microsoft's washington d.c. offices to talk about microsoft's lobbying efforts and about what's going on at microsoft's research labs. >> host: and now joining us on "the communicators" is fred humphries who serves as vice president for u.s. government affairs for the microsoft corporation. mr. humphries, what does that mean? what do you do for a living? >> i am microsoft's chief advocate. i'm one of -- i'm microsoft's ambassador. ambassador to capitol hill, to the administration, lead a wonderful team of government professionals that do advocacy, public policy issues that range from privacy security, surveillance trade, tax a whole host of issues and one that's real important education. so we do the advocacy for the company. >> host: you don't come from a tech background. >> guest: no. i worked on capitol hill. i worked for u.s. representative dick gephardt when he was minority leader or the democratic leader i also worked

for governor mcquarter of tennessee for seven years. i hail from nashville, tennessee. had the opportunity to work with and meet a person named al gore which when he was on the ticket with president bill clinton that's how i ended up coming up to washington to work at the democratic national committee years, it seems like years ago. >> host: so, mr. humphries, when it comes to microsoft right now what are one or two of the big issues that you advocate for as you say on capitol hill? >> guest: i would say, first, that one issue is privacy and security. but i'd start off with something that just took place about a week and a half ago, the passage of the usa freedom act. one that was a significant step in the right direction as yet to take on transparency in bulk collection and issues like that. but i would say on the privacy side those are real important issues.

and another one i would say would be education. science, technology, engineering and math, you know? you're here right now peter at microsoft's tech fair. and we have 12 different displays, and we have a lot of innovation going on. but in order to have that innovation we need computer scientists, and we need scientists and ec nears -- engineers. we have a thousand scientists and engineers at microsoft. we need more because, you know, there are jobs out there. by 2018 there are 1.2 million jobs, but you know what you're going to have to have? a background in s.t.e.m.. so education is core. it's a pillar, it's at the foundation of what we need to be able to have so many innovative companies like microsoft and many others who are leaders when it comes to information technology. >> host: and that ties into the immigration issue too, doesn't it? >> guest: oh absolutely. i'm hopeful, i have a glass -- i take a glass half full approach. i'm hopeful at some point congress will take on high-skilled immigration because, you know, h-1b is still

very, very important. and, you know, frankly, i don't know the exact number, but when we have some of the innovators that are here the researchers that are here, you know, we have people from all over the world that make contributions at microsoft for our scientists and engineers. and it's for other companies as well. there's still a need when you look at it from a job perspective. >> host: so let's go back, mr. humphries, to the usa freedom act that you mentioned. why do you say that's a step in the right direction? >> guest: i say a step in the right direction, you know frankly, as a result of some of the post-snowden activities there's been a lot of concern of things that troubled folks that many people, we didn't know. so to be able to think about how the government is collecting data, it's important that it's done right, it's transparent and there's, you know, rules of the road and due process and things of that nature. so what has happened with the usa freedom act is the end when

it comes to section 215 and the bulk collection and the collection of the metadata, is very important. and i think there's greater transparency. i think that's a step in the right direction. when i think about other issues when it comes to surveil is lance or privacy -- surveillance or privacy i think of one bill we're commit interested -- we're quite interested in is called leads, dealing with law enforcement access to data. and congressman moreno and dale benny on the house side have advanced the similar type of bill, so how does the government collect information and what rights do we have. and one of the things that takes place with the leads act, it helps to develop a rule of the road when it comes to collection of information when it comes to data. and when you request a warrant and when the data may be overseas and what's the process to be able to get that data particularly when you have cloud computing. and there's data that could be in a data center that's in

ireland, for example and the individual may be domiciled in ireland. so what's the process? just because you might be able to download anytime the u.s. what's the process to be able to access that data? what's the due process and the process on that? >> host: and that kind of leads into the encryption issue which you -- >> guest: absolutely. you know, so it's interesting one of the things that i think that took place -- what was really great to see was all the tech company come together on the usa freedom act. it wasn't just microsoft, it was apple, it was yahoo!, it was linkedin, it was twitter and you know, all having the same views and all advocating tomorrow, civil liberties groups and many others in advocating for the usa freedom act and, you know the work of chairman goodlatte and senator hatch and senator lee was i think outstanding. and, of course, the president signed it and was supportive of the usa freedom act.

and so what i think you see on encryption is i think you see the same folks saying hey, you know, we need to have strong encryption laws and not weaken them. the fcc, you know, everybody's sensitive to national security needs and issues, but one of the things you've got to have with encryption, you've got to have trust. and if that helps to enhance trust, i think that's a good thing. >> host: how often do you work with the other big five big six tech companies the amazons, the googles, etc. >> guest: we work on the public policy issues on many issues. you know, there are some things that we seriously compete on on the business side, but when it come toss the public policy side, i would say one of the best practices has been the usa freedom act and you know what? it's good when we all work together. i think another one that there's similar support on is when it comes to the trade. right today there's, you know, a mark-up on the house side the innovation act one that's real important when it comes to litigation reform on the patent

piece, then in the next couple days, i think actually maybe tomorrow, they'll be looking at tpa and taa and customs as well on the trade side issues that are very important to technology companies because we're all multi-national companies that are doing business all over the world and making sure that there's trade agreements that address i.t. and the respect for i.t. and making sure that there's rule of law to be able to do business is so, so important. and so those are some of the issues where we're working together and there's common interest. i tend to find that when it comes to public policy issues there really are not any major differences when it comes to this. every once in a whale there's a couple nuances, but the truth of the matter is we work a lot together. not just with the big companies. it's important to know that we work with many others because it's important to work with the start-ups. you've not to look at the tech ecosystem, and you want to foster and nurture and make sure

start-ups are doing well. i think of it like one of our main goals is, like, freedom to innovate. make sure, right that there are no barriers to be able to continue to innovate. and is we're fortunate here in the u.s. where there's a lot of innovation that's just exciting. so many technology companies are doing so many neat things. >> host: have you found does washington understand what y'all do out on the west coast? >> guest: actually, i do. i do. i think that, first of all washington's very interested. and i also think it's an issue that it's not a democrat issue it's not a republican issue it's, you know, both parties have a strong interest in technology. and i find, you know, for us at microsoft we find a receptive audience. and clearly, the administration as well. so all three, you know, at least two out of three branches of government, there's definitely been an interest. and one of our main goals it's what an advocate does, is to

spect to share and to do what we're doing to do with tech fair. have members of congress, staffers come up here, thought leaders, trade association leaders and organizations to come through here and look at the 12 different displays and to see the power of the cloud and power of data and, you know, visualization of the data and then, you know, predictive analytics, and, you know, we have some really neat, you know, skype translater, many other different neat projects that i think, peter, you're going to have an opportunity to see that you know, make a difference in people's lives, in society. so yeah. >> host: how big is the microsoft operation, and have you increased it here in washington? has it, have you found a need to have a -- >> guest: we have always had what i'd say a respectable size office. i have a decent presence here in d.c. and particularly in greater

washington. our government affairs office is here in d.c. but we also have a public sector office, a microsoft center out in restin, virginia, and then we have another office in chevy chase maryland. as well. actually, it's right there on border, the line. [laughter] >> host: you mentioned patent reform mr. humphries. what would you like to see done with patent reform in the congress? >> guest: i think that one of the real important things is the litigation reform that will take place, because i think that could be a big deterrence as far as those looking to bring the patent trolls doing things. i also think as well, you know venue is a very important aspect, and i think that those are just two, you know, two more specifics that come top of mind that are just really, really important as we look at patent reform. i think that the sausage making in the legislative process, you

know there's been some access that takes place at the senate that started and today with the innovation act with chairman goodlatte wanting to see how it comes out, i think modernizing the litigation reform and changing, you know, dealing with venn you issues -- venue issues, i think are two things that are very important. >> host: fred humphries microsoft vice president for u.s. government affairs. thank you for your time. >> guest: all right. thank you peter. >> host: and now on "the communicators," we want to introduce you to microsoft's jeanette wing. she is in changer of microsoft research. >> guest: i'm in charge of the core research labs for microsoft research. >> host: and what does that mean? what do you do? >> guest: well, we have -- the labs do what we call open, basic research. by open i mean that we publish openly, we go to conferences we're very open with what we do

in our research. so the public knows what we do. by basic research i mean we do foundational research, research that is bold, envisioned and long term in ambition. and hopefully, that will lead to new innovations and lead to new products and services. >> host: well, can you give us an example of both, the open research and the basic research? maybe a project on each -- >> guest: well, one of the projects that we're demoing in this particular tech fair is project premonition. and it is an example of a bold very ambitious and long-term research project. the application of project premonition is actually to collect mosquitoes that have bitten people and to determine what kind of viruses might be around what kind of diseases might be around through taking

the blood samples of the mosquitoes and figuring out the genetic code of some of the constituents of their blood. but that's just the application of, you know, collecting mosquitoes. the mosquitoes are going to be actually connected i through drones, and so these drones are flying around with mosquito traps, and they're going to collect the mosquitoes, and then we're going to use the cloud to figure out the genetic makeup of the blood. but, in fact there's some science behind all of this drone-carrying mosquito-collecting equipment. and the science is to make sure that what i call cyber physical systems and drones are just an example of cyber physical systems do no harm. so when drones are flying around in the air, you don't want drones to bump into people or

collide into buildings and die. so we want them to be safe. we want them to make sure that they do no harm to people. so we, the underlying science behind this particular project is actually to verify that these drones are safe and secure. so the application is pretty far out; collecting mosquitoes and figuring out what their blood really contains. but the underlying science of insuring that the drone cans that are carrying these mosquito traps do no harm is where the real challenge is. >> host: where does an idea like that germinate? [laughter] >> guest: that's the great part of microsoft research and any basic research organization. our general strategy is to hire great people and let them be creative let them think out of the box let them do great things.

and so in particular this one project i mentioned project premonition, is really the brain child of one of our researchers ethan jackson who really thought about the mosquito application knowing full well about drones and also the challenge of verification. and he put together a team of people within microsoft research but also with academic partners to come together and together over years to really carry forth this vision. so we have people who know about building mosquito traps all the way to people who know how to verify embedded systems in computers. >> host: now, according to your biography, you are an expert and advocate of something called computational thinking.

