, be careful. i think with some of the leadership we have and with some of the things coming in this new generation i have four kids the oldest one is an air force pilot the bible the right now the war is not over. with some really sharp people coming up through the ranks. with some experience we've learned from making mistakes and we have some experience we bring to the forefront. my secret service friends i came out back friends come a long ago a measure that would say they were damaged so much when abroad the 20th agency friends together. it was a challenge. no question about it. but look that's why we do things like this and say it's going to take courage it's going to take uncommon leadership. my father is a world war ii
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marine. their generation was faced with some nasty problems. they made a lot of mistakes but that generation is called the greatest generation for a reason to not to get to pay chart but i think i'm encouraged by see this current generation, young people looking at this with an eye that i don't think we will need -- these departments are waiting for young people who are educated who have a degree can come out and say we are not so willing to believe all, drink all the kool-aid that is out there. >> i've got a quick question to defend but he wants to respond to. if you think about what's happened with homeland security, it really was a change in the government structure. it was agency level changes. the only thing slower to move than the federal government bureaucracies university bureaucracy. we are awfully without around you. i wondered if it served as the model for this issue that dane
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egli spoke about that we need to be more adaptive and scalable. if you consider issues of energy wherever department of energy but with issues of energy that relates to security issues that relate to the military to the largest issue. i wonder if you think that serves as a model for radical change in the organization of the executive branch? >> academic? >> no, executive branch of government come if you think the reorganization of homeland security serves as a model for other agencies. >> i think there's some lessons can be learned on both sides, positive and negative. i think what is emerging is a unique approach which is public private academic partnerships. the money is not there. no matter how much we put out
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policy, proliferation of doctrinal guidance, papers and so forth, the needs of our nation are dwarfed. our budgets are dwarfed we can no longer throw large amounts of federal dollars at so what you're left with? how do we incentivize the venture capitalist private investors and private sector who by the way own and operate the majority of our national infrastructure. then academia i think represents a non-conflicted independent review honest broker who can look at it without the agenda in the tugs and polls of some of the political. the refreshing thing to do what i look at these papers whether i agree or disagree with the content is interestingly the kind of thinking solutions and ideas. i think there are some lessons. >> i also think that secretly negotiating the biggest transformation in our government since world war ii over a period of just a few weeks in a basement in the white house is probably not the model going
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forward for creating a brand-new entity. i think was just a unique time. i think part of it was political, as justin said but also i think part of it was the administration also did not, they wanted it to be there blueprint. by doing it in secret and shutting basic the whole world out they could make sure whatever got submitted to congress was exactly what they had in mind as opposed to having congress and other interest groups muddy the waters waters. >> all right. thank you. let's move onto questions in the audience. i would like to start with questions from hofstra students. it is the question from our student body, we will start with you. >> we can talk about the college basketball tournament if you want. >> we will take the question right here.
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wait one second. microphone. >> discuss world war ii being the greatest generation and what we really need now is another greatest generation. yet millennials, only 5% voted. in the last election. how do we get this reversed? >> since, i will take the first shot. i am the optimist. you know, i can't address the percentage who voted but what i can address is what i see by those residents i look at the individuals, the interns i have my own for teenagers. i have for most of my family who are serving on active duty right now. what is an air force pilot, just came back over the region flying over isis. another is army another marine come another air force special forces. is a young kid who grew up playing computer games and the rest of us scoffed and laughed at the. they are leaving us in the dust.
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that generation is patriotic, motivated incredibly ready to tackle the threat and answer the call to duty. so i think in some ways the voting will take care of itself. i went to a season in my life for i wasn't as responsible as i should have been. all of a sudden something happened in my late 20s early '30s when i got married and had kids. i think our generation is in better shape than a lot of times we read about. so that's just my perspective that there's some positive i look at this conference and the young men is escorted me down there in the white guy. i think our country is in pretty good has. i had young men and women working for me on coast guard cutters for 30. i learned a lot from the. i've no doubt and ugly don't to this young man who was escorting around, he gave me a few suggestions and i think has served me well just in the short time i've known him.
