the gruound and people would sa this is unfortunate but not much we can do? >> we have had numerous administrations that had challenges in the middle east and i think part of the reason why we have isis moving forward is because there is a void. there is a void in that whole area. but we partially created that. you know, i was shocked, what is is interesting to vote is there is ongoing discussion at the un with secretary of state and president obama and president putin and no indication this was going to happen except for the hour before it was mentioned.

i think that in and of itself is problematic. i think in 2012-2013 the position of our country, our administration, and our defense department, as well as our allies was to remove assad and i think it is still our position to remove assad. i think it is clear the position of the russians is to keep him in power. my concern is creating a voice in the region and i don't know what the answer is today. but we will look at it over the next weeks and months. prior to president peutin's airstrikes he went to congress and requested an aumf and got hundred percent approval for airstrikes with no ground troops. here is what i can is pore an

important point -- and maybe i should not say a hundred percent -- but the president came before us months ago with an amuf, i always said the president shouldn't be using old aumf's to continue what is happening in the middle east and he did. and congress to this day is not acting on it. it has been sitting in our committees for the past three months. we need to make a decision in congress, and i think, bill, your point is well taken. we have to figure out what we want the administration to do and at this point we have not. >> and the other thing i want to note here and i am curious what martha and mark have to say about this is i noted in terms omp t-- of the public's awarenes national security is on the top of the list whereas in 2013 and

2014 before the significant rise of isis enveloped the national conscious people were not concerned about national security. i think with the news of russia and syria, and the refuge crisis in the middle east, the public is worried about national security. it is concerned about foreign policy. polling is showing that. and i think going into 2016 the presidential elections, this is a positive in the sense that people are paying attention to what the candidate's vision for national security is going to be. i noticed that as a candidate. did you guys? >> i definitely did. generally speaking it is not on the minds of regular people trying to have a job and food on the table. that hasn't been people are really dialled into generally. but the people who have positions in the military and

department of state whose job it is to make sure we have a safe world and strong foreign policy, they should be dialed in the it. some of the failures we saw starting in 2011 wit 1 w 1 w ii walking away from iraq, we were supposed to be making good decisions. and regardless of how you feel about 2003-2011. we did the all of the hard work with blood and treasure of the troops to win over the sunni tribal leaders and push out al-qaeda in iraq and we had a somewhat stable situation that created the opportunity for political resolution and we created the vacuum when we lef. we walked away and created the shitte government that is iranian back and filling the gap. and you have isis emerging from the chaos in syria and the

vacuum in iraq. many of the sunni tribal leaders are dead. we said we have your back and trust us and peel away from al-qaeda and they left them and we left them hanging to be slaughtered by isis. and then when we had the opportunity to actually address the threat of isis, when we saw it happened, before the beheadings of americans, that was the turning point, those of us involved in national security and the people whose job paid by the puerto rico -- taxpayers -- failed to address the threat. we could have militarily even gone in and put them on their heels. we could have used embedded joint terminal attacks and

better intel. we are using air but not using it in the way air power is intended to be used. it looks like we are getting our butt kicked. that adds to the foreign fighter and propaganda. we delivered a report on the task force on homeland security committee related to the countering fighter flow in extremist recruitment and this is a serious threat abroad and at home. >> >> since you are on homeland security, say a word. how worried should we be about that? >> i think we should. we see two divinity dfferent dy. similar ideas to al-qaeda just a different approach. instead of living in caves and using couriers they have

resources. estimated over 200,000 social media tweets a day. 30,000 individuals flowing from a hundred countries into iraq and syria. that we know. that is the numerator. 25,000 are from western visa waver countries. 250 americans. we have investigations going on in all 50 states. people are flowing in and out of the area and being a threat to us. they could come to one of the airports -- they don't need a visa if they are from a visa waver count rushlight -- rantry.

they realize it is time to take action and not the big ssensati attacks. the threat is real. not to say we have to live in fear, but we to be vigilant. thunk think about it, less than two dozen people in the federal government are focused full time on this project of counter violent extremism. we have 10,000 irs agents making sure you don't take an improper charity deduction buttwo dozen

people working on the security. the bad guys are acting at the speed of broadband and we are acting at the speed of bu burrocracy. >> it seems to me, just from the outside of the military, adapted during the post-9/11 world. i would say looking from the outside other parts of the government hasn't adapt much. it doesn't feel that could be the right adjustment for the

world we are living in. i am curious, i would say how much -- how optimistic are you about this? working hard and doing your best in a system that is limited -- >> i think to say we have had no progress in the last two decades is not fair. maybe moving at a slower pace than broadband, i agree. but i think we are the best nation in the world. for example, the new threat out there, not to pivot but it is important to talk about, the new threat is cyber. we are leading that challenge. we spent the whole week in the house focused on the cyber

threat and had two hearings, one yesterday and one on tuesday, loosing track of days here. i think we are bringing everybody together and i think we will have to work more like that. you would be surprised in derma terms of the cyber threat we are learning even within it department of defense there are silos among the branches still. not to say the least about the silos within the department. in order to eliminate or counter that threat, the cyber threat, we will have to work more closely in a department and throughout our entire government.

>> i want to comment about martha's quote. we had a hearing focused on the lack of social media and communication strategy to counter isis within the region. and it is not limited to the region of course. you can reach anywhere in the world using the social network. the bureaucratic apropproval process and the pentagon's lack of ability to work at the speed of technology today. this is something they identified and they need to win the message. this is not a five year fight. it is a generational and multi generational communication

argument. but 200,000 contacts a day and wedon't have a strategy to combat that? this is an example of how we need to modernize our functioning. i don't think nis is a problem just for the pentagon or state department. i think we need 21st century idea do is make us more efficient and effective. we have guys flying into iraq and syria, had a bad experience, and their testimony is powerful. these are the types of video that we can absolutely ou. we need to be highlights the threats over there in order to deter other individuals. the department of homeland security has been a focus of us

and they were cobbled together after 9/11. 33 different agencies cobbled together. we just marked up yesterday in the homeland security the first reauthorization of their department since 2001. one thing we are doing for border security is taking out of the example we saw with the gold water nickels act from being a serve pipe to more of a joint structure that we are moving toward a joint task force structure for border security to be able to bring the elements together, have joint commands, joint task forces nat are addressing the different regions and having a functional joint task force as well. i have an amendment to make sure we have training like we did in the military.

we are moving there. but it is certainly again taking a while. at the table, it is focusinging on the issue and other reorganizes. these are the things we should be able to move through congress. this is bipartisan legislation. get it through the house and senate. let's move it forward even if we disagree on other things. we can agree on these things and congress should be focused on those. if congress is sitting back and not doing their part, and not providing oversight to the agencies and direction to them, they are going to continue to operate the way that they have in the past. we have to also step up our oversight responsibility and stout bi stop bicker and get it done. >> i want to go back to what the polls say in terms of the

priority of the nation's people as it relates to the foreign policy. it is easy to look back and be the monday morning quarterback and see our failed strategy in the middle east and why isis has come about and the strength of isis today. but you have to look back and recall the mood of the country even when president bush was around was to get out of the most -- middle east and to leave iraq and afghanistan as well. the polls did not show support for our illitary being there. as a result of the polls, people in washington, d.c. and we were not here. maybe you can talk about it bill. but the people in washington, d.c. decided to start moving ouchlt bad chiism.

