the second thing is, we've got to take care of our customers and the third thing is we've got to take care of the people that give us the $26 billion in capital that we have at work at our airline. and if we can do, take care of those three constituencies and build a business model where fuel isn't the independent variable but it's a dependent variable, we will be a much more successful enterprise over the long run for those constituencies that matter. so that brings me really to the conclusion, which we'll leave five minutes for questioning because i don't want to have carol shoot me. i thought i would read you the statutory objectives of the united states department of transportation. encourage efficient and well managed air carriers to earn adequate profits and attract capital, promote, encourage and

develop a viable private lit owned united states air transport industry, at least ensure quality with foreign air carriers for u.s. carriers. eliminate discrimination and unfair competitive practices faced by united states airlines in foreign air transportation. so the law is on the books. and i would just hope that we would all bring to bear, given the importance of this industry to our communities, to the manufacturers here, to all the constituencies, that we would all get behind nick in making certain that a national airline policy becomes our priority. because if you look back over the history, we have two great examples in our country of similar transportation industries. the shipping industry, which we don't have one anymore. we don't make ships except military ships in this country. we sort of made a decision that

we weren't going to really be in the maritime industry anymore. so we have very few u.s. flag vessels and we don't really have shipyards anymore. and it's had a significant impact because oil rigs are ships, right? so the oil rigs end up made in korea on a lot of other places. and then on the positive side, we have the railroad industry. the railroad industry was facing a really pretty cataclysmic situation 20, 25 years ago. i actually have one of the pioneers of that era on my board, david goode, who's the chairman and ceo of norfolk southern for years and years and guided his railroad through that. and the congress decided to pass the staggers act and another act, twos important acts that established a national railroad policy in this country and now we have -- it allowed consolidation so there's two railroads east evident

mississippi, twos west of the mississippi, but we have among the lowest rail rates and high ye highest safety of any rail systems in the world. i think we have that opportunity. and it's not about grants or aid or any of that. it's just about setting up the right policy structure around the united states airline industry to give what its competitors overseas have, which is a fair shot because when we get a fair shot against our foreign flag competitors, we win. we win. we win. so with that, carol, a few questions or am i done? >> no, you have time for questions. and actually, i'm going to take advantage of the opportunity and ask the first one. because this afternoon, marian blakey is leading a very interesting panel on unmanned space flight, nonmilitary.

it is a panel for which you will not be present. and i would like your thoughts on whether or not we're going to see unmanned space flight on commercial airplanes that would, obviously, mean fewer pilots. >> yeah, not in my lifetime i don't think. you know, i thought when i heard the other folks talking about that on the panel right before, it brought to mind something. this past -- a week and a half ago, i get all these -- you get all these e-mails and pages when you run an airline so you're sort of in this constant 24/7 loop of what's going on around the world. there were really high cross winds in norita. we fly a lot of 7437 400s into nor rita. and they were right at the minimum cross winds. so it was near gale force. but it kept dropping below.

and one of our crews was coming from detroit and they missed two approaches into narita, and shot an alternate approach into another airport in tokyo. i was pretty glad there were two deltas senior 747 400 captains on that flight. i was actually proud of how they handled it. so that may be for some of these young people, whoever the speaker talked about that are video players but i kind of like a couple of delta captains up there. >> i know lee would say the same thing. >> i don't know. i should get points from lee for that. where is he? >> he had better still be here. all right. how about questions from the floor? does that mean that richard answered all of your questions? >> great. >> well, you're going to keep us on time. we thank you so much. >> you bet. >> absolutely, richard. a round of applause.