>> guest: so -- >> host: in english. [laughter] >> guest: in english computational thinking is really the use of concepts from computer science to solve problems to design systems and to understand human behavior. what that really means is it's a new way of tackling complex problems from the lens of a computer scientist. and why that is different and important is, first of all in mathematics we already, you know, have ways to solve problems. but in computers we can make those solutions come alive by actually executing the solution. so we can operationalize a lot of the abstraction. moreover, with the power of computing we can tackle problems to to a scale beyond what a human being can do. and so computational thinking is understanding how to harness the

power of computing to solve really complex problems. >> host: describe moth labs to us -- microsoft labs to us. is it one big building where everybody gathers at 9 a.m. in the morning? [laughter] >> guest: hardly. so microsoft labs actually stands for many laps -- many labs that we have worldwide. we have a lab in one building at the redmond campus, but we also have a lab in new york city, a lab in cambridge massachusetts, a lab in cambridge england, a lab in bangalore india and we also have a sister lab in beijing, china. and all of us do basic research in computer science and other disciplines. >> host: what are you most excited about that is currently in the pipeline and perhaps public? >> guest: i think one of the most exciting things that is happening now which you can

actually see in some of the demos today is how we are really tackling the big a.i. problem the ability for machines to actually solve problems that humans are good at solving. so is, for instance, humans are really good at vision. they can look at a picture and tell you immediately what are the objects in that picture. machines up until very recently had a hard time doing that, believe it or not. but we have been making some breakthroughs in machine learning in artificial intelligence, that are enabling machines to come close to performing as well as humans in some of these tasks. and we're going to see this in speach, in vision, in natural language processing, in all sorts of paths that -- tasks that humans are good at. and what we can do in computing is to put all of these things

together. and so by putting all of these things together, we call it integrative a.i.. then we can imagine having a single machine actually start mimicking the full capacity of human intelligence. >> host: jeanette wing, is moth's research integrated -- microsoft's research integrated into the company? are you a separate kind of a think tank? [laughter] >> guest: we are, of course, part of one microsoft. we are part of the company. we are an organization that is just part of many parts of microsoft, so you can think of us as a think tank of the company. >> host: what's your background? >> guest: i joined microsoft research only two and a half years ago. before that i was a professor at carnegie mellon university for over 27 years. i was department head there twice. i also served at the national

science foundation for three years and enjoyed that very much. >> host: what's the role of the national science foundation? how would you describe that? >> guest: the national science foundation is the foundation for the united states that funds basic research. and it is the primary source of funding for academic research. and so in the ecosystem of government, industry and academia the national science foundation plays incredibly important role for the academic research enterprise. not just in doing research but in producing the next generation scientists and engineers. >> host: carnegie mellon has really been in the news in the last several years about some of their technological breakthroughs, hasn't it? >> guest: carnegie mellon is one of the number one computer science departments in the country, in the world i would

say. and it continues to have technological innovation, especially in core computer science, in algorithms and distributed systems. it's also probably also very well known for its work in robotics and there were recent grant challenges that carnegie mellon has always come in number one or number two so it's also very well known for that. so carnegie mellon is especially strong in computer science and the latest disciplines. >> host: and we've been talking with jeanette wing who is vice president, corporate vice president for microsoft research. she got her bachelor's, master's and doctorate at mit. thank you, doctor. >> thank you. >> host: well, "the communicators" is at the the washington office for microsoft and we are visiting their tech fair. and mike sky sky sky -- sky

kousky is here. what do you do for microsoft? >> guest: i'm an engineering manager for microsoft research and we do applications of research technologies for proof of concepts and demonstration purposes and also doing things at scale to see how they scale out for application in different scenarios. >> host: and what does that mean practically? [laughter] >> guest: we like to explore difference ways technology can improve the world. >> host: and what's your background that you government to microsoft research? >> guest: varied. i classically trained aerospace engineer and did a lot of computer science projects in that space and simulation, realtime simulation accident investigation as well as prediction technologies which allowed me to then foray into microsoft and microsoft research through my engineering and software development experiences. >> host: okay. well, we're here at the tech fair and you've got a demonstration.

what are you demonstrating today? >> guest: okay. so what we're showing today is a project called wind flow. and what we've done -- >> host: is wind flow here -- >> guest: this is wind flow. >> host: okay. >> guest: and the premise of this research project was around what we would be able to do with data that's freely available in the environment today. one of the things that we've noticed is that there are a lot of aircraft flying around in the united states that could be considered censored. they have data on them, they're providing information, and it's relatively freely available. it's provided by the faa and there's companies like flight aware who use that information to provide information to the community about what airplanes are doing. so we decided to take that information and see if we could use that to help us predict a more accurate winds aloft forecast. >> host: winds aloft. >> guest: so what the wind is doing in terms of speed and direction at various altitudes above the surface of the

everett. >> host: what's the potential advantage of having that or the weapon fit? -- benefit? >> guest: understanding atmospherics is a very important element to a lot of different things. imagine being able to predict where a wildfire's going to go next, imagining with able to predict -- being able to predict where a disease outbreak might go. in our case we're interested in predicting what a more optimal path through the sky might be for an airliner that might save them fuel costs and might actually help the environment. >> host: all right. what's on this chart here? >> guest: okay. so the whole idea and premise behind this project is really a geometry problem. it comes down to a triangle. and what we have in this green line here is an airplane's position in space that is real. so we know exactly where it is and how fast it's going. and this is the information we get from the aircraft itself. what we want to know is what the wind velocity and direction is. this is the unknown variable we're trying to solve for. so the third leg of the triangle

is something that we've come up with kind of a neat trick to determine that isn't really obvious, and this is where something called machine learning comes into play. machine learning is a methodology that uses statistical analysis and different distributions of information to help converge on a solution that wouldn't otherwise be obvious given the data set that you have. in this case, we were able to constrain this problem in two different ways. the first is that the airplanes when they take off, they tell the air traffic control system where they think they're going to go. they file a flight plan. so that helps us constrain the problem with the initial set of conditions. the other thing that we're able to do is provide a similarity distribution that an aircraft that's flying near another aircraft probably is experiencing the same wind. so by using that assumption, we're able to distribute that it's called a gaustian solution

model and then converge on a model that says for the wind in this particular area, this is probably what they're doing. and by applying that across a broad set of data, a broad set of aircraft and a broad surface area we've come up with a prediction model that looks to give us an order of magnitude better understanding of the winds aloft than what the entire air a line industry is using today. >> host: was this a brainstorm at microsoft research? >> guest: this was, this was probably, it was really done primarily by one or two people my collaborator is a pretty well known machine learning expert and he and i are both pilots. and so we understood the problem space pretty well, and we also understood the algorithms and the engineering problems pretty well. and by marrying these two things together, we were able to come up with this unique approach to solving it which really is pretty simple in its concept

but pretty powerful in its application. >> host: is it beneficial to have boeing headquartered nearby? [laughter] >> guest: we have not really worked with boeing on this. we've talked with them and i think they've expressed some interest. but really we see this broadly benefiting the entire airline industry across boeing, airbus, anybody who might leverage, you know better understanding of wind velocity to their benefit. >> host: you've got a big monitor here. what do you want to show us on the monitor? >> guest: okay. so so i'm using a program called worldwide telescope which actually is a 3-d model of the earth as well, the solar system. and we're looking at a set of arrows over northwest washington state, puget sound area. and we decided to do an experiment to see if our algorithm actually worked. so these arrows depict what the

current noaa forecast wind model says it was for that particular day. and -- oh, i'm sorry. >> host: so that wind is, it's directioned up to the northeast correct? >> guest: northeast. generally northeast in direction. now, by -- if i may turn this off -- now these little purple guys are all the airplanes that were flying around that day okay? and what you might not predict is this very nonuniform distribution of these aircraft, these aircraft sensors, if you will. you know, we have some areas with high density of -- flying in and around ctac airport -- >> host: where is that? >> guest: right about here. where these planes were landing and taking off. we weren't sure if this would be enough information for us to have a broader model but we created a new prediction that gave us this sort of

distribution. and if you look, they're a little bit more northerly than northeasterly, and if i overlay them you might be able to tell the difference. so in general we did have something that was different. so then what we did was we said, okay, given these two different predictions, if we let a balloon go into the air, where would it go? and we had a our prediction based off the noaa forecast we thought it would take this trajectory. we launched it from suncadia, washington, and given the flow this is where it would land. then we used our new forecast to predict the end point and this is where it said it would land and it's about 100 miles difference. so relatively, you know, strong difference in magnitude. when the balloon was launched and actually landed, the little red flag there shows where it landed. and so we feel really good about our prediction.

it was over an order of magnitude more accurate than what it would have been had we used the earlier winds. and so this is what's encouraged us now to take this algorithm, and we've now provided, you know, really sort of early version of this service on the microsoft cloud so that anybody can come and use this information and determine for themselves, you know, how it might influence their scenarios how it might help them, how it might benefit all sorts of scenarios today that count on better understanding of aerospace. ..

that other people can leverage to build businesses on top. >> thank you or your time. >> the center for strategic and international studies hosted a discussion on trans bags. stephen kappes and "washington post" columnist david ignatius.