and the request for a new authorization of military force that will create the opportunity to continue to fight whatever that fight might be. we cannot relay on a decade old amu fush amf to fight in syria. let's figure what we will give to the department of defense as it relates to the middle east. gra congress is not giving clear guidance is the problem right now. >> i agree with you on the mood of the american people. if you had done a poll back them that is how they felt. but the definition of leadership is not doing a poll and

reacting. this is where it should have taken leadership on everybody in these types of positions not to just react but to actually lead and communicate why it is still in our vital national interest to be engaged and make sure we don't have failed states and vacuums and how that could come back to threaten us. i appreciate the dynamic but the definition of leadership is to step into the gap, inform people, engage with them and turn it around. >> we have the opportunity right now. yesterday the actions on russia with syria and everything are all up in arms. we have been asked to make a decision and we have not. >> one of the things that encourages me and i will close on this is many of the brightest and newest members of congress are focused on foreign policy and national security. 15 years ago, that was

considered sort of a weird specialty interest of a few people and everyone wanted to focus on other issues. that is not the case. and i want to thank you three for focusing on national security issues and i think it is good sign for the future of the counry and thank you for taking to time to talk to us. >> more from the foreign policy initiative. coming up michael b. mukasey is part of a discussion on intelligence and national security. this is an hour. >> good morning, again. chris griffin with the foreign policy initiative. it is a pleasure to welcome you back to our second session of the day with judge michael b. mukasey and representative mike pompeo and moderator ambassador

eric edelman

congressmanike al pompeo represents the irfourth district of kansas and sits on the house permanent select committee on intelligence, the committee on energy and commerce, and the house select committee on benghazi. after graduating first in his class from west point he was a cavalry officer in the ute army and later graduate from harvard law school. before his election to congress he was folk caused on the aero space and energy sectors. moderatingmoderating the converl be ambassador adeleman on the fbi board of directors. he retired as a career minister from the u.s. foreign minister

in 2009. thank you, ambassador, for moderating this conversation, and you to join me in welcoming orriceses today. thank you. [applause] >> let me say i completely agree that we couldn't have two better people to discuss terror intelligence and safety of the homeland today. i had the privilege of serving in bush 43 administration, with an attorney general can mccasey, and had occasion to sit in the situation room with him on a number of occasions, and i've always found him to be incredibly thoughtful and wise on these subjects. i learned a lot from him, and continue to be instructed by him in his occasional op-ed piece in the "wall street journal" and elsewhere which is some most intelligent things that have been written over the last few

years about the fight against terrorism. i also had the privilege of traveling to europe last winter with congressman pompeo, and also know how well informed and thoughtful he is in these issues, so i'm delighted to have them here today, and be able to moderate this conversation. let me start, if i could, by going back a few weeks to the debate at simi valley among the republican presidential contenders, and during that debate there was, i thought little an interesting exchange between governor bush and donald trump. in which governor bush made the point that his brother, president bush 43, kept the nation safe after 9/11 for the remaining seven and a half years of his term, and donald trump rejoined that, well, i don't feel so safe today. so, i'd like to unpack those things a little bit.

judge, can you talk about some of the things that president bush 43 did do during his team to keep us safe, and then could maybe both of you talk about whether donald trump has something of a point. ought we feel as safe today as we did during the bush administration? >> i think for one thing he focused everybody's attention. 9/11 focused everybody's attention but he made sure it stayed in focus, and his direction to the intelligence agencies was essentially to do what needed to be done within the limits of the law. and the intelligence gathering was right at the top of his list of priorities. there was a lot of legal back and forth with respect to that and we can tag about how much of that was -- how much of the objection to what he did was well-founded and how much was

not. trait, the -- at any rate, the intelligence gathering was a high priority, breath electronic and human. we have now gotten to the point where the principle discussions about intelligence gathering at all, it's about how intrusive it and may be, how it can be awe abused and so on. so there's an bulling back. and as ham as human intelligences we don't capture people, we don't -- we kill them. of course that's one way to get rid of the problem. on the other hand, doesn't get you a whole lot of intelligence, and general hayden, who was head of the cia when i was there, said, gathering electronic intelligence is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand people when the actual puzzle only has 500 and you don't knee which pieces

belong and don't, and when you get human intelligence it's like getting to look at the box. we don't look at the picture on the box anymore. we just gather the pieces and try to move them around and see which ones fit and which don't, and that's a -- not making our country safe. >> congressman, pompeo? >> i'd add with respect to -- you put in the context of the debate between governor bush and donald trump. i think it's accurate to say that president bush kept us safe. it's indisputable. i add to the his is the enormous finance operation that president bush set up in the aftermath of 9/11, that existed only at the most marginal level prior to that time and has -- did then and continues today to be an incredibly important tool in the intelligence collection arsenal for the total national security

intelligence infrastructure. we got information how money moves around the world, and you see this in the sanctions regime that we'll talk about later. so we need to give full credit to the president for proceeding down that bath and using the international banking system as another way in which to identify those folks who are trying to kill us in the west. donald trump just had it glad out wrong from a solution perspective but it's fair to say we are less safe today than we were now six and a half years ago. and i'm sure we'll talk about the myriad of ways that's the case. but with respect to terrorism and the counterterrorism effort we have moved an awfully long ways from where we were when this president took office and that has put us at greater risk in the homeland. >> maybe we can talk about that mukasey, you said the question arose how intrusive and much

within the scope of the law the steps taken in the bush administration, step us are in their patriot act with enhanced interrogation techniques and establishment of guantanamo itself and the holding of people as unlawful combat tans as oppose -- combatants as opposed to p.o.w. can you talk about the usefulness of those items and then circle back to the question about what has changed since president obama took office that has perhaps made us a little less safe. >> take them in reverse order. guantanamo, i visited guantanamo when i was in office, and i visited in february of 2008. i had also -- while i was a judge visited several -- forget

mask security -- medium security facilities in the united states. it compares with every medium facility i ever visited in this country. it has three advantages that no place in the country has. it's remote, secure, and humane. that's not to say there isn't any violence at guantanamo. there is. it's all directed by and large by the tenants against the guards and their landlords. flosh the point where the guards have to wear plastic shields when they walk down to the corridors to avoid the various liquids hurled at them. and the collection -- the collection of weapons that were farced by these people would fill the room when i was there and i can't imagine how many rooms it fills now. there was a belgian official who

dealt with prisons in belgian who visited guantanamo, and was supposed to have a press conference afterwardswards and t how horrible it was. he said he couldn't do that because it compared favorably with anything he had seen in belgium. the notion that somehow guantanamo is a hellhole or ever was is ridiculous. the notion that somehow we're going to be safer if we take people who are detained there, and bring them here, is also ridiculous because we have a cadre of lawyers by the thousands who have said they're going to use the federal court as a tramp -- trampoline for their energies and do what they took gum up the system, file as many cases as they can, challenging both the fact and the condition of imprisonment. whereas bottom line i think it is perfectly lawful to imprison

unlawful combatants. we had a is in in world war 2, a bunch of germans landed off florida and long island to commit sabotage. they were rounded up, tried in a military court as unlawful combatants, and convicted and other than the two who cooperated, they were executed. all of that happened within three months of the time they landed. interestingly when they land end, they landed in uniform. notwithstanding that the landing is the most vulnerable part of the operation. they buried their uniforms on the beach and changed into civilian clothes. the reason they did that, i think, is not simply because even the those days wearing german military uniforms would not have been seen as a fashion statement, even in the hamptons, but rather that when they landed