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>> i think the statistics bear out what is anecdotal experiences suggest. so we know that millennials like many cohorts are not voting at the levels of older cohorts opie also know it's an extraordinarily engaged generation. they participate in civic life in a variety of ways far greater rates than any of the predecessor generations. they volunteer more. they get involved in protests. they travel and help refugees in response to a flood and hurricane in new orleans and so on and so on and so when. there's no shortage of academic work. looking at the differences in how this particular generation
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approaches the idea of being a good citizen in a different way than their parents or grandparents or great grandparents. there's a manifest and voted for right reasons, most notably echoing distrust of major institutions in public life but it manifests in lots of other ways. >> the point i think to some extent, counterpoint, i appreciate dane's enthusiasm and optimism but i think the polls indicate millennials in many ways are disaffected by government and they sent a message government doesn't work and is bad and they see the dysfunction in congress and it is a very dysfunctional system. the worst it's been in many generations. i think that's part of the problem is there's this mixed message. i wish there were more messages like dane's that government can be a good thing but antigovernment trend in the united states and the fact also the u.s. government is pulling out of funding of our public
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infrastructure. i think it is led millennials they feel as though their votes don't count. recent political scientist i think of also demonstrated in many ways the system is evolving toward oligarchy. the rule of the rich has become increasingly obvious and business document all empirically, and a impossible something that's part of the problem and i would say to go back to dane sport portable we need to do is to reassure millennials that their votes will count and that being part of god is going to be a useful thing because i think we strayed away from that considerably. >> do you think that -- sorry. we'll come back. what we seem to have come from the panel is a description of a dilemma. homeland security, on the one
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hand it seems be basically two ways you you can do we have to do something in a policy area that is too fragmented. one, find a a czar give that czar is tough try to get that czar will everything together. didn't work out that will because a czar did not enough power, enough budget to ultimately something more was deemed to be needed. something more turns out to be an abomination of whole lot of diverse agencies which create bureaucratic nightmares. i think stephen knott got it right. the department of homeland security has not been highly successful and is not a model. okay the optimist now. what else could we do? or have done. is there a third model? is there some other approach that somehow transcends the limitations of both of these? >> it's a great glass half-full
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for the panelist. i think dhs is an extreme bad example. the example i kind of like to talk about what i am defending czars is the creation of the department of energy. ..
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because i believe the next person who would have had that position would have been secretary schlesinger the first secretary of the department of energy. and so it takes time to do that negotiation. and, to work out what needs to be done. it is probably not eight months or whatever it was that would have been the case if you know or was the case with going from tom ridge's homeland security czar to department of, to the secretary of the department of homeland security. so i think that the better evolution of this can happen right? this one was a really fast and not well-thought out one. >> let's go to the next question here. try to get the questions in. >> do you think that the government would profit by helping graduates from school
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now, that have very high loans to encourage them to come through the government with some kind of a program to help them pay their loans off or forgive them? >> yeah, i think so. since i still have, you know lots and lots of loans to pay back. >> in the back there with a question? yes. >> -- hear and have heard that security is intrusive to the american public and a threat to the individual and yet when we compare i would say presidential powers over time from like lincoln to wilson to roosevelt and others, it doesn't seem like it is particularly intrusive in our current era. i wonder what the panelists
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think about general idea of having a national security apparatus is a threat to american individual with historical perspective positive or negative on security that threatens individual liberty. >> i would like to jump in on this. first of all you make a great point that there are ample historical examples of presidents engaging in what we would, the american civil liberties union would call sort of intrusive violations of privacy and so forth. so there is a very long history of that activity. in fact, george washington was an advocate of mail opening. i don't know what he would think of today's national security agency but he had no problem instructing his agents during the american revolution to open up the mail of suspected tories or americans who were suspect for some reason. in fact not only did he favor male opening, he actually provided instructions how to do