watch it live at 9:00 a.m. eastern here on espn2. -- c-span 2. >> discussions on some of the financial issues facing the global economy. the audit event featured remarks from economists, policymakers and regulators to discuss tax policy, trade, health care, financial regulation and the agenda of congress. in this portion, world bank president jim yong kim discusses how congress across the world can that with the u.s. this is just under 30 minutes. >> dr. kim, thank you for joining us today. >> thank you on >> thank you, rebecca appeared great to be here. >> you've made lots of headlines since taking over the world in 2012. you were strong on the ebola

outbreak and you have strong opinions on poverty and inequality in the private sector. i know you just got back from a jet and i would like you to take us on a tour of the emerging economies. we started out the year feeling very pessimistic about the prospects. is that changing now? >> well, for this year the expected rate of growth is 4.4%. what has happened is the impact of the low oil prices coming in no comment at one point we thought it would spur growth. but still we are seeing it as a drag on the economy. also there is currency uncertainty. when you have the divergent monetary policies across the united states, europe and japan especially with the rising dollar, you see currency movements towards united states in the exchange rates in countries. the impact of russia and brazil contracting has also been very

serious. it is different depending on different countries. in africa and the the commodities, the slowdown in china has had a big impact. whereas in 2000 china made up about 1% of total developing country exports. it is now the biggest trading partner with the entire developing world. there is a mixed picture. if you step back and say what about africa, despite ebola africa continues to grow and grow wall street appeared after the crisis. there is still a great prospect in africa. china will grow 7% this year, but we think it is because they are going forward in a very controlled, very thoughtfully done shift of the growth model. it is impressive to watch because my predecessor wrote this gray report china 2030 and a really tough to all the things they are going to do. we have to search the growth

model from investment and exports to 19 services in consumption. they are going through with it. we are not surprised that the 7% growth rate. again, it has a lot of knockoff effects. we are oppressed because india for the first time in 15 years will have a higher growth rate in china. i met prime minister lodi for the first time last year when he just took office and i have to say i was really an earnest with how focused he was. at first it is very generous to give us a meeting. he was going to be sure, but what we did was we took all the benefits of this new operating model we put in place and that we are going to focus on your top 10 problems and show you the best, most innovative solutions all over the world that have been applied in tackling your stated priority problem. because we did it so -- in such detail, we spent an hour and

talked about every thing from this public private partnerships to railways to cleaning up the river. this is a guy who is incredibly determined and has done something that they wanted to do for decades, which was to refine their tax laws. we did another study and show them trucks and india are stopped 60% of their day whereas in the united states is about 25% of the day. every time across the border they have to pay taxes. he actually now about the reform done. there is no way goods and services tax when it's all said and done it once when you start, once when you end and that can have a huge impact. confidence in its commitment to structural reform has really driven our own sense of the growth prospects of india. we can keep going. >> in the long-term are you optimistic where you see a

supplanting of a china role for many businesses. india has disappointed. are you optimistic enough we should really start rethinking the idea? >> we are up to mistakes so far. prime minister modi is a very complicated country that has lots of the problems in the highest number of people in extreme poverty are in that country. there's people around health care. i have to say, the impact of this one later on our own sense of where things are moving has been profound. i wouldn't go so far as to say china. here is one thing that struck us as being very, very different about prime minister modi. we have this thing called the doing business ranking in india

was ranked 166. you could imagine of 180 people in the ministry of finance were not happy with it and have been critical of methodologies. but i told him was prime minister modi if the rankings were based on your state in which he has instituted lots of structural reform and would be ranked 50th in the world instead of 166. instead of continuing to critique the methodology he just said will be at number 50 and i want everybody in this government to focus on getting 166 to 50 appeared it's a very different approach. lots of complexities in the system and he has a tougher decline. we really like what we see so far. >> you just returned from egypt where he had quite an eventful trip. unfortunately bombing one of the cities where you were going to

visit. could you talk about the middle east. it is all in such turmoil do you feel it's very important for both the world bank and private business to support the region. >> we have a designation fraudulent conflict affect states. the entire region is in a sense fragile. egypt is really critical. people have said the arab world is like a template to polls. i'm both have to be stable for the region to be stable. we've done a lot of work and we focus on things like conditional cash transfer programs and that is why i was going to luxor, the place where they have the bombing. i met with president of pc and i

was very impressed with his commitment to tackling major issues. youth unemployment is a major issue. sanitation is an issue, health care, and the educational system as a whole, lots of major issues. i was impressed with his and his entire cabinet commitment to tackling them. there's a lot of challenges. i went to luxor and saw two things. egyptian antiquities are one of the great resources for the entire world. it is really stunning what i was able to see. at the same time, it is also one of the poorest regions. the conditional cash transfer program is making a transformative impact on the lives of very poor women. there is a huge agenda with egypt, but we are committed to it because they've got to attack the situations of fragility. by 2020 our goal is to end extreme poverty or 2030.

by 2030, half of all people will be living in these situations. i've asked my advice residents working in areas where there's a lot of fragility, do we have a new take? for example, even addressing radicalization. are there things we can do to help educational systems are governments tackle the issue. we don't know yet but we are trying to ask questions in a different way. >> in terms of private investment, i understand you were thinking of going on a road show creating different investment vehicles to entice the private sector. could you explain? >> if you look at one particular need in developing countries than that would be the need for financing for new infrastructure. a trillion dollars a year. if you look at all the official development put together it's

about 150 billion. and then you add in all of the funded by the multilateral developmedevelopme nt banks and it doesn't even get to half of what the need is. there is no question we need to get some of this capital sitting on the sidelines living for infrastructure investments. based on our long history and analysis done with the rating agency that the infrastructure investment in developing countries provide a great potential return on investment for equity investors than just about anybody. the perception of risk is holding people back. we feel that we have a very or even the most difficult situations and centralized, for example. but we feel if they get together with the other multilateral

development banks with some of the private sector players who have been in those regions for a long time we can effectively dare risk as investments. and then be clear enough and people on the staff can assess risk and reward of the democratic of congo to trust the analysis. >> i want to ask the audience to bury you might be vulnerable in the middle east. the private sector in troubled regions like the new. will take a couple seconds. now. please respond to have been interesting on morning.

not exactly scientific. i think we have a pretty split opinion here. 31% and yes 38%. i guess that means you have a little bit of work to do on the front. >> when they say 41%, we'd like to talk with the 41% out there. the mideast, i mean there's a tremendous amount of insurgency. when the bus to work more with the private sector everywhere. it is going to be the key for extending extreme property by 2030. another burst of shared prosperity focusing specifically on income growth. we are simply not going to get there unless we can attract private capital. it is something that we had a private set their working in developing countries for a very long time.

we are trying to bring together the private sector and public sector group because there are things that can make it easier to invest and opportunities and private sector groups can present the government, but they may not see otherwise you that is what we hope our value-added will be over time. the >> could we talk about inequality? how concerned should we be about inequality around the world? you speak in about the role of technology and really if you are raised to dent in africa, you can see how the other half of the world is living that is changing the world in fundamental ways. >> it happens everywhere. the most romantic story for me was i went to the see the president in bolivia the week after his plane was brought down under suspicion he was traveling with edward snowden.

he was in a generous mood towards americans at that time. he said were going to play soccer together. i never played in my life so as a challenge. after landing a helicopter, but most of remote village they could see and miami-based spanish-language talent novell. everyone knows how everyone else lives. it is not just people who don't have access to jobs and education and income are resentful. it is that the analysis is beginning to tell us that higher and higher levels of inequality are a drag on growth. the imf just came out the study saying that countries really should focus on improving income of the bottom 20% because that spurs growth much more than increasing the relative incomes of the top 20%.

this is love new research we are beginning to get our heads around. for us it means trying to spread the kind of investment that would lead to private sector growth to create jobs and the income of the bottom 20 40%. that is wholly focused on everywhere. without question, we cannot do a donor assistance and loans to government. we've really got to get private sector is moving in those places. >> i know you don't want to get involved in the negotiations about greece at the moment, but did you talk a bit about the difference between a sturdy and structural reforms in the sense that greece may have done one part, but they didn't do the important second leg of this. >> i am not involved in the negotiations at all. we have been providing technical support. then they take a step back for

just a second. this is the discussion that's ongoing. there are different views of a scary day. jobs in the u.k. have taken a strong view and had different outcomes as a result. others have a different view about the importance of a scary day. the thing everybody agrees on is there's hardly a country in the world that doesn't need to go through structural reform. is the case everywhere. when i talked about prime minister modi changing the tax law has given a solid sense of possibility that we just didn't have before in terms of indian bureaucracy. indian bureaucracy is still formidable. the fact he did that made a big difference. but then we keep saying to every country in the world is he wanted to go through a certain structural reform and you wanted to do things in japan for example, one of the big issues for them are being opened to immigrants and getting women in the workforce. but that is hard.

that requires a political left is always difficult. but we would say is whatever your view on austerity focus on most farms to see if you can find a path towards getting there because the reaction of market is pretty quick. when they see you are serious about it i think overall sentiment to the future prospects for growth and likelihood of investment can change pretty quickly. >> when you look at greece and europe as a whole, do you think there's been not enough structural reform in general? >> is one of the things we talk about all the time. countries across europe all of them are needing to do it and some countries move pretty quickly. spain, ireland, portugal and they see the benefit of that. these things are always tired and yet our role and specifically what we did for prime minister modi as we said these changes are hard but just

telling you you need to do this is one thing. giving you 10 examples of how other countries have done this and walking through that do, providing support from the people who did this reforms that were involved in this reforms i think is helpful. that is how we want to be known. we want to be known as the group that if you have a typical structural reform, we will help you get there. let me give you an example of his structural reform needed everywhere that is difficult to do has so many positive impacts and not his removal of fossil fuel subsidies. in egypt, it is a huge portion of their budget. they have started to make movements. moving to go away from possible subsidies. number one we know they are requested. the imf did a study the top 20%

edited six times more from fossil fuel subsidies in the bottom 20% developing countries. moreover, it put more carbon in the air and it is essentially a regressive tax that takes money away from government so they can spend much more effectively in other areas. if you do it taxi drivers and truck drivers blocking your streets is tough. we found ways to help certain countries get ruined. it is not an too would give you could do these things all together and get three potentially difficult structural reform like removing possible subsidies. we want people to think of us like data we will bitterly scour the globe and look everywhere on the earth to find examples of others have done this effectively. >> before you open it to questions come a final question about china. obviously a big part of the slowdown. you were telling me backstage he been impressed by the discipline

they have to take something that works in one province and spread it to the rest of the country. >> with the china 2030 report bob worked with china for two years and really wanted to be sure that the chinese were comfortable with what was coming so things that greater flexibility, currency, all these things who would've thought china would commit to accommodate it. now they are following the path. i was so successful that they said we loved the project, very helpful to us. now we want you to take on urbanization. they had a lot of complex problems. if you're bored one province come you could only get service and not province. it is difficult because they can get services in the city when they move from the province. one thing we did was to say here

is the way you can move away from that and they are beginning to do it. there are ways you can build smarter more probable cities and move in that direction. they were happy with that so the next issue they asked us to take on with health care. other medical.err. i worked in the field forever. there are 5% of gdp. do we want to go to 17% of gdp like the u.s. or go like singapore and have better health outcomes. so we are now looking all over the globe bringing in experts from all these different places and trying to help them see if they can take the curve and move in a direction where they'll have better health outcomes for lower costs. we know what we come up with good ideas that will first of all implement bad on a small scale with 100 million people and they will go into it with 4.3 billion. it is quite amazing to watch that right in front of you