in uniform, if they were captured at that point they could claim they were simply enemy combatants, military, and should have been treated as military rather than as unlawful combatants so they waited until the last minute before the ditched the uniforms and changed interest civilian clothes. that line of authority i think has been forgotten and what we're now hearing is that, well, if you capture somebody who is clearly -- who is intent on killing americans, who is captured under circumstances that shows he had -- people obey the laws of war get treated in a particular way under the geneva convention. if you don't obey the laws of wore we tell you, we have a better deal. we'll take you to a court, give you a lawyer, give you a platform for your views, and who knows, the possibility of an

acquittal. i don't think that's a -- i think it's a counterintuitive message to send. so far as electronic surveillance and the interrogation method used, came late to that game. but what frankly bowled me over was the degree to which both of those issues had been lawyered down to a gnat's eyelash. you take a look at the memos disclosed by the current administration relating to interrogation techniques, and the analysis is detailed to the point of being excruciating. say what you want about them, they are based on law. they're not necessarily valid now because there's been subsequent legislation that then the governing statute was the torture statute. nothing that we did to anybody

that the cia did to anybody violated the torture statute. that was clear. so we have pulled back from -- we now have no interrogation program such that in essence -- we have told the people we're opposing that everybody is limited now to the army field manual. the army field manual is available on the internet and used as a training device by terrorists for years. if we had a classified program, at least people would be uncertain about what they faced when they were captured. the classified program could be a blank sheet of paper so long as they were afraid something might happen. now they know presicily what the limit -- precisely what the limits are and can train to them and do.

as far as electronic intelligence, all the purr up until -- all the pressure until the latest legislation has been toward pulling back the authorities and paring back the authorities, and i don't think that's the way to go. >> congressman? >> two things strike me about what judge mukasey said. these battles over electronic surveillance are not over. section 702, the patriot act is now 20 months out from being a lively debate here. if anybody doubts the importance of our ability to collect, i want you look at the fact that the man who took down the towers in 1996 is now in saudi custody. if you think that is just random, talk afterwards, but america has been collecting

intelligence about the men who killed americans for years and years, and at least in that case hiding in tehran for 20 years as a direct result of incredible capacity the united states has to find out where these folks are and chase them down and continue the fight. and with respect to guantanamo bay, this president is intent on closing it. he has reduced the number of folks. that is deeply troubling. what is most troubling is what the judge touched on, which is i'm certainly worried about the fact the back door is open and we're letting folks out and i'm worried we don't have a front door, and one is in in prison. we have atall la in a federal district court and a man with the last name kuhu who conducted terrorist attacks in benghazi, libya a little over three years ago, used to be sitting in

guantanamo bay, and you can see the dual impacts of the changes this administration has and he risk to terrorism in the united states which results from the fact we no longer have a place to do intelligence collection for folks who have committed terrorist acts against the united states. we might get to interrogate them for a handful of hours on a ship someplace but these are questions that need to extend that into hours and weeks and months to determine how the network is built so we can keep us all safe in the homeland. the last thing i'd say about this question began with, are we less safe today? isn't about any of those programs in particular. it's about america's perception in the world. so all the collection, all the intelligence, all the good work that our military and intelligence warriors are doing around the world fails when our policymakers let them down, and so you see all the things taking place. the previous panel talked about russia. you see all those things taking place in the world, and it is

ol'y ol'y ox in free. peep laugh and say, sometimes talk about someone like me and say you always want to use the military. for you, just have a hammer so everything is a nail. the truth is, we can't find any nails because we have no hammer, and are we -- our enemies know that. we have six major leaders, four of the members of the p-5 plus 1 go the u.n. and state the big lieu, and our president goes to the microphone and talks about how they're allies. that the most enormous threat from a terrorism perspective we have a mission unwilling to do the things around the world it takes to keep terrorism from us here in the homeland. >> i'm even last sanguine after hearing both sides of this. both talked in your responses

about our ability to intercept communications, and the role that the nsa has played in the intelligence effort against terrorism. what is your respective assessment of the damage that's been done by the snowden revelations and what can be done to remedy the damage? >> so there is -- but let me just step back. when we talk about snowden revelations everyone starts to talk about bulk data collection. we need to reset what mr. snowden did. 90-plus percent of the materials mr. snowden stole put those men and women in uniform back there at enormous risk. most of these were plain old

ordinary secreted. not about america behaving badly. this is hour our military operates around the world so many the single biggest risk from mr. snowden's stealing of the information and providing it to our enemies is that we now have to spend a lot of money trying to figure out how to keep the military members safe as the perform their operations robbed the world. this is wholly separate and apart from our electronic surveillance that captured the attention of the lefties at the "new york times" and became the story of the day. look, we'll piece the intelligence collection piece of this back there was a robust debate. i wish it had been conducted at a higher level but my colleagues-but we'll piece that back together. we will again make the case that it is important not only to protect americans' privacy but to keep them safe and we can meet both of those objectives ump i'm confident we'll build to a mails that we get the patriot act and all of it provisions

right, and we'll have a new leader in the white house that will be prepared to sign that, i'm confident, and when we do we will once again be in a place where i think we can feel confident that our fbi and our nsa and all the folks doing such hard work have the tools they need to perform their mission. >> i certainly agree that our intelligence gathering capacity remains far stronger than the intelligence gathering capacity of any other country in the world by a factor of several. that's not to say that the snowden disclosures were not literally incalculable damaging you take one piece of information and it's impossible or very difficult to figure out all the effectors that vectors with and calculate the damage. what he did was thousands upon thousands upon thousands of

those you. figure out the man hours devoted to figuring out what he disclosed, how it affects current programs, and who might have had access. you're talking about an enormous diversion of resources just to calculate the damage of his disclosures, wholy apart from the whole debate about bulk collection, which is misfocused the nature of his disclosures and also the focus of the debate. so, i think the snowden disclosures are just enormously harmful. >> judge mukasey, you mentionedd

the belgium official who came through. many europeans came through and all came away with the same view, that you expressed, which was the facility at guantanamo was actually quite a bit better than a lot of prisons with which they were familiar in their own countries. the president has said he -- one of his promises was to close guantanamo. the announced he would do it on the first day he was in office. he still hasn't done it. he has got another 15 months or so in office. do you think he is going to try to do this? how will he do it absent an ability to get congress to go along? and if he were to succeed in closing guantanamo, what would be implications be? >> well, interesting that you point out his statement the

second day in office he was going to close guantanamo. i think this video is still up on youtube if you watch it. i watched it live at the time and found it terrifying. he reads off the proclamation, the executive order, and he kind of stumbled through it by the power vested in me consistent with the national security -- so on. fortunately signs it with great flourish, and then he looked up and said, greg do we have another order here saying what we're going to do with these people? greg was a reference to greg craig, then the white house counsel, and voice offcamera said something about procedures. he looks looks into the camera d says we're going to have procedures up it was quite clear he hadn't thought through a substantial pillar of his campaign. had no idea how this was going to be done, and candidly, not a

whole lot of interest. what is being done now is to reduce the population, starting by fivesies by the time we traded five terrorist leaders for one missing -- service member. trying to come up with a polite word. now he is doing it by onesies and now we'll have an argument that analyzes the cost of keeping goon open on a per capita basis. obviously the way to change that is to put more people at guantanamo. you lower the per capita costs. somehow i don't think that's going to be the solution. the impreliminary -- impreliminary caution is they will either be let go to injure disks that can't supervise them and all will have significance because of having gone through guantanamo.

