and it seems we should let a few more months go by to give success a chance. if we can break syria away from iran and deny iran a back door to hezbollah and hamas and lebanon and to israel, that will be an additional huge tragedyic blow to the iranian regime. i think we have a few for months. i would urge our president obama to make absolutely clear that he will act, act, use the military component if he has to to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon. >> we could spend the entire poonl time talking about iran. i imagine we'll hear a great deal more in the next couple of days. including soon about the israeli

assessment. let's move to syria, in the midst of horrific -- down 8,000 as a widely circulated figure of people killed by the regime. what does the instability in the north mean for israel? ironically it's been quiet border for decades. but first, let's address a word about iran. it's important to keep in mind the iranians have taken a decision they've taken the decision. the decision is to do everything so they get as close, within reach of a breakthrough, which will probably take 60 days, no more. between business of the iaea. they will be able to enrich uranium. so this decision has been taken.

it's a quiet decision. the devil we do not no in syria is better than the devil we know. we know him. we've seen him in action. the nuclear reactor. and i believe from an israel perspective, breaking the axis between syria and iran is expreemly important. i do not share the concern of many that syria is found to fall under the leadership. syria is a consistent of 40% minorities 10% christians.

et cetera. it's going to be difficult for the muslim brotherhood to gain victory in syria. from an israeli point of view, let us go. >> then let be specific. how can they get rid of this? is military intervention something that should be considered? >> i think military intervention would be very difficult there. and we would lose the world coalition that we put together with the tragic exception of china and russia to support regime change. i did suggest that the example of yemen might be worth looking at. six months ago i would have said yemen was the most dangerous place on earth.

that's will ever he took down al aki and inspiring some in our country to engage in acts of violence. but in addition to that, what twe did was help broker personal immunity for the 40-year dictator in yemen. i'm persuaded he committed war crimes against his part-time. the better course was to get him out of there. he's now headed to exile. there's been an election of his former vice president who has universal acceptance in the country. the acts of violence have stopped, more or less. the united states still has access to curb any al qaeda people who hay be hiding out in yemen and intend to attack u.

even though i have the same view as you do about the atrocities committed, i think we would keep that country from careening into civil war. we would break it away from iran. and that would be a big component of the strategy to change policy from iran. >> the question of the potential collapse. it's indication of hezbollah and indication of iran. >> i will also that, david, but i want to go back to iran for just a moment. it's such a hungly important issue. the test is not when will iran get a testable weapon. the red line must come much sooner than that. >> absolutely. [ applause ] and the president's interview, while interesting, is not a policy. and everyone in this room knows that president obama and members

of his administration have spent many, many months now issuing public statements more focused on containing israeli action than they have been on [ applause ] i think everyone on this panel and everyone in this room hopes the military action can be avoided. the only way to avoid it is if iranians understand we will stand firmly, shoulder to israe that we will in fact take military action if necessary. >> let me ask you very quickly to address the syria question. the consequences are for the nasa regime, for iran. for hezbollah. >> clearly as jane said, it's in

america's interest for assad to go. it's in israel's interest. and it will hurt iran. iran uses syria as tow hold in the arab world, as a place to funnel weapons and money to terrorist organizations, and it's past time for assad to go. having said that, the departure is necessary, but it's efficient. we have to be concerned with what comes next. here again, i think it's important. it's a complicated situation. a complicated set of circumstances. we nid to work closely with the opposition in syria. we ought to arm the opposition, in my opinion, today, and we should work with them to ensure

the muslim brotherhood does not follow assad. they face a threat from hamas and the reconciliation between the palestinian authority. what is the thinking? >> i don't think aye been asked before to speak for the palestinian authority. so i don't know what his thinking is. i think it's absolutely clear that the message from washington, d.c. publicly must be the palestinians will never have a state with terrorists in their government. >> i agree. >> can israel be skppted to negotiate with the palestinian government that includes an

unreformed hamas? >> no. absolutely not. but lit me disagree with liz's comments focusing only on containing israel. i think the administration has done more than any in history to help israel protect herself. there's a ten year, $0 billion commitment. $3.1 billion in this year. there's over $600 million to be spent on missile defense. twice what was spent in past years. 200 million dollars on iron domes, which we all agree is already saving lives. and unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation between our countries. i agree it is important for president obama, who will speak here soon, to get the israelis and the iranians to believe he

will act in the military component. it's important for him to gain that trust. i think the way to do it is to make clear that he will act. so the strongest possible communication is necessary. in the end, we sourld coalition supporting sanctions against iran. the sanctions have not fully taken effect yet, and if we can find the means to stop iran, op nuclear weapon short of military action i think we could prevent something that's been hard for the country. it's much easier to go into a

country, than to leave it, and we have paid dearly in tas the those places are still uncertain ft it's very upsetting that the head of iraq, maliki, is pro-iranian. that's very troubling. it seems to the extent we can be clear eyed and focused together on a mutual set of red lines. using military force if nothing else works. it's the best way to change the policy in iran. >> now i hope we can cross to jerusalem. some on the ground insights. we can go live to the diplomatic correspondent.