happening. >> questions from the audience for president kim. so when you are talking with the private sector a company in the private sector is approached give us a couple of examples where the venn diagram d. markson of mutual interest that a project goes forward. for instance companies such as this with world tank on a project the company found beneficial to their growth prospects in the developing world. >> it is very tremendously. we have worked with companies on building hotels. tourism is 9% of the global economy. the two places i visited. i went to eastern asia and bali and when i went to egypt and the two comedians and things happening in those places. it turns out a world bank was one of the first investors in bali to turn that into a tourism

area. they are for us to be able to help away everything from wastewater management to the right policy changes in the government to make it worthwhile for hotels and others to work in developing countries in road building for example or construction of dams. we are back focusing on hydroelectric power because it provides the base load more countries they bought the same time taking carbon out of the air. there's all kinds of possibilities and infrastructure. we work with companies around animal protein all over the world. we've even worked in those areas. if you can think of is sector, we surely have experts looking to provide opportunities. specifically for america and

another developed companies. >> i want to ask about your own organizational change. there's been criticism that he's made a lot of changes to focus on poverty cfos might relate to this. trying to cut down the silos that exist at within each country and completely restructure. where are you and for folks at the own organizational change, what is this told you? >> up i was really difficult. i do agree people hoping. just a couple months ago alan mullally recently retired from ford and marshall goldsmith, a great leadership coaching as my coach came and spent a day with us to figure it out. i would say try to get people to change from a fred halstead who is headed rate experienced in turning around pharmaceutical

companies. here is what we did. we went from being almost six regional banks to create in a real matrix so that go areas and regions were forced to collaborate. basically giving the reach of their budget based on last year for the cost of living and now we are forcing us as to what together and it was a huge structural change but we needed to do it. from six regional banks are real matrix is a big change in import one. the everything at the same time i take a percent of the budget 400 million out of the budget. taking money out of the budget is hard but we have to do both at the same time. the good news is we are basically threw it and in a previous episode when they did this structural change 20 years ago, they put a couple hundred

million asked her into the budget and the business dropped 20%. this emits at 400 million out of business grew 20%. it was tough because we did so many things at once. my advice is if you've got to do it just do it and get past it as soon as you can. it is not something a lot of leaders of bureaucratic institutions have tried before so it was really new. boy am i glad we did it because if we hadn't done it we'd have to start now. that is my advice. get really great help to figure out what you need to do and get started as soon as you can get done. >> jim yong kim rebecca blumenstein, thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause]

>> and we are live on this

monday morning for the center for strategic international studies here for discussion the cia deputy director stephen kappes in washington post director david ignatius talking about combating isis. tom sanderson will be the moderator this morning. this is live coverage on c-span2. should get going in just a minute. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning everyone. thank you for joining us at csis. before we get started i want to point out the emergency exits. through the main doors what you came today and also around the corner to the left is another emergency exit in the back corner near the lounge area is an exit there as well. my name is tom sanderson, director of the transnational threat program here at csis. we are currently has a background conducting two studies that are ongoing. foreign fighters that is looking at turkey, tunisia and several other nations in the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

had an interesting conversation with stephen kappes about the foreign fighter issue and values and will get to that today. also looking across at the how rich and with our africa program and jennifer kukla made a couple field visits there in the fall. before i get started i want to recognize a few folks who joined us. judge william webster, former cia dirt and director of the trans-national press project. john macaque encompassing a visor to the program, ron marks and ambassador claudia pritchett. thanks for joining us. i'd like to welcome o'neill one of her advisers in the back. i may start off with a brief bio on our two guests today. very happy to have such luminaries to discuss what we are covering with isis in the exercise we are doing today. david ignatius, associate editor

and columnist for the "washington post" has been incredible long and distinguished since 2003 and twice weekly globally distributed on global politics, economics and affairs. there -- editor of the international herald tribune now known as the international "new york times" and foreign editor of the postern i.t. to mac 1992 and "the wall street journal"'s david served as reporter in chief diplomatic correspondent. he established republican affairs "new york times" magazine, "atlantic monthly" and others. david is also the author of nine novels including body of lives made into a movie starring leonardo to. the latest novel is about attacking an espionage. he's a fellow at harvard kennedy school's belford zener and has taught as an adjunct lecturer at the harvard kennedy school. stephen kappes to my left is a

chief operating officer of commercial investment partners in washington d.c. he retired from the central intelligence agency's deputy director after 30 years of service. from 2006 to mac 2010 was directly involved in the leadership and management of all elements of the agency under two different directories and two presidential administrations. mr. kappes service operations for the cia xena must position the clandestine services. he led over one third of the globally deployed personnel agencies of global espionage relationships with foreign intelligence partners in the national security council mandated covert action operations. mr. kappes has left in the u.s. government operation that contributed to the libyan government pronunciation about the mass destruction program. steve has immense experience in the field incident service as an operations officer and south asian countries as deputy chief of an overseas operation on that

focused on iran chief of station during the 1991 persian gulf war and chief of station in the large central eurasian country. steve studied in his farsi and russian languages in the course of assignment that was a good presidential national security medal, distinguished medal, ca distinguished career of metal, three director's medals and a donovan award for operational excellence. suffice to say we have here today two of the most distinguished national security experts you could possibly want to weigh in on the subject at hand. the subject of course of the alum mike seen iraq for syria. nearly one year ago we brought together david comiskey of ambassadors to discuss the issues surrounding isis after the group rolled into most all of iraq not watching the years long evolution of the affiliate

of al qaeda and subsequent transition into an independent entity called isis. in the short span isis has become one of the most critical challenges facing iraq and dozens of countries including the united states. isis has attracted 22,000 fighters from 100 countries still have the world has fighters are presented in iraq and syria at some point over the last four years. this represents a tremendous blowback potential against members of the coalition and others as well. young men with battlefield experience confidence networks and motivation could return to their home countries and initiate attacks. for certain their exploits in the battlefield transmit great detail by the 90,000 daily messages coming from isis have radicalized and aspired citizens of several countries to attack and defend the isis and promote the group's agenda. we see this in australia come

united states, egypt canada, tunisia, france, belgium libya kuwait, saudi arabia and many others. before we look at the potential challenges posed by the conditions that brought us where we are today it is important to look over the past year at the major event that transpired since we met and since mozilla file on june 10 2014. this is not an exhaustive list but june 292014 isis declared the new k. less and divided muslims around the world to journey to the new islamic state. the declaration has been a tremendous stimulant for tens of thousands of people. early august last year isis attacked members of the iraq minority causing present a bomb to launch limited against isis will also supply us

airstrikes increased in number and days and weeks has proceeded. august 19 at september 2nd isis executed jim foley and stephen follow. british and japanese hostages with subsequently be murdered. iraqi prime minister nouri al-maliki was replaced by abadi in the face of tremendous pressure from inside and outside of a win. two days later september 10th president obama announced the coalition to combat isis on september 24th 2014 president obama speaking at the u.n. spoke out against isis. isis supporters began appearing around the region in groups in egypt sinai libya declaring allegiance or acting on behalf of a isis. february 2015 isis released a video showing the burning death of jordanian who was shot down

over inferior. i suspect secure christians in libya to to stir the ancient iraqi city of the security pledge of allegiance from boca her mom in nature and claimed responsibilities in tunisia and a massive suicide bombing in yemen. in may this year we saw delta force operators penetrate syria and kelley senior isis later during a firefight. the next day may 17 isis took a mighty iraq in the ancient city and on june 10, president obama authorize deployment of 450 additional lives than last week of course we had the attacks in tunisia in kuwait. that is quite a toll and the impact goes well beyond the body count for the economic, social and diplomatic strains inflicted on people. as we look forward there's many difficult decisions for a lot of parties to consider. the next 45 minutes altering the issues before stephen david.

they have an opportunity to ask questions. what and they began by asking both of you since we last met july 2014 what a surprise to you most about how events have unfolded in iraq, syria and the broader anti-isis after. >> let me begin by looking back at what we said in july of last year. i think both steve and i had and alarmist view about the danger ahead. the two biggest surprise has been a strange combination of brazilian brutality and creativity, operational creativity of the islamic state. they are agile.

becky is a concentrated force to achieve the object is. as the capture of her money, find a suicide bombs. one after the other. they terrify and intimidate opponents. so they have been stronger, tougher, smarter than i would've thought. i had the hope a year ago that like al qaeda and iraq, zarqawi's group would burn so hot that they would burn themselves out. that hasn't happened yet. the second surprise to this year to be honest is the lack of effectiveness and clarity of the u.s. policy, u.s.-led policy in response. i wrote a column around june

june 11th noting that this week had two manifestoes about the conflict. one was a isis video called year after the conquest. i don't invite anybody to look at an online because it is so horrifying. it shows that the video style that people have developed overwhelming force and brutality of their conquest of mosul how they routed iraqi security forces through mosul, the jubilation of sunnis in the city after their brick jury. the other manifesto of that week was the obama administration announced it would send an incremental careful new force, 450 trade but via special

operations forces in eastern and bar province who are generally commissars we can talk, would not get us that the water that these, who would not go with the iraqi forces. they were training in the battle. they are so far as i can tell still not sufficient of sunni tribesmen who want to be trained by the u.s. trainer device forces in place now i've have been the case i think in the assad airbase further west. the isis assault is at hyper speed for an insurgency. the u.s. response is a slow speed. the president rations each additional piece of his response

and if the formula continues without change a year from now isis takes the receiver of africa spreading more evenly, so i'm checked in iraq and syria. frankly that is what i see in the past year. >> i do want to say that you agree, what else do you see beyond that. >> the disappointment that doesn't surprise. last year we outlined clearly what i did when i found was not just an aggressive vibrant group but also true forces of evil. know what way to describe people to fellow citizens of the world populations in iraq and syria. i've probably been surprised

they been able to fight as hard as they have fought in the recovery as quickly as they have from significant comments by the united states from the air. like most of you in this audience and a student of history and we know nothing and turn the air alone. it is still significant one that lands on top viewing to recover. we as the united states underestiunderesti mate the ability of groups like isis to sustain serious injury and still press on. the truth of the matter is the central command does not care about the people who work for them. they are only concerned about their small bolshevik like group of real dedicated radicals and believers in the movement. i surprised at the ability to recover so quickly. i also am concerned we are maintaining all the lessons we've learned from our 9/11 experience in terms of the

