equipment and so much else through that network. and i guess, can you assess where we are as it relates to the role played by tajikistan, and number two, how you, upon confirmation will prioritize and focus on the importance of their help from us in the northern distribution network. thank you, president. it has become extremely important in getting vital supplies to our troops in afghanistan. like wise, it will play an extremely important role in taking equipment out of afghanistan, as we begin to lessen our military presence there. i have worked closely with the

country of tajikistan on the issues. they've been very supportive and played a vital role in the part of the northern distribution network that i would call the kkt route. t the capacity is not great. we have to truck things through the mountains of tajikistan. however, we had very good success rate with very low loss of cargo. no pilferage, and we've gotten a lot of cooperation from the government of tajikistan on that. and the president indicated to secretary clinton when she met with tham he wants to continue to support us in that area because as i think government of tajikistan and the the people realize in order to have a safe and prosperous tajikistan, we need a safe and stable and prosperous afghanistan.

>> thank you very much. my time is up for this round. >> i would just ask one final question here. since the invasion displaced saddam hussein's sunni governing structure, whatever you want to call it there, one of the major issues has been this divisive conflict between sunni and shia. we've seen it in terms of the talk of civil war and all the various suicide bombings that have gone on. what is your assessment of how the current government is moving to integrate sunnis into the government at all levels?

whether it's high positions in the government or people who weren't necessarily involved in the atrocities and things. what's your assessment about how they're performing on the integration? >> thank you, senator. senator casey has a poll that shows there's still a vast gap in perception ls of the governments it's increased from 10% to only 30% of sunni, s would see this government favorably. we can track it through the percentages of military officers. that's below the population figure. and in this this current round of political negotiations and debates, it's been very

interesting. he was seen as the face of the shiite group and is now aligning with the sunnis. the sons of iraq is something we need to watch closely. about 30,000 sons of iraq are getting paid. they get paid about $300 a month. which is slightly below the per capital gdp. that needs to continue. one of the indicators if you look at pursued or reignited civil war is militant insurgent groups beginning to coalesce and reform. and making sure the sons of iraq

continue to taken care of, that will be very important. so far the government has kept most of the promises on that. but we need to watch it. and we need to remind the current government every day they need to do what they can to make them feel like a part of the process. >> we thank you for your testimony, for your prior service and for your willingness to serve yet again in tough assignments. i want to say this that we're going to keep the record open. we'll keep the record opened for 48 hours. i want to make sure people knew that for members of the community. we're grateful for your testimony, and we're adjourned.

tomorrow ben bernanke gives his economic outlook to congress. it begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern and we'll have live coverage here on c-span 3.

>> he tore down this wall. >> sunday night on american hirsry tv, mark the 25th anniversary of president ronald reagan's 1987 speech from the brandon berg gate in west germany. also our series "the contenders." 14 key figures who ran for president and lost. this monday, james blaine. >> finally, on a personal note, michelle and i are grateful to the bush family for their guidance and example during our own transition. george, i will always remember the gathering you hosted for all the living presidents. plus, you left me a really good

tv sports package. i use it. >> last week, portraits of former president george w. bush and first lady laura bush were unveiled at the white house. dolly madison saved this portrait of the first jorjts w. now michelle, if anything happens, there's your man. watch the entire event online. she spoke an event hosted by the

arms control association her comments are about 50 minutes. all right, we're about to resume our program. we're about to resume. don't get up and leave, please. we're about to resume. ladies and gentlemen. good afternoon. welcome back to the 2012 arms control association annual meeting. i'm darrell kimball with the arms control association. and i wanted to take a minute to

remind you that armed control association members and i hope all of you are members, are invited to join senior staff and members of the board for a view of our programs and our work that will take place at 3:45 later this afternoon. this year has been extremely busy and productive for the arms control association. and we have lots of work to do in the future. and in part we're going to focus on promoting diplomatic solutions to prevent a nuclear armed iran, which we heard about this morning, and try to resume progress to the nuclearized north korea. we're going to be working hard to help achieve further reductions in the number of all

types of nuclear weapons worldwide. we're going to be encouraging the senate to reconsider and ratify the conference of nuclear test and treaty. we're going to be continuing to work for faster actions to secure weapons usable material keep it away from terrorists and to end the production of the material, promoting better implementation and full compliance with the chemical and biological conventions, and we'll be working very hard to encourage government included and effective arms trade treaty next month to rain in international transfers of weapons and ammunition, where there is a risk, they could lead to human rights violations, just as we're seeing in syria and sedan today. all that work and more depends on you, our members and our subscribers. i want to thank everybody who has helped support the arms control association in the past. and into the future. and in particular, i want to thank the institutional supporters who make our work