or they will be brought to the united states. and put in a prison someplace or several prisons someplace, and become the focus of a great deal of attention and of recruiting. not to mention what i said before, motions addressed to the conditions of their confinement and the fact of their confinement, and at some point they will come up with a federal judge who will -- having been one i will tell you they will find one who will let more than one of. the out, and we will then have people state side who will be able to do what they were doing overseas. not a pretty picture. >> let me just add -- i will leave here and return to the house floor and we will vote on the mda and ill will contain language which prohibits the united states from doing what he just contemplated. whether that will stop him, i don't know. we have seen many cases where the president has stared at a

statute and said, that's interesting, and continued to take the actions he thought as being appropriate, but just -- debate between the house and senate, certain republican senators even who had a different view than me about how guantanamo bay should proceed. but the language that is contained in the bill that will be presented to the president shortly -- and i assume he will sign because i think we'll get lots of vote inside the democratic votes in the sin story signed the ndaa, will prohibit him from doing presidencily what -- presicily what he promised to do. >> is it going prohibit from doing it or bar the use of federal funds to bring them here. >> it has a strict prohibition. whether -- there you go words on paper. >> because the prior bill that was passed barred the expenditure of federal fund, and it occurred to me he could probably either overseas or in

hollywood raise enough money to bring people here there wouldn't be any expenditure of federal funds. >> i actually haven't -- >> a constitutional lawyer. >> i have not actually seep the final negotiated hawk. there was to the house and senate going back and forth. i understand the prohibition is broader. whether there's a loophole for such a thing, one never knows. they paid mr. pagliano to run an i.t. system. this crew is pretty aggressive. >> let me try and draw both of you out a little bit on one more -- well, something i think is implied in what judge mukasey said in his response to guantanamo question and also earlier. wouldn't the closing of guantanamo also put into the notion we have any kind of capability to interrogate as opposed to find, fix, and finish

terrorist targets, and won't that exacerbate the problem you began our discussion with in terms of the lack of human intelligence collection on the terrorist threat, which i think would be terribly disabling to the effort to defeat terrorism? particularly the home leaned. >> could take us back to some of the bad old days before we had any kind of program that provided for our interrogation of people to where we wind up subcontracting this, to people overseas who are a lot less 0 scrupulous about how they treat detainees than we are. there are legal prohibitions on that as well, are there not? we can't knowingly turn people over if we believe they might be subject to torture...

only the quality of the intelligence will go down. >> let me just add to that. i think you are right. the fact that were not being interrogated. you talked about one potential release would be hand them over to the third party and turn

their head. the the other relief valve would be not to bother. think about it. we have all these different situations today where we know a bunch of bad guys did some bad things and were trying to find them. imagine you find them then what? so if you are part of the team conducting the operation to go find them. where does the incentive go to execute that mission key market because when you're finished your option is so limited right. of the bullet to your head or ship them out. neither of which is easy. i've had people come in time and again and tell me what your plan is when you capture someone at this place. i want to be polite but they are

confounded, there confronted with this very issue about what you do. how to maximize the value. how do you make it work the effort to pursue these bad actors? >> i want to go back on a point. intelligence gathering in an equal process. it is not simple the initial questioning, hours, days, even weeks. you take intelligence and go out and compare the facts and may be double back. find out something else, get a list of telephone numbers and people and go back to the person you talk to originally and get leads based

on what you did know the first time. it's a constant back-and-forth and their people at guantánamo and s elsewhere that divide useful intelligence years after their capture. that's not something we would be able to do. >> think both of you have essentially put your finger on something that has struck me in government as a potential paradox. the merrill qualms people raise about enhanced interrogation techniques put people in the position, and i think you're talking about this where rather than subject a detainee to harsh questioning, a slap in the face are being slapped up against wall, were going to kill them. that seems to me to be counterintuitive place to end up. that is where we are going based

on what both of you have said. let me send the intelligence gathering question for a minute. i know both of you have seen the reports the daily beats and elsewhere about intelligence assessments about isil. whether those have been affected by command influence, presumably in attraction to suggest that we are making more progress than what we are, or that isil is less a threat to the homeland than what it really is, et cetera. essentially in charge of the intelligence. recognizing the investigation is ongoing and therefore it's impossible to really have a definitive judgment about this, how worried are you that this is symptomatic of a deeper problem in the intelligence community?

with reports being detailed to a particular narrative about what is going on in the fight against terrorism. >> intelligence community over the last ten years, five or six at least, this is a process that is nothing new. the phenomenon that has been going on for decades. we call it cycles of aggression. the the intelligence community goes out and gathers intelligence in a very aggressive way, something goes awry and then there subject to criticism of the political branches and people's political careers are ruined, they pull back and then as we saw in the wake of 911 is forgotten. when you take a group of people

have been subjected over decades , something that has been going on in the intelligence community for a long time, this constant back-and-forth of standards, they are very vulnerable to suggestions of how that would come out. i am very concerned about that. i'm also concerned because the trove of intelligence that we got from bin laden's hideout has not been released. the suggestion is it hasn't been released because it conflicted with the narrative of the administration and what bin laden was or was not doing, who his relationships were and so on. >> to put it finer, very select

number of documents have been released. the bulk of it remains under lock and key. i'm sorry, i didn't mean to interrupt. >> there's been a suggestion made by more than one person that that would have disclosed relationships between al qaeda and the iranians which a lot of people and political life would say that's impossible. al qaeda are sunni and iranians are shiites and we all know they don't talk to each other so we get intelligence that can't possibly be accurate. so the fbi was at a meeting of the five family in new york, the five organized crime families, they're all out war with one another, they can possibly come to a meeting like that. it's a real danger. it distorts intelligence gathering. it exercises an influence on the people who do it. >> i'm a little burdened by

being involved and you talked about the issue sitcom. we'll see where it goes. your broader question about political influence of intelligence is difficult, often to we ask our questions and we try to get it right. one of the ways you can identify, in my view that intelligence is not being played straight down the middle and has been consistently wrong in the same direction, statistically am an engineer by training, the administration has been wrong every time on the short side of the threat. but as it being presented to the american people, that which has been shared has turned out to under estimate the risk associated with terrorism. whether that's from al qaeda or isis or any of the groups that

are identified as terrorist threats by the administration. they've consistently been wrong on the short side. that is what you see the complaint being alleged. that is a dangerous place to be. today we have an enormous commitment to intelligence collection associated with verification of the iranian commitments. again, we hear sec. carrie go on and say we have perfect intelligence on the history of the iranian nuclear weapons program and lo and behold, we find there is a report that the primary chamber where nuclear tests were conducted was missing. >> that's not perfect. >> i don't know the answers to each of those questions. but the report says the chamber is missing. it just tells you how challenging it is if you have

administration that refuses to share information in its entirety. and i don't do so in a way that is straight up. >> more broadly on the question of the intelligence community's performance over the last decade and a half under terror threat, how would both of you assess the overall performance if you had to grade it? what can what can we do to improve the communities performance? particularly other things that you and your colleagues, and congress can do to help improve the performance? >> our task is to provide them the tools and then conduct oversight. not over legal compliance but moreover their conduct in their task that are vigorous and in best we can. one of the joys of serving on the intelligence community is there no cameras in our hearing room. it is great because it is very different from hearings we had upstairs. not every trying to cut a video

for the home district. there is a more bipartisan effort there. that has been a real joy for me. i'm not sure how to grade, letter grade, i don't know that i have enough personal history. without seven norma's intelligent successes and some big gaps as well. i will tell you the men and women that i'm exposed to and whether they are the dia, cia, or working national tactical means programs, they are the finest americans i've encountered in the united states army. that always gives me great confidence at the level where the rubber meets the road, we have great people out there trying to keep us safe. >> i agree 100%. i'm not in a better position to give good grades.