interest of python for the united states in particular. when we don't take a firm stance, they fill every space they possibly can as quickly as they can. when we are not prepared to lead an aggressive fashion, not the syrian military but overall they will fill every second of the vacuum they can find. as a result they position themselves particularly with sunnis and their ability to move the propaganda is quite interesting. their ability to align us with iran, but we've gone through is quite startling and the number who believe it is even more startling. so the ability of the middle east about conspiracies and spread them has worked on more quickly. i don't think their approach and use of violence and evil fours they use has changed at all as a

result. i find myself more worried this year than i was 12 months ago. >> do we have a strategy david and steve and what is missing from the strategy? >> we have a declaratory strategy and personally i would say the element of this strategy has declared are pretty much the right ones. the problem is we have not found a way to implement the strategy. let me unpack that a little bit. what president obama did a year ago through the summer into september was to refuse please introduce united states views as their power in particular to take out the enemy is at the shiite led government in iraq, take out isis and others changes in the government. and it was a high-stakes effort

by the president insisting that nouri al-maliki should leave and a new prime minister new representative of his party should take office as he said. so that part of u.s. policy i thought was correct, was handled in a disciplined way. it was necessary to get to iran's acceptance of that change the shia leadership in iraq and again i thought i was done well. second part of the strategy was to build an international coalition. general john allen went around the world with meetings in the coalition was assembled. working with allies it is hard to fault that imprint the bowl.

that was the right thing to do. it's a good list. when jordan was attacked and seemed to have popular support. another part of the strategy is to find a way to mobilize iraq they would have to be part of the thick dean isis from sunni areas, tribes, leadership empowering them in this badly set. iraq is the way they would be dead implementers of the strategy when you ask what is the defeat mechanism, who will defeat these people in south to and end buyer. the answer was in part the best iraqi security force aided by the tribes that immediately comment behind the clearing forests.

that still hasn't happened adequately. it is amazing to me many months ago you had the iraqi defense minister talking about the plants, facilities for training sunni tribes, tribal fighters in jordan. you had all the pieces of that assembled and get to this moment, so far as i know it really still is an embryo. i say the same thing about the regional strategy. we nominally have a coalition in turkey, jordan saudi arabia. we have the simplicity of working understanding with iran and yet as colonists i don't think have been mobilized with what our strategy is if anyone in the side and could please inform me i would be very grateful.

the pieces of the strategy and in a few minutes i would like to talk about the bureaucratic side of that, the lack of unity of command in this government to make the strategy happened. but i will leave it there for now. >> steve, can the tribal groups be brought to bear? >> historically the tribal groups have been bit more than once in the last hundred years. it becomes extremely difficult to mobilize the tribal groups if they do not censor me a commitment that you are prepared to stay through the difficult periods of combat and aggression into the political transition to have some confidence they will not lose when someone walks away. they burn through their own blood and treasury. as a result i'm afraid that becomes an even more difficult piece of work than it was when we first as a country, government, agency through the

surge earlier in the past decade. i would suggest it would take someone with extraordinary persuasive skills and someone with extraordinary staying power to remain involved in the movement of the sunni tribe as well as for integration in the iraqi government because it is the distrust between the sunni tribes in iraq a government is in some ways at its highest levels we on the times dave and i are familiar with in 2010. i think they remain part of the solution but distrust develops quickly and takes a long time to dispel as a result i would advocate part of the overall strategy would not have the same confidence that would be successful or effective as it once was. thus quite frankly every time the shia militias stand up, they whispered back to the sunni tribes and never happens.

as a result it becomes in support of isis regardless of what the think about the method of isis. i'm a little bit pessimistic but still believe should be intertwined with the actual policy. >> thank you. i'm a recognized ambassador from iraq in the 90s this semester. thank you for joining us. what about the iraq policy is there a danger in focusing so much on iraq and they been so much in syria on touch and how do we deal with the iraqi government and the complicated relationship with the iraqi security forces with a lot of complications here. >> women take the second part of that. s-sierra is such a complicated subject. i would almost like a separate tab. thinking about the slow progress

and the lack of progress this year and what to do about it, i try to think about the fundamentals. people smarter than me about this issue. one of them is sitting in the audience. steve hadley, a number of other people at in and out of government. trying to think, how could you take the elements of our strategy or seek to keep iraq together in some way and speak to avoid the idea of people have of lines in the sand shows. howard should preserve iraq but also speak to the sunnis in a way that gives them more trust and they eradicate isis in their

midst. when i came to was a version for 2015 is what jim baker and lee hamilton wrote in 2006 looking at essentially the same problem. it hasn't really changed from what they were waiting back then nine years ago. bible not born inside-out part of this which is to find a way find a formula for a genuinely federal decentralized and maybe come federal iraq that keeps the borders of the country as a whole, the less the individual groups really have a local autonomy. fighting to get isis out of and bart confidence when it is out they won't be given directions from hydra eyler merry or anyone else that it will be there part of iraq but just kurds feel they

are part of iraq. so that is a part of the strategy. it is bottom-up, inside-out. there is an outside in part that involves the regional allies and purge of these conflicts iraq syria libya, it'll take a commitment by the united states, russia and india, iran and sometimes has to be a formula in the world where there's powers can get around and come up with agreements that they are prepared to back up. those are the two elements and how it works in iraq. i think it will take discipline and time. it is probably the job of the next president of the united states. when it comes, that is what it will look like.

>> i've varied tapestry of policy and strategy. the small children's soccer and the programs because they are related in which you have connected the searing question for the iraqi question the saudi question and of course he talked to the russians and chinese another's in a way that allows the united states on what is best for us. we lost our ability to do that and it could contribute to iraq's losing its ability to the unitary state. i am concerned. i hope i'm wrong, but i am concerned the trends are headed

in the right direction and i think that would be terrible. though the terrible for the citizens of iraq as well as the region in the united states. i just think we have a role to play. i know we've been involved for over a decade of a lot of things. i don't remember who said it but some of the great powers are not allowed to get tired. this is an instance we have to believe this tapestry in a way that helps others find a way that we are still has an to take this on. >> steve a lot of people discuss the lack of progress that americans tend to focus on the military centric side of this. and the diplomatic political and dr. tony cordesman and we

discussed the elements that i hope will come out today. let's talk specifically about the connecticut effort here against isis. how are we doing on the battlefield and what needs to be brought to bear and the other elements to be successful in the battle. ..

the lack of a logistics capability on the ground in iraq is essential because iraqis in many cases if you find fighters, that they did not have a logistics skills of the united states and therefore, they find themselves in isolated situations to quickly too often. when you cannot reinforce come if you think getting shot at takes the heart out of a soldier, try putting them let them know they are alone no chances for reinforcement. that takes the heart out of the fighters. as a result of their some fundamentals of military conflict which he cannot carry out from afar or from the sky. many of these people in the room i know you've read the studies that world war ii and realize germany was not finished even though the on things were sufficient. people who are determined to survive will survive. as a result i'm not an advocate of simply cutting loose military

forces and all its impact and all that force. i have had children in the military. my point is the are some almost like laws of physics at play here that you can get closer to the target they will be able to withstand your a tight. i refer people to the japanese they would hunkered down and the island of pacific and undergo 30 days of bombardment and still be there when the marines show a. there are things that can't be denied in terms of military combat. war as all that is is a political action going to have to to address that more honestly as a people or i'm afraid the only person that can address that when it becomes necessary as the president of the united states. not a secretary, not a senior policy person. as it becomes necessary for a decision is made aware to be more effective, i'm afraid the president takes that one on. >> a year from the to expect to see large u.s. forces in iraq?

>> no. i don't get to think as long as barack obama is president we was a large military deployment. it's possible that we could see the additional steps that steve has arched, i agree would be valuable -- urged. allowing our advisors to go forward with the iraqi forces advising, whether they are sunni tribal fighters, iraqi secret forces and bolster them in combat, raise targets are more effective, close in air support. i see those things happening. i think we have to be honest and looking at this. we have a president but we also have a country that in many ways is allergic to iraq. we lived through such a painful period after the 2003 invasion. i think it's widely shared

whatever jeb bush me say when asked about it it's widely should give that it was a mistake to have done that at that beyond the sake of invasion there were so many mistakes made and how it was carried out during the period of occupation. the american people not unreasonably unfair elected to get into the kind of large-scale involvement that you're asking about. the president, more than most americans, and i think the reluctance just comes through in every moment of policy and its in translates into the military. the military says if we don't have a strategy, all in for victory, i don't want to send my guys back home in wooden boxes. militaries like a decisive wars with popular support where they can, humor they have a conclusive in thing. we don't live in a period in which that's possible. i do worry sometimes the

military is seeking something that is impossible. let me tell you one more thing that concerns me especially in this period where the president, i called him allergic to iraq that may be overstated but certainly is reluctant, but has made a commitment in his words to degrade and ultimately destroy this adversary. what he needs above all more than anything else, more than any particular decision to send advisers forward he needs some one person to take responsibility for this campaign and every day, every morning when asked the question, how are we doing in our battle against isis, will say mr. president, in the last 24 hours we did this and this and this. here's what we need. ask you to focus on today.