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it without being detected. but anyways -- so you go on from there and certainly lincoln woodrow wilson, franklin roosevelt, harry truman and so forth, all of these guys had a security apparatus that was extremely intrusive. i thank you for raising that question because i think we lose sight of that. now that doesn't necessarily make it right and we certainly had pieces of legislation enacted in the post-watergate years that have sort of changed the way we think about these kinds of things. but the historical roots of this kind of activity are very, very drop and i often think there is kind of a double-standard applied particularly to this presidency, to the bush presidency than there were to some of these early progressive presidents. >> i would like to temper the perspective a little bit i think by saying that the revolutionary war and the civil war were
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uniquely, unique crises situations in many ways. i think one of the biggest problems we have today that if we are to assume this a time of war and therefore the gloves should be off and you know that the protection of civil liberties lax, the war metaphor essentially means we will always be at war. this is where we get into dwight d eisenhower's ad mow mission we need to fear the military industrial complex of the extension of that we need to fear the homeland security industrial complex in many ways. we become too. of a war country and that anything goes in the interests of that and the big difference between washington opening mail and lincoln suspending habeas corpus, et cetera, that the technology now is capable of complete surveilance of the entire population and i think the founding people would argue that that is a bad thing for our
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first amendment civil liberties and so, while certainly there is, there is a certain amount of importance toking able to do surveillance especially based on probable cause i think it, the system as it is currently stands is set up such that if we get somebody who is not well intended or democratically aligned they will have the ability to create a security state authoritarian security state beyond human history at this stage. that is the biggest problem. it is not the well intentioned people who might use the structure as it stands and structure is set up imminently well for virtually having universal surveillance of americans. >> when security, when the american public feels vulnerable or unsafe we naturally are willing to accept, as that security comes up we're willing to sacrifice some of our economic activity and some of our civil liberties. what we need to do in my opinion is increase security, maintain
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civil liberties, maintain our economy by having resilient society. now, this may not be well-publicized and not well-understood but the snowden accusation of us gathering information stockpiling it and having it there where fisa court would essentially have to issue a search warrant later was tested 32 times in the court of law with federal court and found to be legitimate, okay. it was consistent with what the charters were and so forth. in post-9/11 world patriot act, other things, the american public via the congress was okay in certain degradation of civil liberties and economic impact of that. my point is to be very good critical thinkers. general alexander was at the nsa for eight years. if you go hear him speak he will defend as a great four-star general and american patriot we were compiling the information, securing it.
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if at a later date we felt had reason to go after it, we would go get a fisa court search warrant and be able to get that and argue that case in a rule of law civil society. a lot of the american public has not been given that true story. so i think some of this, no question there are vulnerabilities and we've got to be cautious but by the same tone there is continuum up here where the american public is not willing to have, sleep they want to sleep at night under the blanket of freedom and security simultaneously. so we've got to be able to do that because we are going to face more war fighting in the homeland of the radicalized individual does not need to go to afghanistan to be trained and radicalized. they can do it via the internet. we have virtual jihad. we have a country vulnerable. we need to acknowledge that. so what do we do? maintain security, maintain civil liberties and main economy. when we shut down the economy or
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shut down civil liberties the enemy wins. i think there is a way to do all three simultaneously. that is the next conference and next paper we should write. >> another question there. wait for the microphone please. >> [inaudible] sorry. i'm older than all of you and i remember all the witch hunts going on, house un-american activities rand so forth. so i think there is a sort of a double-edged sword here. the, the brother who went to chechnya came back. was on the fbi questioning or surveillance and so forth. then they said, by law, we can no longer follow him. in the old days, they would have said to the state police and the local sheriff or whatever it is hey this looks like a bad guy. we can't follow him. you got to follow him. and we might have been able to