what threats most concern you? morning, david. >> good morning, rafael. of course, everybody is talking about ooimpb, and we are very well aware that the ahmadinejad regime is inching towards a nuclear weapon, and we are keeping an eye on the situation, and of course, we're looking toward to what's being discussed at the conference and the meetings between president obama and prime minister netanyahu. and the camp is split between those who feel israel needs to launch a strike or perpetuate a way decided in 1981, when israel established it will not tolerate the hostile neighborhoods acquiring nuclear weapons.

the consequences would be so dangerous, it better be thought about twice. and the defense minister also spoke recently about possibly 500 casualties in case of such a retaliation. so we are very wary of that. on the other hand, it would beh panicking. they're not panicking. we're just keeping an eye on the situation. they have a marginal phenomenon as of late. and the israelis feel pretty safely.

finally a word on egypt. of course, we're very worried about it. in egypt the peace treaty is very important to israel strategically. we remember when was attacked. and still not back in the original place. the new ambassador gave last week the credentials to the leader of the territory. hands were shaked. words were exchanged. they told the ambassador it's important for the two states to maintain the piece signed in 1979. >> thank you. that's bacin the office

on wednesday. for 30 years they've been planning security strategy with a secure southern border in mind. with the israel had to rethink the baseline for defensive needs. so first of all, do you think that the new egyptian government as it takes shape will seek to uphold the peace treaty? >> i believe they would like to preserve the peace treaty. everything indicates they don't want to bury the treaty. there is talk about amendments, which is very dangerous. the amendments have to do with the restrictions on the egyptian deployment in the peninsula. here's the point.

israel has an interest now in allowing and in accepting a different deployment of the egyptian army. that is closer to the israeli borders. for the simple reason that the peninsula is three times bigger than the state of israel. the black hole in the triangle of peace. it's full of meddling. the the machine gun. they write poems and songs for the toyota. it's a different situation. and egyptian police. in most parts of egypt. so i think there is a possible to work out a new arrangement

with the new regime in egypt. in one sentence. we have an understanding going for over a decade with the egyptianses. it's led by the u.s., which allows for the parties to change the deployment of each of them along the border which mutual consen consent. >> we're very short on time. i want you to give us a prediction about the middle east and what we'll be talking about at the conference next year. you have 30 seconds. >> i think there's clearly a lot of debates here about policy and which way we ought to go, particularly with respect to iran f i think it's very important as you listen to the

rest of the speakers here that you remember there are facts. and one fact is that there is no president who has done more to d legislate miz and undermine the state of israel than president obama. i have a quick prediction. it's fompbtd preb what president obama said when he wept to cairo in june, and in 2009. and he equated the holocaust i predict that when we meet here next year for the policy conference it will be to celebrate a restored, american-israeli relationship under a brand new american president. [ applause ] >> jay, i'm going to ask you for your prediction. i'm going to try to do better at sticking to 30 seconds.

>> i think it's a grave mistake, as i said at the beginning, to turn support of israel into a political football. and i won't. my prediction is the world community will stick together on iran. and by the end of the year, this is a game changer year, we will come together to the right answer about how to stop iran. also we must pay attention to pakistan. it's a military force attacking groups inside of pakistan. last brock buster was ally from hics ll and made the point there are six nuclear sites in pakistan not adequately protected sochlt this matters to

israel and to apac and to the united states of america, too. >> half a minute. next year's prediction. >> i think by countries in which the arabs are transforming themselves for the first time in history, from subjects to citizens. and we in israel should applaud that. number two, i think that next time this year, we will be able to judge better whether it's democracy, which is coming to the arab world or some systems of anarchists, which sun fortunately a possibility. and the third thing, we will still be debating the iranian nuclear program, only the iranians will be quite a bit ahead. >> okay, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, so much for your attention this morning. and i want to again thank our

panel for their thoughts and insights. we look forward to continue thing discussion for the next two days. thank you very much. [ applause ] coming up, c-span3 continues its look at nuclear weapons. next, a discussion on the national nuclear safety administration. the agency responsible for securing nuclear weapons and materials. then, former defense secretary william perry, george schultz and former u.s. senator sam nunn on the current threats posed by nuclear weapons. after that, we switch gears for a discussion on politics, activism and the occupy movement, hosted by a group of the san francisco 99% coalition. earnest hemingway is considered one of the great