john allen thought he had been given a job when he was made special representative for the president to build a coalition to fight isis your that job despite strenuous arguments to obama, was not good at the white house as many people thought it should be but it was put at the state department. and from that moment, that was what roughly september, october of last year you a series of interagency fights, confusions false starts where you had centcom commander lloyd austin asking mr. president am i running this war? in the energies yes, you are. but then you have -- and the answer is yes, you are. running the coalition and a strategy and thus not surprising that you just come with these competing authorities have a kind of policy confusion that

hurts our efforts i think confuses our allies. if there's one thing in the next year you ask where will we be in a year i think the president is not going to put tens of thousands of years of troops in. he doesn't have to if you about one person in as a decisive commander of this effort the military piece, strategic these domestic -- diplomatic and strategic piece to this. i think that is doable even for this administration. >> i'm a great believer in ambassadors. i've had opportunity my career to work with the some people i think are very great capacity. tom pickering ryan crocker, anne patterson, others who are designated by law and by the president by the confirmation by the president direction to be the president representative to these countries. when the work effectively with the enter military presence in those countries, ryan crocker

david petraeus is one example, that's an effective team for the united states of america that answers directly to the president. we have once again all the tools in place to do the things we need to do and if you spend more effectively. am always amazed and somewhat surprised our ability to create new things that don't work as well as the things we just left behind. so as a result i think if we return to that so the ambassador who has a letter that says he or she is the president's representative at the president can speak to them directly and say what is going on, what do you recommend it focuses that energy into building a makes it easier for the president to actually have responsiveness in a way that is not getting because agencies our agencies, department to department. they will compete over who has what access do. it does not work at the moment as effectively as again with some of the past named john negroponte, others you may know of men and women who were extraordinary -- extraordinary

representatives of your strategy and policy. they can manage the tools on the ground. no one can manage the tools of the united states. i understand. i'm talking about on the forward end of august so the president has the ability to know as best as possible what's happening and, therefore make decisions that are in the best interest of the united states people. that's what i worry about of our unwillingness to look at those. >> david, you are one of our nation's leading journalist. you are involved in social media. you see how robust the field is. you understand messaging. how can we counter 90,000 messages a day that are disseminated by supporters, that stimulate and invigorate this worldwide movement? >> part of the puzzle in your question is the word we. how is this counter messaging going to be organized? to what extent is going to be an effort of the u.s. government and other governments?

to what extent is it spontaneous, does it represent the youth of the region? my friends from the arab world keep insisting to me that as powerful and as intimidating as i.s. messaging is once still dominant on social media in arabic is what i would call the freedom spirit, the tahrir square statement. i am a citizen, i'm not going to be pushed around. i can communicate. i have my device. unconnected. i'm not going to take it anymore. i won't take it from a mullah. i won't take it from authoritarian leader. you know i'm going to live in my own world. somehow that message that spirit of connectedness i think of free citizens which is still

there. we get too depressed about the air of winter sometimes. it's still there as near as i can tell. somehow that has to become more of the dominant narrative. it probably needs help from governments, but i worry in the post-snowden age about swallowing the poison pill. i worry about steps that seem sensible in terms of messaging that ends up limiting the message or undercutting it. so i think this is an area where it's crucial to get it right but the one thing i think the u.s. has learned is that united states is not a credible messenger in telling young muslims what islam is, how they should live who the right enemies and allies are. that has to come from the region, and it has to be mobilized quickly. there are lots of smart people i know who could help do this

tomorrow. but the pathway for them to do it, doesn't end up as i said undercutting their efforts in the future. >> judge webster and i had lunch a few weeks ago and we discussed the video showing the burning of the jordanian pilot. how something like that could resonate with people around the world, that is the discussion we focus on the fact that resonates with so many of these young men who are marginalized in every way, socially, politically economically and to who see an opportunity for mobilization to a sense of purpose, a nation in a video like that which is awful and unbelievable for all of us a meeting of justice, someone who flew an airplane, bombed civilians in their mind and then pays for his deeds in the same way they did. back out of messaging is very difficult to defeat. i agree with you young men, especially those under 40, there

is no mainstream message for them to latch onto. they have already rejected that have been pushed to the margin. margins. i do think there is a message that can reach a lot of them that small number. a broader audience of perhaps what i'm afraid that when they did it comes out like that and it's accepted by so many people we are in tremendous trouble. steve, i want to take advantage of your background and intelligence, which is impressive to say the least. you've touched on a few of these things before but can you talk to some of the intelligence challenges? before he ends i will say one had a lot of troops on the ground, i'm not suggesting we do this again, that when you have 100,000 troops on the ground you have a huge station acted in places like baghdad and other places, you have a lot of people forward, a lot of intelligence personnel, opportunities to network with people on the ground, citizens of the country like iraq to develop the kind of sentence situational awareness that could enable your

operations. what are the intelligence challenges with such a small footprint on the ground? and also given an adversary like isis. >> let's divide it into three pieces if he will, for collection of key piece of both technical and human, and then in this type of environment intelligence also place the article statecraft role, which is an influential role which is supportive of u.s. policy with the groups and others who they are in contact with, many cases liaison services but let's think about it for second in those three categories. if you look at the iraq-syria theater, they are given. in iraq there is still a certificate number of what i call forward a platform from which you can launch. it makes common sense the closer you get to the target, the easier it is to recruit, to collect intelligence. in iraq there still significant possibilities from which they can launch and there is it's my understanding, some collection. it's never good enough for this

collection that is solid. remember now, i do this in my soapbox. in the intelligence business with our secrets and then there are also mysteries. by example is always remember the young fruit vendor to set himself on fire in tunisia that started in many ways much of there's no one on the planet, i would note in the universe is said god knew what was going on in the tunisian said when he decided to set himself on fire. there are ministries taking place in terms of what isis is decided to be. their ability to also close of the rains come once again to use my example of the bolsheviks which was unknown by two or three or four people. to forget that espionage is still in all countries punishable by many cases imprisonment but by isis is punishable by horrific death. would asking people to do things to put their lives and family lives in jeopardy, understand it's not that easy to step right up and just do whatever you want united states i'm happy

to know. always keep that in mind when thinking about intelligence collection. series becomes a more difficult challenge. remember bashar al-assad father actually constructed what some could call -- in terms of its security services and their ability to control and suppress its people. very skilled, very effective very dangerous. this is also country that decides it's okay to drop barrel bombs on its own people. as a result you already highlight the difficulties of the collection problem. the collection problem is also compounded because moving forward in serious you have to spend just as much time trying to stay alive as he got to try to figure out how to collect things. as a result i would identify at the moment that's your challenge is not a greater than the iraqi challenge because we still long-standing relationships in iraq that is quite productive. i would offer at the moment and begin with a deference to the ambassador, the relationship -- is not as efficient as they were

as five six, seven years ago. that makes it difficult. there has to be a reliance on partners. i would like to complement the jordanians who once again stepped up and put the people in harm's way and, indeed, around the ground and elsewhere to assist both publicly and clandestinely. some of the other services are doing the best they can and in some cases the best they can is not very good or not good enough. as a result, i'm certainly not looking for the united states to leave everything. all and talk about in this arena that you asked about the united states has the ability to lead and guide in a way that could be affected and so as a result of those relationships with foreign countries become very important in trying to persuade them and convince them this work for us is effective for them, too. one comment i want to make in reference to the reference check messaging is the advent of social media, the ability to put stories up quickly, ability to spread fabrication is greater than it's ever been.

as a result the work of intelligence officers has become increasing difficult because the one question we all avoid to ask yourself is what i just received or heard is it true? i have a sense now that mr. lennon's favorite senseless if you say a lie often enough it becomes the truth is actually becoming more and more prevalent in the middle east as well. not those the middle east has created some conspiracies in the last five, six energies. it's not a matter of collecting the information and sang this man said he because he was there. it's also met up before goes to the president saying is this actually true did this happen? they used to be something musical afghan that. john bolton over this. and aspen witt said we just attack the soviets and we killed 400 people. how many people did you kill? about 200. slow down. how many people was a? maybe it was about four guys in a jeep. my point is in the current environment these people became

important because what you don't have is a president making that judgment or bad information. also becoming so anxious to deliver the information that you're not done what you need to do. i call it the ruthless application of the methodologies, and asking the question, is it true. so the challenges are significant on the iraqis that i think is more opportunity for success or by the syrian side it becomes much more difficult and it will rely i think a great deal on a very clear indication assistance from some of our close friends in the middle east u.s. insignificant capabilities of their own. >> david, we've been focusing on prices, focusing on the relationship of iraq, touched and syria your as a big actor we have gone into great detail yet and, of course, that is iran. with regard to isis and what's going on in iraq and syria cannot be divorced shortly from the perspective of the iranians. is iran playing offense or defense with what they're doing? are the more afraid of isis

coming in and creating a state inside of iraq or other tragic events of this, or both? >> i think they are being opportunistic as always. so sometimes that is often sometimes it's defense. most of the time it's the competition. i just should note before focusing on iran, something we haven't talked about what is important when you think going forward. although the u.s. has not been successful over all, it has had great success in working with its friends in kurdistan. the kurdish platform for military and other operations is powerful. i traveled in kurdistan from irbil although it to the west and then down into nineveh province outside of kurdistan with the peshmerga a few months

ago and saw how the peshmerga working quietly with elements of the u.s. and coalition power have pushed isis back. intercut they've held their own. they're sort of a continuing battle between forces and the main isis came. to the southwest. but that's a success and it would be a mistake not to note it in this discussion and i think how to build on it. the question has been should you send weapons directly to them. there really is an issue for the ambassador, get weapons through to the curse quickly enough but that option isn't discussed anymore. the iranians the iranians, and

about other kurdish forces were rocked in irbil in august and september, hazard lines really cracked, how dangerous it was. herbals itself was threatened and who was the first in? first in was the quds force supplying ammunition supplying untold individual people to help and bolster the lines, to work with a peshmerga to get new people in to get their commands stronger. her burial was say. the u.s. came in after and our help is also crucial that the iranians pashtun irbil wasn't safe. -- often missing case officers have been working the same network of sources and assets for 20 years or more. they notice of terrain. they know the shia landscape obviously. they no kurdistan, you know, with meticulous detail. they have very good contacts in

the sunni world. we are fighting an adversary that made it out of the iraq-iran war never again never again will we allow iraq to threaten our fundamental security, did everything they can to prevent it. one more comment about iraq. as i've watched the iranians and their proxies, the shia militias, i've seen that they have an ability to start fights that not finishing them. in part because the areas they are fighting are typically sunni areas where they are not traditionally welcomed. so in tikrit the shia militias moved on tikrit and then got stalled out and u.s. air power came in and finished that fight but tikrit still from what i know is largely -- impossible to move enough people back in to get that clear get the hold and

build the park going. you could argue the same in anbar province that iran's strategy, whatever it is you know, iran shares in the terrible setback in the loss of anbar province. so how u.s. and coalition operations with iran will be shaped in the period after a nuclear deal is reached assuming that in the next couple of weeks by july 9 that can be done, i think is one of the real challenges for u.s. and iranian officials. is it going to be possible to have some more effective alliance that draws in 70 countries? saudi arabia will have to be comfortable with that. with the possible after irbil? i'm not sure but we will find

out. >> i've been involved deliver, david knows this and engage with iran. i think it's essential. i do think we could go through life and that of engagement with a country like iran and so as a result i'm hopeful that are subsequently to be worked out but whatever happens what i don't want to see is a disconnection again. i've also aware of the comments are dealing with a double. i get that. i would like to offer a sharp criticism of school money. is a killer of americans. is responsible for the deaths of americans and still plan on killing americans the only one to leave to think he is some of the province of the shia population of the new genghis khan of the middle east. he is a man who's supposed to the united states, and we believe in everything we do everything we can do. i'm just i should keep in mind keeps of the differences between strategic engagement with iran which is important you security and also somehow highlighting

what some people are suggesting is the most wonderful significance, smartest, powerful and contribute member of the middle east. i would offer to you it's not true. thank you for the soapbox. >> absolutely. so the enemy of our enemy is only a temporary partner speakers mr. churchill would say come and i'm sticking with him. >> you've had to deal with a lot of pretty unsavory regimes in the past in order to further nation is critical to do to we wanted to get rid of assad but i think we have a hands-off policy in order to not wondering about a new libya or even a somalia as far as chaos. and number two i think because as we negotiate a nuclear deal with iran would want to keep that issue accountable for the iranians and not pull another leg about underneath the still that they're sitting on. how do we deal with assad? >> that's an extraordinary difficult question as you know. i will now sound like what i am a former cia officer.