i don't believe in that kind of exercise. i think they do the best they can under the circumstances in which they function. and the circumstances are difficult. particularly when the successes, you don't you don't read about them. you read about the failures. under those circumstances, my hats off to them. >> both of you have made reference to iran in one way or another in your responses. the joint comprehensive plan of action that was reached this summer in geneva between the five plus one would leave observers to believe hundred 50 alien dollar windfall iran when all the sanctions are lifted. there is been some debate about where that money will go, particularly since iran is the leading state-sponsored

terrorism and repeatedly verified as such. what you think the likely result of this will be and what steps in your view should be taken by the congress to try to mitigate the damage? >> life thinking this is a disaster. a lot of that money will go to rusher. when the iranians go shopping for stuff, a lot of which they need, one of the places they will get it is the russians. that will solve some of their economic problems as well. actually it will enhance the difficulties that we face with putin. and at this point he's doing it

with two sevens in his hand. there features of that arrangement that have not been talked about a whole lot. the iranians, if they believe that sanctions are not being lifted quickly enough they could simply pull out. there is no corresponding privilege that the p5 plus one half. the p5 plus one are committed to helping the iranians safeguard from not only accident but from sabotage their weapons facilities. so it's an interesting question, if we were to find out that somebody was planning to sabotage, would we be obligated to help them put an end to that

or warn them them about that. i'm not certain that we wouldn't. provisions like that are absurd. >> i want to put this in a little bit of perspective. the ministration has conceded that some of this money will end up going to the every terrorism program. but they minimize it sent the iranians will use the majority of it to improve their economy. let's assume that the administration for once in secretaries right. and they use that for the majority of their community. so i'll pick $100 million but they they use 95% of their money for the economy, 5% goes to export of terror around the world. so my mouth that is that's $5 billion, the leading operations of tear runs from a

budget of probably a little bit more than $5 billion. anybody want their budget doubled in the fbi. or anywhere else. this is an extraordinary amount of money for terror to have their money on. engaging with shia militias who have now gained the fight there. whichever organization and whichever place whether it's south america or some other place where tara they will not have free reign to do it and resources for company. it is a frightening proposition. the tear component of the agreement where the u.s. sits by and watched eu and un sanctions be lifted on men with blood on their hands, it is the morally

reprehensible action i've seen the administration tank and my four and half years of congress. >> to add what both of you have said, it's against the backdrop in which the 9/11 commission put aside the commission of the relationship between al qaeda and iraq. the 9/11 commission found there was an operational relationship between iran and al qaeda. there's some litigation going on now which some are aware of that deal with victims of the tower bombing that suggests that the iranians may have had some operational relationships with people actually involved with the planning of 911. so that's just to put a finer point on the tear connection. let me ask both of you one last question. then i want to get our audience

into the act. i will go back to the republican debates because that has come up a couple of times. one of the issues that come up is how we describe the terror threat that we face as a nation. clearly what we face now has evolved considerably from al qaeda organization that struck the united states on 911 to a more complex and difficult threat. how would you individually describe the threat that we face to the american public? >> simon kansas, i talk about the radical extremism, i think the high name is isis. there will be another one tomorrow. the list is long. they share a common theme and that common theme is an intent

to disrupt and destroy the west. a desire to do that and the name of the religion that they hold dear to themselves. they have developed some capacity to reach to someplace that is beyond their own locale. the thread has changed dramatic. when you give the director of the fbi talk about the fact that there are open counterterrorism investigation in all 50 states of the union, you know it has a whole affect to the homeland. we all need to be cognizant that this is not as donald trump would say, of problem for syria, but a problem for the united states of america. >> i think the source of the threat is the same as it was at the time of the first bombing in 1993 and well before that.

it is an islamic ideology that believe that it came out wrong. it is a theory based in a religion. it is is not without basis in religion. obviously there are other teachings of that religion that we would prefer another muslims prefer. but that need to work that out for themselves. on the other hand for us to deny that there is a religious claim with some basis of religious motivation is delusional. it's not other people being diluted, it is us being diluted. >> i want to make sure we get the audience in this so i'm happy to take questions.

>> i think there is a mike coming around. >> thank you very much to the fbi for convening this. ambassador, it is hard for americans to know what is the nature that we are facing in the middle east. yes they read the news, yet when not all things happen like soviet intervention in syria now, when stated intention from the russians to fatal attack isis seem not to be quite true, my question is, in order to enable the grassroots of our

country to make judgments about how serious is what is happening in syria, what should we worry about, and how do we deal with it? do you know whether or not there has been, what has historically been the case in administration, faced a new direction of threat task the intelligent community, tell me what their intentions are. well in tensions are hard. the intelligence committee can assess capabilities, tart understand intentions. but the question this is, do you know whether the administration has sought to learn what russian intentions are? and is congress in a position to help them out by tasking intelligent agencies to report on what it is we are

facing and as separate non- intelligence matter tasking the administration from the hill? you're still going to degrade and destroy, how are you doing that? the seem like reasonable questions for the american people to get an answer about. or some clarity about what the russian purpose. it seems to me this is a change in geopolitics. with russian ambitions going well beyond propping up the assad government which is bad enough, but establishing in the middle east which is more serious enough for president eisenhower to land the marines here. in short, could we be doing more to enable the american people to know what the dickens is going

on? >> i think that was addressed to me. at least in part. so i can say this, it is the case that the intelligence community is working hard to try to figure out precisely what the russians are up to. there have been open-source pictures of the extensive nature of the build up there. your conclusion i think is right. this is not about simply popping up the assad regime but i think that is a component of it. this is a fundamental fundamental shift that i believe mr. putin understands political just the same way as i do. my view is not to suffer for 15 months and he views it as an opportunity for that same time. he is wants to change and will

not have a foothold in the mediterranean for the for siebel future. you don't have to go to a republican it was a change from consistent u.s. policy, democrat and republican presidents alike that said the soviet, now russian will not have a foothold a foothold and will not be the regional power inside the united states. we now have the iranian russian access there. largely running free. yet i do view myself as having a personal mission to educating the american people the risk that that represents to the children and grandchildren and years ahead. >> did you want to add anything. >> let me point out that we have labored long and hard to get the russians out of the middle east.