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avoid the boston massacre just now. i'm just saying we do have to find some sort of a new balance somewhere and i don't know what that is. but i'm just raising that point for you. >> like to respond to that? >> well, i would agree. i think, in response to my fellow panelists here, i actually think that it is absolutely true that technology has expanded on a scale that would floor george washington if he were to come back today but i also think that at least since the 1970s a number of checks have been put in place. the courts are far more heavily involved in these kinds of surveillance decisions than they ever were prior to the nixon-ford presidency. so to some extent i guess i would make the argument that the system has responded. it is not full-proof for sure but there are far more checks in place than used to exist back in
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the so-called good ol' days. >> i think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. the fisa court has been pretty much shown to be rubberstamp. >> but the requests are legitimate. >> many of them have been shown to not have much probable cause behind them. i think -- >> we don't know that. >> we do actually. there have been some good studies on that, some of these have been based on flimsiest of evidence. i'm just saying that i would just say that the i think the checks and balances have eroded significantly at this point and it just simply awaits somebody who has ill intention to use it for political purposes down the line even if it current and recent administrations are not. that is the big issue. i think that is the essentially what the founding fathers were particularly concerned about in this issue. >> i think you would be hard-pressed they would be eroded because you did have presidents who used the fbi entirely for political purposes. >> right. >> in the '70s. >> sure. >> there is a track record
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there. i actually think there are more checks in place today than there were pre-richard nixon and pre-gerald ford. may not work out to your satisfaction. >> it was secret for a@reason but, so now anyway. >> we have a question there. >> hi. i have a question about, you were previously discussing efficacy of dhs and and you spoke more about red tape and how that affects it and leadership. i was wondering if you could talk about the sharing of information between agency and how that has changed? >> thank you. >> we had a hard time hearing that. could you repeat it? we're trying to hear it. >> you spoke to, efficacy in the department of homeland security in terms of red tape and
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leadership. could you speak to, speak to the efficacy of sharing of information between the different, the 22 different agencies before and after if that has changed? >> i think there were some really healthy things that occurred amidst the dysfunctionality some very healthy things occurred when we integrated two of the 22 were left alone not touched, u.s. secret service u.s. coast guard. 20 were integrated and brought together. in the process there was some painful integration and i think a lot of bureaucrats were unhappy but i think there were also some good things. to those who would criticize the dhs, i would simply say i watched a lot of really, smart, dedicated people, highly educated by the way, wrestle with this beyond just secret meeting in a basement. if you have got a better idea not only would i like to hear it i think the obama administration would like to hear it because they have two
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years left and they're knot not afraid to be doing some things if. you have a better idea i heard alluded to, bring it up. after duke lost to wisconsin, did i say that? sorry. we're really good at that. but, as one who has kind of the dirt under his fingernails and battle scars to show for it, i'm down there now, bring it. tell me what you would do faced with the trauma, and crisis and the fear that has swept this country. something was going to happen whether we agree with it 10, 12 years later or write nice papers about it, which i just did. so i can say that. but, i got to tell you something was going to happen. what is that something? if you have a bert idea, come serve, send us your resume'. come down let's get the creative ideas. we can't be locked into this notion that dhs was evil, morale is so low therefore it was bad.
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there are some very good things happening amidst that. i would say, look, the enterprise called dhs, admiral allen went down to certain event called katrina. went out to the oil spill in the gulf. we saw very dynamic leadership where he pulled groups together where he didn't have authority. dhs was very struggling. all of sudden some good things happened. i'm not blindly waving my hand, wow, dhs was the only option. have you been on the committees we were looking for better ideas. that was kind of the lesser of two -- one last point. it's a young organization. it's a young agency. it took us 25 years to key west figured out on the drug transit zone issue in a joint military inneragency multinational variety. dhs will take a long time to become functional. >> let me use this to piggyback's off of chuck's question. maybe more scaled down version of dhs might

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