it's my expense say officers engage with people. we learned or don't if you're not engaged physical, not engaged i to i commit sufficient little to no chance of influencing their behavior. i would use of your kind enough to refer to the libyan experience, i would use that as an example. once you get engage with people who are unsavory are unpleasant, he hoped to influence them and change, then you have to stay engaged. in many cases that's the resort intelligence organizations are built to do that sort of thing. i do not know if there is engagement with the syrians. i would hope that some form or another there is some discussion being taken place to show bashar al-assad that is only two choices to figure and ex-the role of sometime or to die in syria. maybe like mr. gadhafi that's been his plan all along i don't know but he doesn't strike me as the same type of person. i would think we have to use whatever tools are unable to try

to engage city. david has a deep understanding of syria, but to engage them in a fashion that tries to prevent this from creating an even greater vacuum that bashar al-assad is killed inside the masses. my concern is without some sort of assistance in shaping the future, there's nothing that can help you predict what group what other sort of organization might take over inside syria and it could be far more radical than what they are currently dealing with. i think it is so uncertain at the moment there must be something we should think about doing to try to shape the future, shape the exit regardless of who we have to do it with. i will admit and i'm not i know there's some people quite capable what it takes a certain person to hang in on this because it is unpleasant work. because you will be face-to-face with many cases the people you would hope to never me. the point is if you don't engage then you have absolutely no chance whatsoever of shaping

because they would then, what they think you are thinking or saying and they will take into second and third, and sometimes fourth parties who are trying to interpret what's going on inside the united states. it's a difficult time but i think it's important. >> did with our adversaries, our enemies is difficult and complicated but also dealing with our friends here let's think about turkey, a nato ally sharing a huge border with syria. this has been added to the core relationship over the past four or five years. i've done fieldwork on the border with syria. i've interviewed militants from isis. there's clear evidence of these groups operating from the turkish side of the border. how do we deal with turkey, a nation that is very different strategic goals than we do when it comes to this region? >> that's been a puzzle that the administration hasn't been able to solve. we've had the confusion of the

turkish parliamentary election. it's still not clear how president or to one wants to play that in terms of whether the a.k. party -- erdogan -- wants to cover a lot about have been called elections considered or seek a coalition partner. still not as clear as of last night. but that makes this confusing. you could argue that the turks are now living with their own inability to make good policy decisions in that one of their nightmares is happening. .py be the searing kurdish militia supported by kurdish forces from both turkey and iraq is sweeping across northeastern syria in what is the most effective campaigns in this war. and when i talk to people, they say to me peshmerga are good fighters in iraq.

pyd i really good fighters. these are tough tough fighters. nobody likes to say so but they are trained by the pkk which has been a mortal enemy of the turkish government. it's considered by the turks as a terrorist group. so from turkey's standpoint you have this band south of the border increasingly controlled by a group that is trained and to some extent run by people they regard as fundamentally dangerous. turkey has some choices to make. arguably that's a good thing because they'll have to make choices with us about their security and ours. i guess i would come back to the basic puzzle here with syria which is getting buy-in from all of the key players, russia

whose interests are directly threatened by collapse of the assad regime. turkey, you know we just got a ragged unstable border and newly embolden kurdish militias. saudi arabia which is not that it wanted to overthrow bashar al-assad a matter what but is beginning to wonder. the uae is already protected from that get rid of bashar. and now with the jordan says hold on. at some point these various powers need to work together to identify the elements of a new government that would include people from the army people like those acceptable figures of the old regime. people who are members of the

opposition who were willing to sit down as part of a new government transition. alawite clan leaders who have power in the mountains in the northwest but are not part of the assad clan. somehow that has to be done. it's going to happen. it's just a question of whether people come to their senses or another 100,000 died before it happens. with each of these things, you know how it's going to turn out. you just don't know when people will get the political leadership to make it happen. again, that's what i hope will get more from washington. >> finish up with a final question on foreign fighters. i think it's clear that a lot of young men and some young women from around the world are going to the caliphate declared by isis to defend it to build it to run it, to govern it.

they see it as a state. they not only want to write what they want to provide food work in the courts. parts of the effort to build infrastructure, there's lots of state them in their mind and want to stay there and they see this as a place to live out their lives. it's about about it. among the 20,000 plus foreign fighters some will return. they will be incredibly skilled and motivated her once more of a threat in your mind steve and david, the returning fighters of those were inspired but with those fighters are doing on the ground? getting back to your point earlier, what are some the challenges with regard to the values? >> is a good question an unfortunate i think you have to work it from the objective backwards. if there are young men who are in the united states for examples in the united states for example, door and started and carry out a terrorist attack, that's more dangerous. however, there's nothing quite as dangerous as a combat veteran

has returned to some content up a within his own government. so as a result i think there is a new thing that has to be taken place, a new evolution of counterterrorism work that focuses on this in a way that we haven't had to before. i mean, the numbers of foreign fighters are unbelievable. i remember in the days of early part of the iraq war before the train he left we would talk of foreign fighters on a daily basis. the numbers are only a 10th of what we're talking about now. as a result it focuses business of the services in a way that at this moment they are strapped because of the resources necessary to focus on. so brings up the other question. i don't have the answer. i only have experience, some good, some bad which is not to say if the number 20,000 foreign fighters is great and 10,000 survive the war and make their

way back home, how do we find them? what do we do to find them? france has begin to change their own legislation to allow them to use modern conditions in which they have never done it before. do we go back and revisit the question of privacy? do we go back and revisit the question of how do we stop people are trying to kill us your neighbors your friends your brothers and sisters and children? i don't know the answer but i think we'll be faced with it, and also you have to which has evolved quite brilliantly. i hope david agrees, which is the connection between security and law enforcement services to make sure information as quickly and effectively to try to head off terrorism attacks. i will take one last minute and say i think our government and many other governments are actually have become quite skilled at finding and stopping real-life terrorist on the move to the target. what i mourn what about is our inability to stop the

recruitment of people to fill the next wave and, of course, you know my theory john. i think one of the greatest characters and to step which we don't use effectively enough is jobs, jobs jobs. here in all these places overseas as a result. that's the peace the second tier of support that worries me as much as stopping the terrorists who said i'm on the move, going, i'm going to do the objective, here we go. >> final comment, david? >> just briefly to try to sum up. as we think about this year since the surprise overrunning of mosul, as the director of national intelligence clapper said, our underestimation of isis capabilities and will come a year later essentially we did the same thing.

we under estimated that a building with a relatively small force to roll through ramadi and the government forces picked up and left. so i have concluded from this that we just don't know enough about this anniversary. there are a lot of problems we talked about in terms of the u.s. and coalition strategy, but at the top of the list with all deference to see to understand this in a way that an outsider can't, my sense is we just don't have good enough intelligence. surely a part of it is that people -- communications collection capabilities and are smarter and just technology companies are making it easier for them and added new layers of encryption every other week so somehow that intelligence gap will have to be made up. in iraq, something the u.s. did to enormous effect on par was a cycle of night raids where in

the middle of the night in some places we identified people what iran of -- would arrive, would be firefight, maybe they capture people if they could but basically they were collecting intelligence which would drive the next night raid of the next night and the next night. and it just becomes you gather momentum because each raid featured the information that you don't have. instead the only thing of that kind that we've seen for special operations forces in syria to capture the wife of the chief financial officer of isis, was effective in terms of giving lots of leads. but i don't see this problem being managed and i include the foreign fighter part in the internal fight part without better intelligence. i also don't see how you get that unless you have an

increased operational tempo like what we've seen in other conflicts. >> thank you both for the great comments. we will open it up know. these identify yourself and your affiliation. john? >> john, csis. advisor. i'd like to raise what i call the problem the conflict between the issue of the state and the amoeba. we've been having discussions almost exclusively for steve towards the end on the state problem, how much kinetic force is appropriate to use against a state, what are the resources will they still have money to operate as a stick of all those things. that's a legitimate discussion pretty much the way the discussion in washington is focused. what i wanted for paying enough attention to is the amoeba part. and by that i mean the

ever-increasing, seems to me attacks abroad that tom iterated at the beginning from australia to oklahoma. and right now for all the pain they cause people it doesn't move the geopolitical needle at all. is there a possibility you think, whatever progress we make against the state that the examples of the amoeba spreading out where ever, there isn't a state that doesn't have borders, will that some take it the point where becomes a big problem? you get yemen and libya and beyond. >> i would offer it already is a big problem. to the couple of realities. one, states like to think about the of the world as the state department has been some sense of what to do and how to work with it. this is not a sales pitch but i will make it anyway. there's a wonderful group of people at the agency at cia