>> tonight on c-span3, american history tv on leading generals from world war ii and the civil war. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a u.s. army film on general douglas mcarthur who led u.s. forces in asia during world war ii. at 8:30, a look at the top two military leaders of the civil war, robert several lee and ulysses s. grant who commanded the union army. and at 10:30, an army film about general gorge marshall who went on to serve as secretary of state and defense secretary. >> our specific mission is to work to cede that human rights remain a central component of american foreign policy and that when we are evaluating our

foreign policy moves globally, human rights can never be the only consideration but it has to be part of the dialogue. >> katrina lantos swett is the ceo of the lanto foundation for justice. >> when we abandon our values whether we're talking about torture as it relates to the war on terror or the reset policy with russia, you know, and the upcoming issue of whether or not the u.s. congress should pass the accountability act which we don't need to go into the details of that policy issue but whether or not we're going to stay on record as saying that human rights matter in russia, they matter in china. >> more sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q and a. an inspector general's report issued last week detailed excessive spending at an $800,000 general services administration conference outside las vegas. the inspector general testifies

about his investigation before the house oversight committee on monday. and you can seeing that live here on c-span3 beginning at 1:30 p.m. eastern. the u.s. and five other countries are scheduled in this weekend to begin negotiations with iran over its nuclear program. last week, the world fairs council of washington hosted a discussion on whether the u.s. should attack iran to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons. this is an hour and 45 minutes. >> caller:. >> good evening and welcome to the world affairs council washington, d.c.'s program world fairs today which will air as a weekly television hour that broadcasts on mh c-net works world view television each

sunday morning. as a courtesy to our audience here and home it, please turn off your cell phones at this time and also another note during the q and a period that will follow the debate, the microphone will be placed up here in the front. i ask that you please come to the microphone to ask your questions. i'm heidi shoup, president of the world fairs council. it's my pleasure to welcome you all here this evening. our program focuses on the sanctions imposed on iran by the united states and others and the prospect of military confrontation. this program is the latest of a series of programs the council has hosted that have looked at america's on going problems with our releases with the islamic republic of iran. in january, the council hosted dr. treta parsi, obama's diplomat sit with iran author, that program has already been broadcast on our weekly television program and can be viewed through the council's

website and our youtube channel. tonight we have a debate that will address the effectiveness of the sanctions regime in place and the wisdom involved in instigating military action in an attempt to deal with iran's nuclear development. dug dr. colin kahl and dr. matthew kroenig will be our speakers. il leave it to our moderator to introduce them. it is my pleasure to introduce our moderator beverly kirk, ce owe o of bev kirk international, and she is a member of the world affairs council. previously she willing and chored late news report for news channel 8. she anchored hourly news briefed produced by national public radio for pbs stations across the country and also spent six years as a correspondent for nbc news channel the affiliate division of nbc news. covering national stories, including the september 11th attack and its aftermath, the

two olympics, the 2000 presidential election and the clinton impeachment among other stories. before joining nbc in 1997, beverly served as and chore and local government reporter for wlex-tv in lexington, kentucky where she produced and hosted the station's month lit minority public affairs program. she holds a masters of arts degree in international politics from the patterson school of diplomacy and international commerce at the university of kentucky. she also is a sum ma cum laude graduate of western kentucky university with degrees in history and broadcasting. please join me in welcoming our moderator and our panel. [ applause ] >> thank you all very much and heidi, thank you so much for that great introduction. our debate tonight could not be more timely since the talks between iran and the p5-plus-1, the permanent five members of the u.n. security council and germany, are expected to resume

this month although if you've been following the news, the site and the date of that event is still being worked out. but assuming that they do indeed happen, they'll take place against a backdrop of he ever tightening sanctions that iran calls a bullying tactic and against the threat of possible u.s. or israeli military action if iran does not stop the activities that the west suspects are intended to produce nuclear weapons. iran says that the sanctions will not deter it and it claims that its nuclear program is peaceful. so how effective are the sanctions, and what impact have they had on the development of iran's nuclear program? is a preemptive military strike necessary to stop this program? would, justified? taking the position that the military action is premature and may not be effective is dr. colin kahl here to my left. he is an associate professor at

