tv [untitled] April 19, 2012 12:00pm-12:30pm EDT
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interests in yemen is the same interest we had in the fatah and we have in somalia, which is to go after those terrorists, those al qaeda terrorists, who are involved in planning attacks on this country. no more. no less. >> could i add, mr. chairman, just 30 seconds? >> if the chairman -- >> that's on the -- on the, what we're doing kinetically but i also want to point out that we are working very closely with the, with the military in yemen. notably their special forces to increase their capabilities as a building partner capacity endeavor. so i think it's important not to see this as, you know, we're only doing one thing and not the other. we're actually trying to round it off. >> appreciate that. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you, again, for you both being here today, and just real briefly, over the next three months, can you just explain to
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us how you see the opposition? do you see it fragmenting or do you see it coalescing? how do you see this playing out over the course of the next, say, three months? >> in syria? >> yes. sorry. >> that's okay. >> back to the topic. >> you know -- if i could give you a firm answer as to what we saw happening, i probably wouldn't be in this job. i'd be somewhere else. but this is -- it's a tough thing to try to, you know, look at the elements at play here and try to determine just exactly how this will play out. and obviously intelligence has provided its perspective on this. i think the best thing that we can see is that, you know, as a result of this broad-based insurgency, as a result of the international community's unified approach to dealing with syria and applying the sanctions, applying the
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pressures continuing to, to indicate that assad must step down, as a result of what the u.n. is doing now in implementing a cease-fire where you now have the support of russia and china, there's a whole series of efforts here that i think are putting incredible pressure on the assad regime to do the right thing. this may continue to play out. assad will continue, probably, to resist these efforts, but i think it's a matter of time before he's brought down. >> i have nothing to add, congressman. >> okay. i guess playing off that, the department of defense assumptions around this, how have our plans evolved specifically over the last year, since we've seen the syrian revolution commence? >> what we do and what general dempsey does with the service chiefs is to, is to develop all
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of the plans necessary for any contingency, and whatever the president ultimately decides, we'll be prepared to implement. >> and just to kind of give you the -- the view of the region at large. so we have -- we're a nato partner with turkey. we have a very strong relationship with jordan. obviously israel. we are still 200 to 300 military strong in iraq, and, of course, iraq has a piece of this as well in their western border, and i mean, we've been meeting with leaders throughout the region, the secretary met with president barzani from the kurdish region. they have a rouge interest on -- there's kurd populations in northeastern syria, in eastern turkey, in western iran, and then in northern iraq, and these issues are all intertwined, and so right now we're in the
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business of sharing intelligence, sharing information. building partner capacity where we can, and, you know, having the threat, the credible threat of military capability to under -- to undergird or diplomatic and economic efforts. >> sir, i guess what i would just add to that is based on comments that have been made from my colleagues in their previous questioning as it relates to what happened in libya and maybe the -- the concerns regarding the war powers about the and how we proceeded in that action, that, you know, of all the conflicts that we have dealt with over the past years, that the one lesson learned is end game, and that there needs to be a clear defining of the mission on behalf of our troops, our military families, but also, you know, americans.
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so it's just -- it's my hope in echoing the sentiments of my colleagues that as we move through this, as you continue to share information with us, as we act in our congressional oversight rule, that there will be just clear lines of communication on behalf of our military families and the american people. >> no. i appreciate that concern, and i want to assure you that i think general dempsey and i are unified with regards to, you know, not proceeding with any military action unless there's clear objective, unless we know what it's going to take to achieve that objective. how long is it going to take? and ultimately do we have the legal authority to, in fact, accomplish what we're being asked to accomplish, and that would involve very close consultations with the congress. >> thank you both so much. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you.