they are now back in it with nuclear arms. >> it strikes me but this is essentially overturning 75 years of u.s. policy and acquiescing the reinsertion of russian power into the middle east is really a story that our friends ought to be covering. with a little bit more intention to the novelty of it in order to help the educational process you were talking about. >> there were two latebreaking developments with respect to install intelligence collection on the joint plan of action and iran. that was the iranians would be collecting samples and there be a 21 or 24 day gap between inspection and the actual inspection. both of those just castrate our

intelligence completely. it should should amend the deal completely invalid even amongst the most touchy-feely democrats. did you all failed to talk to democrat buddies and say there goes our intelligence, this thing can move forward? >> again to me. so anybody who has been watching this i was deeply engaged in an effort to ensure that the deal did not go forward on multiple fronts. 488 hours after the deal was struck where trying to understand what it would look like. it was he and i bet and i bet first learned of the two secret side deals. just the fact that there's an agreement that no american has ray, when you have members of congress demand to read bills and yet no american has read all of the

words that are contained in this agreement. napa not the secretary of state, not the president, no one in our state department, none of you, and yet we found a bunch of votes to support the deal. i personally spoke with over 80 democrats during the month of august. i called them all. some of them didn't know who i was. very little defensive the deal but an enormous amount of political pressure to support what the pres. was attempting to do. they will come to one of two conclusions. they would either hide behind this drawing argument of this or war or simply say this is where we are at and there's not much we can do and we need to make the best of what we have. i have add one other piece. these ideals, you said iranians would be able to conduct their own testing, we don't really know that, right. the terms of that collection are contained in the side deals.

the agreements, that will be the president for every undeclared site. it is now the case that the director has said yes it's true, the iranians pulled the sample themselves. i will have to ask the folks who voted in favor of the deal in the face of all of those facts. >> i think we we have time for one more question. >> during the bush administration seems like if you call someone in islamic asked dream as you're calling a spade a spade. right now russia has bombed some areas of syria where some rebel

groups are. i was wondering, on the one hand is it possible that russia could be raging war by proxy within islamic group putting its agents undercover and sabotage. on the other hand and middle eastern countries there's a conflict with saudi arabia and iran. where by proxy lebanon, or certain portions of the population will take sides with one or the other. both of those countries are islamic states. this would seem to be a systemic thing. what will you do to make both saudi arabia and iran accountable for their conflict in the middle east. >> i don't how to answer that. what you're asking what will we do.

>> i would make the observation however that if in fact the press reports indicate the u.s. government believes the russian airstrikes hit units trained by the united states, it does suggest a certain amount of effort on the part of the russians a number of folks trains is so small finding them in the country the size of syria strikes me as not, as i might have said in my earlier career, by accident. >> i'm prepared to say and i've said this earlier, the russians are not in syria to defeat isis. that is a fundamentally false narrative. >> i want to thank our panelists is somewhat depressing, i know

that both of the will continue to be important voices on the subject in the future. i appreciate your time you spent with us this morning. thank you. [applause]. >> more now from the foreign policy initiative. coming up will look at u.s. relations with asian countries. you will hear from senators dan sullivan of alaska and senator from colorado. >> the strength to lead. it is a pleasure to welcome you back to a session that will focus on the asia-pacific region where the united states has so many allies that asked the

question that gets to the heart of the form this year. will the united states retain the strength to lead in light of china's strength and their activities. to discuss this question is a privilege to be joined by senator gardner and senator sullivan, moderated in conversation by josh rogan. before introducing our speakers we want to take a moment to note a pair of publications you may have seen on your way in. fbi form policy 2015, and a joint publication with enterprise institution, the state of the military, at the fence. they provide briefings for candidates, legislators and their staff. the versions here are hot off the press. we have a few copies here and there are available online as well. the questions we try to address here, we are very fortunate to have two members of the senate to flush out for us today.

senator gardner was elected in 2014 to represent colorado. among his assignments is on the foreign relations committee and chairs the east asia pacific international cyber security subcommittee. previously, he moved from the private sector, he was elected in the house of representatives in 2010 where he where he focused his work on energy policy. senator sullivan was elected in 2014 and represents alaska in the united states senate. among his assignments he sits on the senate arms service committee. he's been designated as the lead for committee's oversight of the rebalance, and pivot of u.s. military activities in the

asia-pacific. previously he served as alaska's attorney general, his can mission or of natural resources. moderating the conversation will be josh rogan who is a bloomsburg view columnist. perhaps a little known fact he began his career as a journalist writing for japan's and of course he still follows the region closely. thank you josh for moderating, please, please try me in welcoming the senators. [applause]. thank you all for coming to the asian panel today. first rule of panels is we have 45 minutes to talk about asia so we will get right to it. i have about 30 minutes of opening remarks. >> so do we. >> we are right on schedule. i began studying asia even it was the gw. i was told this would be the

asian century. we are waiting on that 15 years inches there's still time. i went. i went to live in asia, studied japanese and i went to work for the japanese newspaper. i eventually hit with a call the rice paper ceiling, if you are the there is a upward mobility for you. i went to work for cq, congressional quarterly. at that time, this was there is a group of very senior well-established senators who cared a lot about asia, rick mugged them or take kennedy, richard lugar, john warner, all of the senate leaders are no longer the senate. i remember one particular story when i was covering the nomination of the u.s. investment that was being held up by brownback. i saw senator warren in the

hallway and he came up to me and i said what are we going to do about this. he puts his hand on my shoulder and he says to me, josh i fought in korea, i have friends that died in korea, i will always look out for the little guys. that's what he said. so now, we have a new generation of senators who are lucky learning about asia and wanted to be leaders in asia. we have two of the most prominent here today. we are very lucky. senator gardner is the chairman of the asia policy and international society cyber policy. let me begin with you for a few remarks. >> thank you. thank you for the opportunity to be with you this morning and for braving the weather. it looks like it may get worse

as they say the calm before the storm. thanks so much for a chance to me this morning. i look at what is happening around the globe and while our day to day focus seems to be, and rightly so, in the middle east. with syria and. with syria and russian activity, our long-term interests really do live in the asia region. if you look at what is happened in china over the last several decades and the last several years, it is remarkable what they have been able to accomplish. 500 million people out of poverty. the question is, what are we going to do to make sure rising china who wishes everything to be a great nation truly is a great nation. and sits alongside great nations that hereto international norms of behavior of all the rules of the road of a truly great nation. right now when it comes to questions of economy, when it comes to questions of security and expansion of the south china

sea, this you sign it china sea, cyber security, right now they are not meeting the goals they need to meet to become the truly responsible great nation that can be a part of a world that truly needs leadership on these issues. just last month i had a chance and opportunity to visit and china, and basic, korea, hong kong meeting with leaders and officials to talk about the challenges we face in the region. and the opportunity we face in the region. there are some tremendous opportunities. look at trends pacific partnership. right now if you look at what is happening the rebalance is seen primarily through the prospective of a military rebalance. we have to pass and put for ppp in order to move beyond the

simply military dimension of the rebalance. when you talk to people in the region, when you talk to leaders here, that is a one-sided is a one-sided policy right now that needs to be multidimensional. so we have opportunities, the challenges we face are truly real and could lead to greater conflict. if we don't take them seriously, what is seriously, it means we move beyond rhetoric on the south china sea and we move into action. serious moved beyond rhetoric on cyber security issues. we need to move into action. serious means that when comes to economic issues, whether international laws that could threaten the security of our corporations and when it comes to the billions of dollars of international property draft each year, which admiral blair predicted of the $300 billion of intellectual property threat, 80% came from china. we have to solve these problems. we have very serious issues if we are going to be a significant

partner in a region of the world that will represent half of the world's population, half of the world economy, and indeed the long-term future of international interest. >> thank you. >> thank you for putting this on. a little bit about my background. i view asia from a few different lenses. if you look at a map, alaska is certainly in asia's specific state. i was a state official in alaska, is out in china and japan and other places in korea with regard to our economic opportunities. i also served in the bush administration as assistant secretary of state in charge of the economic energy, finance portfolios under secretary rice. i spent a lot of time in china, japan, other parts of asia. also as a member of the military, a marine, deployed out

to that part of the world is a marine. i was then a u.s. senator very interested in the region, i've had had a few trips out there. i was at the shangri-la dialogue with senator mccain and senator reid, senator ernst, i did confirm with joshua saw there at a bar that whatever i said at the bar would not be quoted here as i is what he said at the bar or not be quoted here. >> are we still good to go on that. >> yes. >> just checking. >> so just a few thoughts from my perspective. i think all of you recognize that american foreign-policy is at its strongest when the executive branch and legislative branch are working together. when parties, democrats and republicans are working together.