georgetown university's edmund a. walsh school of foreign service, also a senior fellow at the center for a new american security and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the middle east. welcome. arguing that time is running out to stop iran's nuclear program and that a military strike is less risky than a nuclear armed tehran is dr. matthew kroenig, an assistant at georgetown university's department of government and the author of exporting the bomb, technology transfer and the spread of nuclear weapons. he is also a council on foreign releasestanten nuclear security fellow. so welcome to you. >> thank you. >> both gentlemen will be making opening statements, followed by a bit of q and a here with me on the sanctions and on the prospect of a military confrontation and you also as heidi mentioned, will have the opportunity to the ask questions before beat wrap up with closing statements here. i want to begin with you,

dr. kroenig. with your opening statement. >> great. thank you very much for that introducti introduction. it's a pleasure to be here. i'd like to thank the world fairs council for hosting tonight's debate. i think many of us would agree that iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program poses perhaps the greatest eamericaning national security challenge to the country and deciding on how to deal with it is the most important issue facing the united states government now. as i see it, there are only three ways this issue is going to be resolved. first we could get some kind of diplomatic settlement with iran, second we could acquiesce to a nuclear armed or third we or israel col make military action. i think a diplomatic settlement would be ideal if we could get it. but i think that there is good reen reason to believe we can't. it's hard who imagine any overlap between and what iran's supreme leader would be willing to agree to that would simultaneous lit reassure washington and the international

community that iran's nuclear program is no longer an i problem. so as beverly pointed out, we plantom return to negotiations with iran but iran has said that it's going to be unwilling to even talk about its air rainiam enrichment program and a diplomat when asked about the possibility of getting a deal col only say "maybe miracles happen." so i this i there's good reason to believe we're not going to get a satisfactory diplomat why i settlement. at some point very soon the united states is going to have a difficult choice between simply acquiescing to a nuclear armed iran or taking military iran. nuclear iran would pose a grave threat to the peace and security and would lead to further proliferation in the region as other countries acquire weapons in response. it would he'd lead to further proliferation itself as iran would transfer of the technology to other countries. and nuclear armed iran would be more aggressive. right now iran restrains its

foreign policy because it fears major retaliation from israel or the united states. with weapons, it would feel emboldened to push harder and engaging in more coesive diplomacy in the region. we could see an even more crisis prone middle east and with a nuclear armed iran and israel, other nuclear armed states in the region, any one of those crisis coz result in nuclear exchange. given israel's small size, it could mean the end of a state of israel. once iran has missiles capable of reaching the united states, one of these crises could result you the in a nuclear exchange on u.s. soil. so a nuclear armed iran poses a grave threat. president obama said it is unacceptable. that will leaves us with the military option. the military option is not a good option. there are significant dunside risks. but it is better than the alternative. the united states could almost certainly destroy iran's key

nuclear facilities. this would set iran's nuclear program back. it's difficult to estimate with any certainty but i would estimate that it would set it back somewhere between three and ten years. this would create a lot of space for something to happen where iran ends up permanently without nuclear weapons. there are also many risks to military action. but i think that these ricks are less severe than many people might imagine and that the united states could put in place a strategy to mitigate many of those risks. and so i think we'll talk about some of those risks and how the united states can manage them such as possible iranian military retaliation in discussion. so in short, i think if diplomacy and sanctions breaks down, if the united states finds itself making this difficult choice between simply acquiescing to a nuclear armed iran or making military action, that the united states should build an international coalition, conduct a limited strike against iran's key nuclear facilities, pull back and absorb an inevitable round

of token retaliation of iran and eke to quickly deescalate the crisis. it's not a good option but it's better than dealing with many challenges posed by a nuclear armed iran for decades to come. thank you. >> thank you. dr. kahl? >> thanks to the world affairs council and thank you all for being inside on such a nice night. so thanks for being here. so in my brif remarks, i want to basically advance five main points. the first point i will make is that the iranian nuclear threat is certainly growing but it's not yet imminent. so it's premature to talk about military action at this point. u.s. and israeli intelligence officials agree that it would take iran at least a year from the time in which its supreme leader ayatollah ali ali khomeini makes the decision to go for a bomb, it would take at least a year for them to produce a crude testable device. it kolt a year total to generate a crude device and it would take