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mr. franks? >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. and i thank both of you for being here. general dempsey, it looks like it's a real possibility that a post-assad government might potentially be dominated by a muslim brotherhood, as we saw, seems to be coming to pass in egypt. what do you think the major likely impacts will be on security of israel and other u.s. interests in the region, if that occurs? >> yeah. i wouldn't personally predict that it would be muslim brotherhood, but what we do know for a fact, just demographically, is that 70% of the syrian population is of the sunni confessional of islam and, therefore, you would have a pretty dramatic shift in, from a minority government and a majority outer power to majority in power, and i think there will be some -- some combination of
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conservative islamic parties secular. syria has quite a tradition of secularism that i wouldn't discount. and among the minority, you know, the kurds, the drus and the christians, who have been supported by the assad party, but i think they could be persuaded to become part of the government, and that's the point, i think. it's that in terms of looking towards helping identify the opposition, but then also holding them accountable before they, we support them, to commit, committing themselves to a representative shared government at the end of this thing so that we don't end up creating the conditions for a civil war. >> i think that sounds good. i guess my concern is, of course, you know, in egypt, egypt was a fairly moderate government as far as the arab world goes, and with their elections, they've brought in about 40% muslim brotherhood and their parliamentary elections is
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about 20-some-plus saudis, that's a fairly frightening coalition, and i -- i suppose the question then should be, what are we doing and what more can we do to ensure that syrian kurds, christians, any of the jewish population, other minorities there are fully protected and will have meaningful roles in building a religiously and ethnically tolerant democratic syria should the assad regime be eventually overthrown? you know, we tried to do that in iraq. many of us were quite concerned about religious freedom there. that was not achieved and there's a terrible purging especially of the christian population in iraq now. and it's a frightening thing, i think, to a lot of us. what can we do to try to prevent that dynamic from occurring in syria in a post-assad regime? and i correct that to either of you. >> you know, things you pointed
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out are truly legitimate concerns. and, you know, i guess -- i guess the response is that, you know, if we can build a democratic institution into these countries, and to have extent we even see it. we see it in iraq. you know, we're beginning to see it in egypt. we certainly see it in libya, which is once you build some of these institutions where parties have to participate in governing, and they have to look at how they can build coalitions and try to meet their responsibilities to the people that, you know, whether they like it or not, it does have some kind of moderating impact. even in egypt where you know, i understand your concerns. the fact is that the brotherh d brotherhood, there are various segments of the brotherhood. some are now trying to
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understand that they're going to have a bigger responsibility there. they're going to have to exercise, you know, leadership with regards to every aspect of governing there, and we -- in iraq, every time it looks like it's headed towards one direction, the fact is that the kurds and others that are part of that government continue to bring pressure on the president to try to stay on the right path. doesn't always work as crisply as we would like, but the fact is it does impact on that's we're seeing some of that in libya. there are a lot of forces, as a result of the arab spring, we've unleashed a lot of forces here, but one thing that i don't think we ought sow lose sight of is that as a result of all of this, we can direct and help direct those countries in a better direction than where they were. >> try to squeeze in one last -- you're on the right track here and i guess i'm hoping we might be able to involve some of the religious and ethnic minorities at least in southern syria,
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sorry, northern syria, because it seems to me if we do it ahead of time we have a chance of getting to the issue and should be thankful to israel for taking 0 the nuclear plant if the muslim brotherhood does take control. with that, any thoughts you have? >> no. i agree with what you just said. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. franks. it's very fitting as we conclude, congressman chris gibson, who himself of new york is a distinguished veteran of service in the mideast, and central asia. congressman gibson. >> thanks, mr. chairman. i appreciate the strong leadership in the department of defense, both distinguished careers, the gentlemen with us today, and i'll talk about syria in a second. while i have a secretary i'm curious to hear his feedback. i'm recently back from fort bragg, visiting with one of the subordinate commands of the special operations command, in previous work with general clapper in the intelligence community, and let me say up
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front that it's remarkable the level of teamwork that's going on out there. but yet i feel that we're lacking in terms of systemic codification of some of the very encouraging developments over the past decade, and i'm still hearing that it's not very often, but it can happen, that the intelligence community may be working a line of operation, special operations command may be working a line of operation and figuratively will bump into each other. i know there's efforts to bring stronger collaboration in terms of information sharing, but given your recent history of -- in work, i'd be very curious to know now in your current capacity what your thoughts are in terms of reform to bring a close are collaboration between the intelligence community and the department of defense? >> you know, i'll -- yield to general dempsey on this as well,