that is certain away that if you look at her history that has been the traditional major foreign-policy issues. it's also way the constitution is set up. to share that authority. on the good news threat front on the rebound there has been a sense of bipartisan and executive, legislative coming together on that strategy of president obama. if you look at the defense authorization bill that just got out of conference, there's a strong amendment amendment in there it was amendment that i drafted that really focuses on the importance of rebound. past of the them service committee unanimously. as corey mentioned, trained.

a lot of us worked hard in the tpa vote which passed by one vote. a lot of republicans worked with pres. and his cabinet forward on that. the military rebalance is something i have been very interested in and people say hey maybe it doesn't exist. i think it does to some degree. then there's another element of the rebound but i like to talk about. not just military strategy but should also include energy. we have a huge opportunity in this country in terms of energy that we didn't have ten years ago. in terms of exports, exports of oil and energy. the asian economies needed and want it, it's a great way to deepen our economic and energy and security relationships with opening that element ever read down. i've been trying to convince the white house, cabinet and administration that this should be a three-pronged strategy. that is the good news. the bad news in my view is our credibility, even on this important strategy is starting to decline. like it is in a lot of the world in regard to america's

steadfastness on key foreign-policy issues. why? it is one thing to talk about your policy, it is one thing to make statements about policy objectives. it's quite another to act on them. the difference between talk and action is becoming quite apparent. it's starting to creep into our rebound strategy. let me give you one obvious and important strip example. when we were at the shangri-la i doubt dialogue. we made a point. we met with sec. carter, bipartisan bipartisan meeting, literally walking around the conference together, the chairman of the armed service committee, the secretary does fence, some of the new members like myself, we're doing that

purposefully. this is the united states, we are working together, bipartisan executive legislative. senator carter gave a powerful speech. if you read it, a lot of people were waiting on what he had to say. he was talking about south china sea, about our ability and call to fly and sail anywhere the way we have for decades. they even sent a submerged reef, whether it's built-up or not does not provide sovereignty that we need to respect. that was a strong statement. what have we done. well we are not following up on that. as a matter fact, a lot of people and i think it became clear in the committee recently he does it exactly but if you look at the testimony in that hearing, the military is interested in failing to my

secretary carter mentioned. including inside the 1212-mile limit of some of these islands. yet it's also apparent that the white house seems to not want to do that. i think that is a strategic mistake. we haven't done that since 2012. why does that matter? i'll finish with one anecdote that has a bit of a personal meaning to me. some of you have been an asian might recall what happened in the spring of 1986. i'll refer to it as the taiwan crisis. china had move forces close to taiwan and was shooting missiles in terms of provocation with regard to the taiwanese presidential election. president clinton urge to carry

her battles to the region, not one, two for a show of america it resolved. during the time there's a debate and i remember hearing on the radio a show, i can't remember what it was, debasing hey this is kinda provocative, someone else on the show said no we actually need to send naval shipping through the taiwan strait because right now china saying the taiwan strait is their internal waterway. i remember that because i was a marine infantry officer, lieutenant at the time on a marine associate. a very large vessel in the taiwan strait. we did send the ship to the taiwan strait during that time. it was a ship ship that i was actually on. those a demonstration of american resolve. was it risky? some some say was risky but others, and i would argue this, it's a lot riskier to actually accept de facto

pronouncements by countries that, in my view don't represent what the international community focuses on. we actually regularly do that still. as a u.s. navy. i think it is important to remember, we can't use our credibility in this part of the world. there are other allies in countries looking for american leadership. i think we have an opportunity to present it at work in a bipartisan way bipartisan way with the president on this policy. we need to boast our credibility, not undermine it. >> thank you senator i will start up with a few questions i will go to the audience. following up with what you just said, you noted that u.s. has not operated within 12 miles of those disputed territories. i think think the testimonies said in 2012. yet last month, chinese ships were found to be operating within 12 miles of your space. today it was announced that china has quietly begun

construction on the first mystic aircraft carrier. from your position what you think it is china's strategy here and what should the u.s. due to response. >> i asked the question and obviously it's kind of interesting to me as an alaskan senator to be home when china was sailing near my great state. it's interesting. the question i had asked was if that was a provocation? because we had a certain visitor in alaska at the time, his name was president obama. i was serious and i said you think this is a coincidence or do you think it was a provocation? i don't exactly they clearance and to be honest i don't think anybody knows. the only issue there i thought the department of defense response was almost muted. it was almost apologetic.

hey there bye alaskan is not a problem. in many ways it's not an issue but it is very interesting. it's an extent of deployment for five chinese naval ships. those of us who are encouraging a navy response that is within the 12-mile zone of the submerged reefs that have been built up are not doing it to be provocative. were doing it because otherwise we're going to essentially let facts on the ground change the situation and we will be, and many many ways de facto recognizing what i think certainly or military and most of the other members of the foreign policy of the united states, don't recognize. secretary carter didn't recognize it.

so i think we need to keep a close eye on this issue. >> sender garnet you mention excellent cyber. the the biggest topic on the recent summit was cyber policy. they claim to to have signed the first-time controls agreement for cyber. the biggest hack of federal information in u.s. history was when the chinese took all the personnel data from opm. we heard they would be sanctions, then there were gonna be sanctions now there might be, now there might not be. what in your valuation on the response of that hack, do you think this agreement is a real thing or is it just windowdressing a what should be done next? >> i think there's a commonality in my opening comments and as response to the first question and the response to the cyber question. we have an administration that continues to lead from behind. the president is taking the

shift cyber security very seriously. it's going to define for generations our security policy, personal privacy issues, in fact it so serious that he is actually the head of this new cyber committee. in china. i met last month with the president china to talk about what they're doing. this agreement that was reached last week, time will tell what it is, doesn't do anything about opm. it doesn't address those issues at all. raise your your hands if you think the chinese have your fingerprints. exactly right. there is nothing publicly stated, either before the event or after the summit about opm. this agreement, this agreement, was a modest first step about economic and espionage, only time will tell about how much information were going to give to them and how much information will get back. we.