called political instability task force, individuals -- the they have been at this for a number of years. they didn't go to work on this question to which is discussing idea of how the united states must now begin to look not just at state adversaries but also these nonstate adversaries who are developing significant influence in places that we didn't anticipate seeing them. isis and the caliphate is one of those areas. there's other places to which of boko haram which is an influential player which is not a state actor ever see extension of ice ideas in other places -- isis in other places. is a post-9/11 type of thing but it's a very real. there's interest in good very very or partial analytical work in done. it's a collection challenge. who are these people? let's collect what we have. and, of course, you got connecticut how to make it up so it, people in the policies deficit this israel. you can see how in afghanistan

al-qaeda had influence but beyond that it had enough influence to i can not enough influence to change the cover. that's notthat's not the case do. my answer to is you are correct there is work being done but it's not a routine part of government considerations quite yet but i think the pace is picking up. >> ambassador? >> good morning, gentlemen. when you see the coalition forces go to talk about isis do you feel a sense of urgency online between the countries of the region and the united states? or do you still think that -- [inaudible] >> thank you. >> i would say mr. ambassador that the sense of urgency surely is greater today than it was last thursday because of these

attacks on three continents. you have a picture of a threat that's metastasizing a threat that has to be addressed in iraq and syria. so does the coalition is going to have to go into a different gear in terms of its activities. it's been interesting that prime minister abadi went to the g7 meeting and has been trying to be, you know presence, and other coalition members, but somehow that's got to move into something more aggressive. these last few weeks are demonstrating that this threat is metastasizing. the only answer is for the individual security services where they exist libya is a nightmare because fall apart as

a country. who do you work with? the elements of coalition will work with in all these countries need to ask for help and then do the fighting. is not ma it's not going to be possible for america, america, france and britain australia are not going to solve the problem. they will help. >> i think that's an important question because i think everyone has accepted intellectually, but in many ways the pieces that the coalition can manage probably is a nonmilitary pieces. anyone is in harm's way is encouraged but what i'm talking about is a coalition allies that are in the region are the ones best positioned to try to discuss in arabic the political economic ideological and the demographic changes that need to take place as well as they are i call it a middle eastern type of marshall plan with the resources come to bear so when the fighting stops you can begin in a way that is more effective. i don't think that's taking

place at the moment. as a result i'm afraid you are correct that intellectually they are there but the part that is more practical and emotional these hasn't yet caught up. >> third row in the middle. >> united states army, medical officer and i served in iraq command surgeon for the office of security cooperation. your comments are refreshing to what's missing from the discussion is, i'm originally from the city of mosul. what's missing is the power of religion. we saw come if you look at history, there is a movement and libya, the wahhabi movement. this element of radical islamic state is not a recent issue. what is disheartening for me this united states response element, such as radically motivate groups like isis is

nonexistent. we don't have population base outreach to disarm this agenda. i wanted to see which, toward. you touch base on some of the political issues some of the developer. we've not seen about development. it's a very frustrating for people like us to see this ideology as permeating per meeting, and we don't have an answer to that. and i wanted to see the cutest things gentlemen, what they thought about that. >> i'm happy to start. i think you are absolutely right. i think somehow, remember now, this is citizen talking here. at the us government level we've now become embarrassed to talk of religion from either own. as a result we have this tendency to draw back from these questions in which people i believe isis in some cases are fighting well but for horrible cause. we saw this unwillingness to discuss with him or to assist in

the discussion of the fact what you're doing is not in line with our religious police. and further and more important to encourage those people who can't say that with clarity and credibility can those in saudi arabia is a custodian of the two holy places as well as in egypt, those places to encourage them to have those discussions to say we need to cast doubt in the minds of the people doing this. we should do a heck of a lot about casting out their own minds but why can we organize ourselves and way we can discuss this in a fashion that is so -- century after century after century, some are not in 2015 we are too embarrassed to discuss it on we don't want to insult someone or have someone misunderstand? i don't understand that myself. i think you're right on the mark. these are men who are woven the religion into every element of the day. not just when they go to mass on sundays. so as a result if we are serious about looking at that we have to try and see what they're

thinking, how they are visualizing the day and the goals. not simply focusing the way we hear in our sector and approach to this but i think you're onto something big and i think that's difficult for the united states government to do. >> the lady in the front please. >> hello. i am the kurdistan regional government representative to the united states. one thing that's been missing from the discussion come except after that i arrived a little it so i apologize if you touched on this at the beginning, once i haven't heard come is there any discussion of the humanitarian crisis. 3 million iraqis are displaced millions of serious are displaced. and kurdistan region of overlooking after 1.8 million syrian and fellow iraqis. their education is going to pot. their health, health care is almost nonexistent. we in kurdistan and other places

in iraq are very concerned about security, even in the camps. you don't want these camps to become places where new radicals can be formed. so this is another crisis that we are bring if you like for the future and a flight to your touched on as well. thank you. >> thank you for bring it up. there's no doubt the millions of refugees, we've into those camps, half of a row serious population is displaced. turkey is hosting 1.8 million refugees at a cost of $6 billion to the country. it is a true humanitarian disaster hundreds of thousands murdered and killed. it is tremendous. lack of education, income distribution housing incredible set of issues that are structural and important to the counterterrorism site as well. >> any comments date or steve? >> i just would say that with this as other aspects of this nightmarish problem the u.s.

needs to lead its partners in the region and internationally in stepping up the efforts so it's closer to the level of the problem. we have declaratory policies about humanitarian issues, but there's no follow-through. people make pledges they never deliver. i've looked at camps in kurdistan. i remember just sitting a sea of fans last year in northern jordan where the syrians have come, i think the camps in turkey -- tents. if you want to think about it, the nightmare, think about all those young men in those camps, very little to eat them very little jobs money, but radical preachers. people talking to them about

settling scores. it's a formula for not just another four eight years but a generation of nightmarish problems. we saw what happened when the palestinians went into cans and had radicals banging them every day about the struggle. i think it's already, i fear it's already too late to have caught that in the deradicalization phase. you will now have to think about harder key measures but surely getting people back into syria you know, a settlement is urgent and serious i think for the humanitarian mission. we've got to get people back to their homes, to regionalize so the kids can go to school again.

>> we are many years away from that. all the way in the back of the shirt. >> marcus lee with the government accountability office. for the u.s. military training advising mission, simply what would success look like for both, i'm sorry the iraqi security forces, the kurdish peshmerga, a tribal forces training what would you say the milestones are metrics to show success? and then separate smaller question, what are your thoughts on the report some iraqi citizens believe that the u.s. itself is funding and supporting isis to attack against iraqis for the counter messaging part about? >> the benchmarks are always difficult at first of all i compliment secretary carter recently for talking about the fact the short of a right to recruit for the training package. i think you have to have benchmarks, some of them was a dramatic but there to the numbers of recruits the quality of the training, how many are

actually trained successfully, but the ultimate test the metric is their success on the battlefield for which they are launched. but the candidate a vote in many cases when you turned him from the ground. they do not have the sort of support only the united states can provide, which is command-and-control support. because whether we like it or not, we still remains the best on the planet at that sort of thing. as a result you have to have those measuring sticks. i think the other part is that in a suggestion to anyone is in the honest about this. i'm just suggesting it's important to be terribly honest about as they don't try to end up with, is really going well it's going great and and in six monthly if i don't really going well doesn't mean what you thought you meant when time. as a result its train and assist is very hard. some other children in this audience or very over of this. it's very difficult. that our cultural differences tiny differences, things we assume here in the united states into the training military that are just not a symptom of the parts of the planet.

as a result it requires a certain type of trainer, a certain person u.s. patients that, who knows, many industry may not enjoy. it requires linguistic skills and also support that are very, very important. i get also training effectively acquires the people who are the trainers to stay with us stay with it and stay with it and not just because been going home. you know how to shoot a writer, celia. estimate is working as part of what makes it so difficult. >> -- shoot a rifle. see you later. >> we have a question along the same lines with regard to isis ndp from iraqi citizens. >> the problem with the theory we helped form al-qaeda is that it has elements of truth. [laughter] so it's a little tough to rebut that one. it's amazing to me that in the face of evidence of american

inability to achieve results through a projection of power that people continue to believe that we are all powerful. so you know, you know if the americans couldn't get electricity going in iraq, plus about a plan not to get electricity going in iraq because they are the american spirit of courses they can do it. that has been extended. people look at isis and they think how the heck did these you know, teenagers, 23 year olds running rampant across our country? our army runs away at the capture american tanks. how could they do that with so the answer is it must be an american plot because the americans wouldn't let that happen. they would be crazy to let that happen. you could argue this is our last remaining element of genuine national power is that the way

the world thinks that we could a college anything we've given a decade, more than a decade of evidence. they still seem to think so maybe there's a way to use that. [inaudible] >> in the green shirt. >> thank you very much. based in beirut, lebanon. following what mr. ignatius was saying but in a different way there is a perception in the region about the seriousness of u.s. and coalition to fight daesh. forget the conspiracy issue. is it really priority for the united states and its key allies in the coalition in the region to fight daesh as the primary danger serious danger, the priority?

or let's say the potential influence of iran as a regional power? in the context of what's going on in the region. there's two camps the sunni camp and shia camp are fighting. that's the perception to a certain degree there is some signs of reality about that. so it is united states is capable of advancing fighting daesh, isis, or al-qaeda has been forgotten in yemen now over turkey, saudi arabia qatar, others who they have their priorities to settle in the region against iran or removing assad regime? who is driving the policy now? >> i'll take a first quick shot. that's a great question him and he goes to the heart of the u.s. problem. we are trying to mobilize sunni

allies to fight isis daesh who are more motivated to fight iran and shia power. that is the basic problem of our strategy. i talked earlier about some ideas i have about how to deal with that but i think you have identified the core not here that this is not a top priority for a weary united states and also isn't a top priority for our allies. >> ron marks. >> thank you guys. this is a wonderful session or david, you wrote an article be someone home executed some the challenges over there. given what's happened in the last few days in terms of the attacks overseas at this point how comfortable are you that we actually have the wherewithal and the understanding at this point about what kind of recruiting is going on in the years from isis and what kind of

actions might be taking your? >> i'm very uncomfortable. i do want to be an alarmist, but i've asked the fbi and the intelligence community in the last days whether they're concerned about a specific threat in the july 4 period, the answer has been no, we have no credible specific threat. just read the messaging. it appeals to lone wolves, go out to dozens of times a day and our manifestoes about how to make weapons, how to disguise your communications, how to hide, how to kill. it's all out there. ..