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but i, from my own experience as director of the cia and now secretary of defense, at least in the history that i've been in this town, i don't think there is a better relationship between the intelligence and the military operations, special operations forces, than there is today. i mean, they are -- they are truly working together. whether those operations are taking place in pakistan, afghanistan, in yemen, in somalia, in other parts of the world. they are a unified in the approach. they're working off of strong intelligence resources. that are being shared. the operations that are developed, whether done covert or worked out within the operation centers that developed in each of those areas, very close coordination. there isn't a target that is
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taken on that doesn't involve the participation of both the intelligence and military operations and they're doing it very effectively. i do think that, you know, we need to learn the lessons. i think you're right that we need to put in place probably the kind of lessons learned so that we can make sure that the kind of cooperation that's going on now is one that continues. that's probably my biggest concern is that it's working well now. we're facing al qaeda. we're facing terrorism together, but, you know, as we are able to achieve some success there, there may be a danger that both of these may go off and try to do their own thing. that's what we have to pay attention to. >> yeah. i'd only add that sort of the game-changing lessons learned over last ten years are the integration of arsof and segra by the way. where you're seeing us move with a new strategy, we call it a global networked approach to
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warfare. global and networkrd the operative words and think of it this way. most of our adversaries, in fact even state actors, are not confronting ought directy but through networks of surrogates and proxies and asymmetrically. so to defeat a network we have to be a network, and it gets right at what you said, congressman. we've got to find ways to network our capabilities internal to the inner agency of government, dhs, fbi, d.o.d., cia and all those, and as well then with our international partners in ways we just haven't had to do before. but we're on it. we're working on it. >> and i concur with the assessment and, of course, as we go forward, we don't want to overcodify to the point that we stifle initiative. much of this is based on relationships. forged in the crucible and to the effect we can codify it, it won't come to an end two
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individuals very strong willed might not get along, we still need this to work. so much to do, and just one specific question. i see my time is getting short here. with regard to the unrest in syria. have there been any adverse implications and ramification s in anbar and nineva province? >> no. you probably know this having served there, but it runs from northern saudi arabia through western iraq and up into syria, and there are, you know, there is assistance being provided on the basis of tribal relationships. flowing into syria. it's another one of the complications i mentioned, but we haven't seen any kind of backwash coming back the other way. >> okay. thank you very much. thank you, chairman. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. gibson. as we conclude, mr. secretary,
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hours from now i should say, and we'll have coverage for that on c-span2. the senate always on c-span2. house today working its way through a small business buy providing a one-time tax break with companies with fewer are than 500 employees. you can see the house on c-span. coming up at 2:00 here on c-span3 we'll go live to house minority leader nancy pelosi's weekly legislative briefing with reporters. we'll have live coverage right here. and next tuesday, rodney king recounts his life in the days and years following the video recording of his beating by the los angeles police on march 3, 1991. mr. king recalls the riots in los angeles that followed the acquittal of four of those officers in this case and reports on his own legal problems and alcohol addiction. he speaks at the schomburg center for research in black culture in harlem, new york city comes up tuesday, 6:30 eastern on our website, book tv dot org.
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this weekend on book tv on c-span2, live coverage from the los angeles times festival of books. coverage starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern saturday and sunday. saturday at 3:30 p.m., biographers john farrell, jim newton and richard reeves on clarence darrow, dwight d. eisenhower and jvg. at 7:30, call in with your questions for steven ross, author of "hollywood left and right: hoe movie stars shaped american politics." sunday, 2:00 eastern, watch for eric alterman and his take on liberaling and the cause. and surveillance with laurie andrews, michael jacobsen and michael shermer. all online at booktv.org. from the colonial era prohibition to today, blinking for better or worse has always been a part of the american landscape. saturday night live, a history of alcohol in america. watch our simulcast of that
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story with the american history guys. they have tales of beer and spirits in america. saturday night at 8:00 eastern. part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. treasury secretary tim geithner discussed a number of challenges facing the u.s. economy yesterday at the brookings institution. currently he says the recovery is grandly moving along but looking ahead the secretary says america faces a big governing task before the new year with respect to issues like the debt limit and bush tax cuts. mr. geithner's remarks come ahead of this week's imf, world bank and g-20 finance ministers spring meetings. good morning, everyone. it's is a great privilege, honor and pleasure to welcome you on behalf of brookings secretary geithner this morning and also david ignatius from the
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washington post, and all of you, welcome, an interesting moment when the imf and world bank spring meetings will take place in just a few days, at a moment of the world economy where there are some good news, particularly in the united states, but still a lot of soft spots. still europe is a big worry, and in some emerging markets we see a market slowdown also. i think we're not out of the woods in terms of the world economy, and it will be, i hope, fascinating, i'm sure facingating to listen to the exchange between david and secretary geithner and then you'll be invited, of course, all to come in. mr. geithner is a 75th secretary of the treasury of the united states serving as treasury, mr. geithner served as chief executive of the reserve bank of new york of the federal market committee. the group responsible for monetary policy.