we also have to recognize under the new security laws that china is a process of putting in place, will they simply ignore the cyber agreement because they'll say it's against our new cyber, national us on security. so we need to have tough public diplomacy when it comes to cyber, we still don't have that. we could have called an ambassador, the president should have talked about it long before august recess came around. so again, this is the first of many steps that need to be taken. i personally believe that congress has to do a better a better job. right now, you mention i'm the head of the new foreign relations subcommittee on east asia's pacific and cyber strategy. so we have foreign relations and now a cyber component. homeland sick security with a

cyber component, commerce with a cyber component, we need to have a select committee committee on cyber policy in the senate that can take the heads of these committees put them on a committee, so we can have a whole government view about what we should do a cyber policy. we have an amendment pending to the cyber bill that requires the state which doesn't yet have a cyber strategy. then we should review the 2011 framework because we haven't had one since 2011. >> went to the chinese officials say to you when you met. >> i think i agree that he would come to my hometown and i would go to his hometown and that was part of our conversation. we also talked about how they would like more information about what we think occurred. it's a sign that they are not taking us seriously and cyber policy. we just can't throw at the

source of the 12 miles on and they use words to try to describe how this is against international law. we can't just just throw new policies at china without backing them up. we need to have sanctions, we need need to pursue sanctions and we need to continue making sure we're not just talking but actually acting. >> thank you. how are we doing with our arctic policy, what what else needs to be done and what do you see the asian powers including china russia doing question mark. >> we are not doing well. this is become a new area, you've seen the press reports significant increase in the interest of major powers like russia, china and for good reason. it is looking like it is been a very important transportation route for the entire globe. obviously it's a place of norma's resources.

so you see what has become quite in many ways shockingly military in the arctic particularly in regard to russia. so in the last year they have start up a brand-new arctic command, for new gate combat teams in the arctic. thirteen new airfields, and conducted an exercise which took a lot of us by surprise. it was enormous by any standards, probably, probably one of the biggest arctic exercises in decades. what are we doing, the department of defense has announced they're going to remove the only airborne brigade combat team in the asia-pacific and the arctic. that happens to be based in a

alaska. i happen to think that's not good for my state but i also don't because good for the national defense of our country. we are acting, congress is acting. another amendment that i put forward and again was unanimously approved by the committee, there'll be a provision that requires the department of defense to put together an operations plan for the arctic. for those of you who understand what that means, that's a serious endeavor. to seriously look, right now we have in the department of defense as a defense strategy is seven pages are pictures, there is a footnote one mentioning russia. climate changes mentioned six times in the strategy. it's not a serious strategy. congresses demanding that we do have a serious strategy we need to work with our allies.

i think we're acting, i think you are going a lot more activity, armed service committee will hold a hearing in the next two months on our arctic strategy and the importance of it. congresses pain attention, even secretary carter has admitted how key the arctic is and how we are late to the game. we need to catch up. >> thank you. you just came back from trip including hong kong for about one year from the beginning of the pro-democracy protests that took over hong kong. can you give us an update? you what is the state of that movement. was any real progress made and is there any possibility of further unrest? >> i think think there is an article in the new york times

about the protests that occurred with tens of thousands of people. they came together and spontaneously. i met with protesters, i met with council members as well as chief executives in hong kong. i can tell you there's great concern about the future of democracy, the region and what it means to have autonomy. if you look at freedom of the press, for instance one of the index has removed freedom of the press from the most repressed rules policies in the world to somewhere in the 70s. >> i'm not. >> ..

how they are going to promote democracy in hong kong and how they have maintained law. again, we have to make sure that they are constantly standing behind hong kong and making sure that the agreements that are entered into are matched and met and that there is no backsliding >> do you believe the obama

administration attitude and statements have been robust enough? >> i don't think the obama administration's actions have been robust on the archive for diplomacy. >> you mentioned taiwan. i will not remember a time when there was a lot of discussion about taiwan. legislation pushing 1st of armaments. it seems to be out of the news. what is a responsibility of lawmakers, especially on these relevant committees, to continue the us commitment to taiwan? >> i don't feel it has been advocated. you know, it is an important component of our overall strategy. as you know, the involvement of the congress, the senate and the house of played an important role in terms of shaping an element of

american foreign-policy. as i said at the outset, it is one of those areas that has gotten a lot bipartisan support, and that is where we are the strongest. on that issue i don't seei don't see a lot of daylight executive branch and congress are now, but i will mention this to broaden the.of your question, you know,, you know, we have a lot of focus on the middle east, a lot of focus on terrorism, a lot of smart foreign-policy former officials, current foreign-policy thinkers you that the rise or somewhere say the reemergence of china in the asia-pacific as the number one foreign-policy and national security issue of the united states and our allies are the next generation, and i have to agree with that.

ii think it is a huge opportunity. it should not all be negative. there arethere are huge opportunities to work with china on a whole host of issues, and there are obviously challenges. we had the opportunity last friday to meet with the president she's in pain when he came to congress call one of the five republicans who got to sit down with them. it was a very good discussion, but he had talked about and ii had given a speech on the senate floor a few hours earlier, he has been using this term called the lucidity strap, a term coined by graham allison and harvard about when you see in history rising powers challenging and established power that historically it does not turn out so well. ii wrote about the peloponnesian war which was

with sparta and athens. the pres. ofpresident of china is talking about this in a speech to us. he is against it. and so should we be. i think it is actually a serious issue. the seriousness is two things. we as a federal government, government, as partners need to be paying a lot more attention, but this seems a little and congress in a broader discussion, the most important where we avoid the trap is being started home. the strong economy, traditional levels of american economic growth. this is something that ultimately is going to underpin so much of my view of foreign policy in asia, our military, the key which is often something that is overlooked. we keep throwing at these

horrible low rates. there going to have problems overseas. >> very quickly, what was your impression? >> we talked a little bit about cyber. i think the yen the foreign minister they're along with a number of other officials in the. you have a lot more work to do, and it will take more than an hour or hour and a half to break through on these issues. whether it is hong kong and voting rights, cyber administration policies, we have to engage. >> firm in his beliefs. that is why we can't just

simply back away or talking to rhetoric. we have to back it up with action. that is why it is important we backup. sale will fly, and operate. >> firm and unyielding. >> it was a good meeting, direct in both ways. members of congress, democrats and republicans asking direct questions. >> what do you think of the man himself? >> very committed to his country and somebody who we are going to need to be focused on dealing with. i think he was direct and i think we were direct, and in some ways that is useful. i will say, i saw a transcript of his press

conference with president obama in a statement along the lines of we don't gauge cyber theft things like that. you know, i'm not sure that is the prevailing view in the us. seriously, this kind of statements, that does undermine his credibility. >> did you think he lied? >> you said that. >> we will leave it there. hands for questions. let us know who you are in your affiliation. >> yes. i am russell king, retired federal employee. he built employee. he built man you have you both met with beijing chain. there were some churches

destroyed in coastal province. he blamed that on his predecessor. also, i think they have pictures of chairman mao in china. after world war ii they're were jewish investigators. it has been a lot going on. back in the 18th and 19th century there was something called the kowtow whereby european leaders and therefore has down to show obeisance to the chinese ruler. is that too much right now? i have never known a chinese leader to be accountable for atrocities at all. >> you lazy really good. this goes back to my initial.of a bipartisan strong commitment of the

legislative and executive branch. that is with regard to human rights particularly dealing with authoritarian regimes. a tradition of us foreign policy for decades. i witnessed it. i was in meetings. president bush raised these issues. one of the disappointments of the administration and the press and everything is how they downplay that element of our relationship with china. that is not a way to advance our interests as a nation. i think that has been a strategic mistake because it looks like then we do not care command we do. we need to show that to our leaders.leaders. i think we have not done a good enough job