several years for them to create a device so fphisticated enougho be put on the tip of a missile. although there's no doubt iran is positioning itself to have the capability to make this decision, u.s. intelligence officials have, testified that there's no evidence that the supreme leader has actually yet made the decision to do so. moreover, there's good reason to believe he's not likely to make the decision in the near term. most powerful argument in favor of that claim is that will to build a bomb anywhere in the short term, he'll have to use his declared enrichmentern facilities either at natanz or in the mountain near the holy city. any mof mof would be detected by international inspectors and therefore, the speem lead ser not likely to make that decision anytime soon till he can compress the timeline for a bomb or do it in complete secret which is likely quite some time off. the second point i'd like to make is that a nuclear armed iran is certainly a challenge to

our security interests, the security interests of israel but there's a lot of hyperbolelies surrounding this. some of the arguments that matt talks about hypes the threat. he think the prospect of a regional proliferation cascade is unlikely. there has never been a regional proliferation is cascade in response to any regional pro live rant. israel supposedly developed nuclear weapons in the late 1960s. it didn't create a cascade in the middle east. north korea in the last decade, it didn't set off a chain reaction in east asia. and there are reasons to believe that iran, the situation with iran would be no different. the main candidates for proliferation, egypt, turkey and saudi arabia are a long ways away from getting a bomb. egypt's internally focused. turkey las a nuclear umbrella from the united states. the most likely candidate is saudi arabia but not because they build one but because they tried to buy one from pakistan. of course, the pakistani would be extraordinarily nervous about

providing this in violation of the npt marking themselves os an outlaw. it's not clear they would be willing to do that either. matt and most other scholars that looked at this don't believe iran itself would use a weapon. it's sufficiently rationale to know that to use a wep against israel and the united states would bring about massive retaliation. that's not the scenario we're talking about. possibility of iran being emboldened to use its proxy like hamas or other groups in the region, i think that is an issue we should take seriously. but of course, iran already does this without nuclear weapons. this isn't a danger an goes away from you stop iran from getting a bomb. the real quell is whether a emboldened nuclear iran and israel would find themselves in a situation that would escalate to nuclear war. the good news on that front is the only mechanism for a crisis to happen is iran's sport for prox is and terrorists. the reason it supports proxies

and terrorists is that it seeks to be avoid direct confrontation with more power full states like israel and the united states. it's unlikely that these crises would turn into the types of krooifss, the nightmare scenarios assume. lastly, there's the concern that the united states would somehow be cowed by a nuclear iran, chased out of the gulf in the strait of hormuz, for example. i find that a unlikely. after all the north koreans and chinese are have nuclear weapons and haven't chased us out of asia the last time i checked. the third point i would make, matt's description of a surgical strike against iran holds a lot more risk than he assumes. it would be difficult to oomph dictate limited aims to the irani iranians. there's a lot of room for miscalculation, the fog of war, mutual distrust actions by both sides that could set off fears of surprise attack and therefore, drive escalation up.

a war with iran will be a widespread affair that could lead to retaliation by but iranian prox is against us in iraq, afghanistan, against israel which could widen the war in the middle east and have a dramatic effect on global oil prices at a time in which the global economy is recovering from a global recession. there's reasons not to invite such attack. a fourth point is that the attack doesn't solve the nuclear problem. all it does is delay the program. it may be buys us a few years. i think the ten-year estimate is not very likely. meanwhile, the effect on iran would likely be that they would kick out the iaea inspectors and redouble their efforts to build a program in the facilities that weren't destroyed or build new clandestine ones. really you're just buying a few years but probably redoubling iran's motivation to get a deterrent to prevent a resumption of attacks against it at some point in you the the future. it simply defers the problem to the future by a small number of

years. the last point i would make is that the good news is we still do have some time for diplomacy. sanctions are having a pretty devastating effect on the iranian economy and the sanctions that the united states has put in place and the european oil embargo haven't been fully implemented yet. iran's leaders have signaled willingness to return to negotiationses. we're likely to see negotiations in the near term. i don't think we're going to get a break-through in the next few months but there's a possibility to start building confidence through the iranians taking steps to dial back their enrichment of our rainiam below the 20% level, taking some other steps that could build confidence towards a lasting solution. and i this i we have to let that process play out and not rush to employ a military option which should be our last resort. thank you very much. >> thank you both. you lead perfectly into the first question i want to focus on. we'll talk about the military possibility of a strike in just a moment.