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secretary geithner had a long career at the treasury but also worked at the world bank, direct -- sorry, at the imf directing policy development and reviewed department. he has very strong both international and national experience bringing it together. secretary geithner studied international economics at dartmouth, the event will take place in the form of a conversation with david ignatius from "the washington post." whom many of you i'm sure, maybe all of you know writes twice a week for an affairs column. david has also written eight spinals. the most famous of which is probably "body of lies" in 2008 was made into a hollywood film starring leonardo dicaprio and russell crow. i told him before the meeting that i was really very jealous of that. ignatius joined the "post" in 1986. in 1990 became foreign editor. 1993 assistant editor for
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business news began writing his column in '98 and continued even during this years as executive director of the international herald tribune in paris. earlier in his career ignatius worked at the "wall street journal" covering a large area of top ices. he studied political theory and economics at harvard and cambridge. so welcome again, many thanks, and after you. >> thank you. always happy to be linked to leonardo dicaprio in any public setting. mr. secretary, as was said we have the imf and world bank convening here. there's great curiosity about the world economy, but i want to start with the u.s. economy, and ask you about the growth picture. the imf latest forecast for growth this year of 2.1%, consensus estimates all seem to be under 2.5%. we had signs of faster growth in last year's third quarter, but then a slowing, and i'd like to
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ask you the basic question everybody has, which is, what's going on? what's your meant's snapshot of the u.s. economy right now? >> the u.s. economy is gradually healing, gradually getting stronger. growth averaged about 2.5% since the recovery began. slower than the average of recoveries in the post-war period. why has it been so moderate? really, the following reasons. one is the basic reality when you're bigging out of a financial crisis caused by too much borrowing too, much leverage, the economy built too many houses you face a lot of head winds working tlouz those balances making growth slower because people are bringing down debt, saving more, spending less and are naturally more cautious in that context. that's very important to understand because, the paradox in that is that the weakness that induces temporarily is a,
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should be a source of strength going forward and as you know and many people have written we're much further along in that adjustment process than are many countries. we brought down risk in the financial sector quite dramatically. we're four years into the adjustment in housing and even individuals are bringing down debt levels quite a bit. that's good. we also got hit by a series of pretty substantial external shocks in 2010 and '11. europe's crisis, japan and oil. those are large enough to bring down the growth significantly in the united states, and then we had, of course, the debt limit drama of last summer, very damping to consumer, to confidence at a time when the world was very fragile. those are the main reasons why recovery has been nmore moderat than you might have thought. just thinking about an economy coming out of this crisis. but we're making quite a bit of progress. we're in a much stronger position than we were six months a year, 18 months two years ago.
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and if you look at the basic indicators of economic strength in the united states, what's encouraging about it is that the strength is pretty broad-based. you see it in manufacturing, in high-tech, agriculture, energy. prior investment growth has been pretty strong, actually. even job creation in the private sector has been relatively strong since it started and export growth is pretty good. productivity measures pretty encouraging. where there's weakness still in housing and construction, that's independentsable. understandable. working through imbalances. we should find that encouraging. just to finish, still some risks of uncertainty ahead. obviously europe's going through a very long protracted difficult set of challenges. although oil prices to date haven't, doesn't look like they've had a materially significant negative affect on overall growth so far. still a lot of uncertainty in
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the oil markets and as everybody is sort of becoming aware, if you look forward to the end of the year in the united states, you face the -- ex-pary of a substantial number of tax cuts. the potential impact of a large spending, another debt limit debate, and it will be a big test in washington. big test to the capacity of this country to govern itself in how washington deals with those challenges and, you know, hopefully we use it as an opportunity to make another significant step towards long-term fiscal reform at that time. you know, the american economy engine, the private sector is humming along, and obviously more we can do to reinforce that, and you know, we're just going to keep looking for opportunities with congress to try to get congress to approve additional measures that would strengthen the pace which we're growing and, therefore, bring the unemployment rate down more
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rapidly and this economy. >> you and i were talking the other night informally about the famous definition of an economy that's growing robustly. animal spirits of investors who see a chance to make money next quarter and so invest and then you get this virtuous cycle, and we see it, restraint in investment behavior. yes, investment numbers are up, but i wonder can you speak to the concern many people have we're in a new normal. that the animal spirits are going to be less animalistic for a while. people are going o'accustom themselves to lower risks, lower rates of return. just a different kind of economy. do you think that's a correct picture? >> i think there's something to that but probably overdone in the context of the united states. again, remember, the forces that produce the growth of the previous, of the decade coming up
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