american writers. but not many people know of his work as a spy during world war ii. >> there were a couple of instances he was aware of german submarines approaching fishing boats saying we'll take your catch. so he says i'll wait for them to come alongside and we're going to lob hand grenades down if open hatches and the other members of the crew will machine gun the germans on deck. >> "hemingway the spy," sunday night at 8:30, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. every monday morning at 9:15 eastern time is our featured segment "your money." that's when we put the spotlight on a federal program, who's involved and how much it costs. today we look at the agency that secures nuclear weapons and materials. our guest is todd jacobson, a

senior reporter there. what is the mission of the national nuclear safety administration? we hear so much about the different agencies that work on nuclear issues. what does this one do? >> there's several different parts to the mission. the main part is really protecting and maintaining the weapons that we currently have, the warheads. that's probably about half of what they do. then the other part is kind of -- there's two other parts. there's the operation aspect, the whole $2.5 billion account in charge of securing nuclear material around the world, so they go to various countries, upgrading security, making sure that other country's material can't get into the hands of terrorist. sometimes removing some material. and then the naval reactors work that they do, which is the

reactors that power our nuclear submarines, they're in charge of kind of the upkeep and the maintenance on that. there's a threefold mission they have. >> what has to be done to upkeep and maintain nuclear weapons? >> well, it's not something that you put on the shelf and leave. there's researchers and scientists that constantly study them. they're constantly looking to answer different questions that they don't know about them. we're in an era where we can't test our nuclear weapons. there's been a moratorium since the '90s, so there's a lot of computer simulations done to make sure what we have is safe, secure and still would work if they had to be used. so there's various sites around the country that are in charge of kind of examining the weapons that we have. every year they take apart some of them to make sure that

nothing is going wrong. i don't have a clearance or anything, but what i'm told is, you know, they make sure there's no rust or nothing happening. because it's been described as little chemistry experiments sitting on the shelf. so there's the potential for different, you know, problems to pop up. and they do. those are classified. and they kind of answer different questions about them. >> do we still build nuclear weapons? >> no new nuclear weapons. what we do is we maintain what we have, and they also refurbish them. so there's an e. right now to refurbish one of our warheads that goes on ballistic missiles to add security features, add modern technology it to. but it's not a new nuclear weapon in the sense of new missions or a higher or lower field or anything different. it's a weapon that's in our

existing stockpile that they bring in and they just add kind of modern stuff to it, making sure it's safer. that's an effort that will be going on for decades. we're at a point where our cold war nuclear weapons are aging. what they say is -- what the officials at the nsa say, what they say is the stockpile is the oldest it's been in decades. so that's the focus is upgrading everything. >> todd jacobson, senior reporter at the nuclear weapons and materials monitor. he covers the agency, that's the nnsa. we're talking about its funding, since this is our "your money" segment. the obama administration asked for $11 billion. tell us how the budget breaks down. >> of that money that they ask

for, they've asked for $7.6 billion for the weapons program, where they're doing the upkeep on the weapon, they're taking them apart. that also supports the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, there's three of them in california, new mexico and in albuquerque new mexico. there's a whole cadre of scientists that are constantly studying these thing. that's a large portion of the budget. $2.5 billion goes to the nonproliferation account. $1 billion to naval reactors. there's a program that's about $500 million a year, called the global threat reduction initiative, where they're going around the world and securing things. i mentioned that earlier. a couple years ago they were in chile, taking some highly enriched uranium, which is potentially a security threat, if it's not secured right.

so they were taking it out of a reactor there and bringing it back to the united states where we can take care of it safer, we know terrorists won't get ahold of it. there happened to be an quake during the whole operation, but there's logistics that have to go into making sure that's secured when they're moving it, making sure it's safe and no one knows ahead of time that there's no security threats. so that's a big part of what the nonproliferation group does. >> this idea about going overseas to deal with nuclear we pops. are you as taxpayers paying to clean up russian and loose nukes, anybody else want our tax money? >> that's a common criticism of why are we paying for these things? the whole goal of the last three or four administrations is to take a leadership role in all of this. it does become a concern of ours if russian nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons in pakistan

aren't secured. because the likelihood of a terrorist getting ahold of it increases, and therefore there's a risk for us of a nuclear weapon potentially being detonated in one of our cities. that's why there's been programs like the nonproliferation program, there's a program in the department of defense that does the same thing, and they've done a ton of work to secure specifically in russia, make sure everything, physical security, make sure that is up to par, kind of like we have in this country. it's a responsible approach to securing nuclear weapons around the world. if we weren't doing it, you wonder who would be doing it. so that's kind of why we've been proactive on that front. >> michael republican in jackson, ohio joins us on the phone. good morning. >> caller: good morning. my question, there were consistent reports during and after the cold war that the