but the there was a report this week in the jerusalem post that said that will confrontation might actually be delayed because the sanctions are being deemed effective. whafl is your response to that? >> well, it kind of depends on who you think is going to initiate the strike. i think matt and i would probably both agree that the prospect of a near term u.s. strike on iran is probably relatively low. the prospect of israel is greater. israel will be looking at the talks and if the talks go bad, that that could add to israel's already high incentives to take action into their own hands and strike the program. and basically, i think israel's red lines wherever they are certainly to the left of where u.s. red lines are and they are itchyer on the trigger finger than we are. >> dr. kroenig. >> i think i would agree with everything you just said. you said that the sanctions are judged to be effective. and so it depends on what you

mean by effective. the sanctions are certainly having an effect, just not the effect we want. they're hurting the iranian economy. the currency has collapsed. we've seen no evidence that it's changed iran's calculation on the nuclear program. at the end of the day, of course, that's the objective. it's not just to force them to come to the negotiating table but to put serious carbs on its nuclear program. colin laid out things that would be a nice wish list from the united states point of view such as stopping the activity at fordo, this facility buried in the side of a mountain and many 0 other things that we would like. no seep any reason i know iran would agree to those. iran's twos primary strategic goals are to protect the regime to continue to exist and to become the most dominant state in the middle east. getting nuclear weapons gets them both of those things. signing a nonproliferation agreement with the country they call the great satan doesn't serve the supreme leader's interests in the same way. i think we should all hope we

can get a deal but i'm pessimistic that we can. >> let me follow up with you on that because the story as we know is changing constantly. but there has been some movement, more countries have suspended their importation of iranian crude, south africa, greece, japan just to name three very major importers of iranian oil. do you not think given enough time, that that kind of pressure significant economic pressure might push the ball a little farther away? >> i think it's worth a shot but again, i'm pessimistic. iran's been under pretty intense international pressure for years, nothing we've done so far has changed their mind. they're -- again their currency is collapsing. they see what's going on, and we're not seeing any signs that they're changing the way they think about their nuclear program. and i will come back to something colin said. he said we have plenty of time to let diplomacy and sanctions play out. i agree we have some time but i think we have less time than he

thinks. right now, let me pack up. in order to build nuclear weapons iran needs to do three things. first get enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb and construct that into a weapon, third it would have to get some kind of delivery vehicle to deliver those things. so i think colin and others point out this long time line of years but when it comes to u.s. nonproliferation policy all that matters is the first step, building the material. once they have the material, the military options essentially is off the table. we can bomb facilities to stop them from producing material. once they have the material our policy is reduced to praying they don't construct a weapon with it. so the question really is, how long until they have enough material for one weapon. the estimates by the best experts outside of government right now are that if iran made the decision today, it would have enough material for its first weapon in four months. but they also estimate that that timeline is shrinking as iran brings more and more sentry

futures online and its stockpiles of our rainiam increase. experts estimate by december that timeline will have shrunk to one month. we are running out of time. and we can good-bye diplomacy and sanctions one more shot but it's not too early at all to start thinking about plan b and you know, if we're going to take military action, i think there are things we should be doing that we're not doing now. >> dr. k app hl, how long is israel likely to wait for the sanctions to actually show significant progress in a way that dr. kroenig has said they haven't shown before? >> look, we don't know the whether the sanctions are going to work or not. matt suggests that the logic is somehow that the sanctions gets him just to stop. that's not how it will work. it's whether the pressure reaches a level in which they're willing to negotiate in good faith and reach an agreement that stops the program.there's every reason to believe that the sanctions were work in a nonlinear way. as they'ven