possible, including the carnegie corporation of new york, the mcarthur cooperation, the prospect hill foundation, and a key sponsor of today's annual meeting. and i would like to ask sebastian from the foundation here in washington just to take a couple minutes to say a few words, and then we'll introduce our luncheon speaker. sebastian? >> thank you very much. let me take a moment to say something on behalf of the foundation. we are very happy to cohost once again the annual forum, the annual meeting of the arms control association. it's one of the general foundations. we are here present in washington, d.c. with an is the largest office of the german political foundation, and we

have 30 officers worldwide, also in some of the most difficult regions such as lebanon, we just opened another office, and we have an office in romala, so very important work we are doing there. we share a lot of objective aims with the arms control association. and that's why it's no surprise the 30 years that we are supporting the annual meeting of the organization, that we really enjoy helping countries in the european perspective to discussions here in washington, d.c., and i think we have two terrific panelist this is morning here. last but not least, i want to thank you, daryl, but also tom kalina and tim for their support and the entire aca team. so i wish you an interestinginginginginginging

interesting keynote now and look forward to this. thank you. >> thank you very much, sebastian. very gracious of you. my staff will say something about that later i'm sure. and now we have with us -- very honored to have with us today, acting undersecretary for state arms control and international security. rose gottemoeller. unofficially speaking, rose has been a key reason for the progress, i think, over the last three years on several key nuclear risk reduction

initiatives. she was a key architect and a key negotiator of the start agreement, which was spoken about earlier today. she's played a key role in the administration's nuclear posture review, which we were discussing the morning, the successful review of the amputee conference. we have investor susan burke who was critical to success at that meeting. also the undersecretary has been a part of the ongoing p5 dialogue on nuclear transparency issues, and also helping to revive reconsideration of the conference of test and treaty and much, much more. so we're very pleased that you're here today, rose. and we conclude you up to the podium to give us an update on the progress to date. and the path ahead, and she will be taking a few questions at the end. so, rose, i welcome you up. [ applause ]

>> it's always great to be in this room and to see so many friends and colleagues here. so thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to you again today. and to bring you up the to date on where we are on our arms control and nonproliferation agenda items. i'm always glad to be at the arms control association's annual meeting. before coming into government i served on the board, and i know from the inside/out how important this association is. so for the work that you do, and for the work that all your talented staff do, as well as the membership of the organization, i truly want to thank you, because now i'm on the inside of a different beast, and we really do appreciate all the work that you do to support our efforts in the government. i know that many of you have heard me speak a few times about what's going on in the arms control arena with this administration. i'm not going to sing the same old song today about the

standard metaphors. that is, we're setting the stage, we're repairing the way, et cetera. in the simplest terms, i would like to make clear that this president set the agenda, and we have done some important things to move that agenda forward. we are approaching the lowest level at any time since the 1950s, the first full decade of the nuclear age. we are also coming to a time in ok of this year will we will mark the 50th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis. and we should look upon this as an important anniversary to truly mark our own progress as we move forward on the president's agenda, laid out in prague. to move toward the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. we have come so far since then, that is the cuban missile crisis of 1962, and now we have setting

the stage to move towards new accomplishments. i understand you've already taken up the topic of a new stark treaty this morning. so i'm not going to go into details of the treaty, per se, but i did want to reiterate and underscore that the implementation of the treaty is going very well indeed. the russians just arrived in the united states this weekend for another inspection under the treaty. they're out at an air force base. it is their seventh inspection this year, so far this treaty year, which begins in feab. so there is an intensive pace of inspection activity under the treaty, and so far we are able to say quite clearly that the treaty's verification regime works. and i'm very pleased with that, because when one negotiates something, the procedures and so forth, you're never sure if it's

all going to fall in place. but it's been going very well, indeed, and will be important to setting the first stage -- the next stage of reductions, because of the mutual confidence and the trust that is being built up in the course of implementation of the new treaty. mutual trust and confidence, of course, are crucial to any future success in arms reduction negotiations. now we are working on the next steps that will set us further along the road to achieving the prague goals. as part of the 2010 nuclear posture review, the u.s. government is reviewing our nuclear deterrence requirements at nuclear plants, to ensure they are aligned to address today's threats. we are considering what forces the united states needs to maintain for strategic stability and deterrence, and assurance to u.s. allies and partners. based on this analysis, we will develop proposals for further reductions in the nuclear stockpile, which currently stands at approximately 5,000 total nuclear warheads. as the president said recently at the second nuclear security

summit in seoul, we can already say with confidence that we have more nuclear weapons than we need. approach to the next agreement with the russians. regardless of numbers, the president has stressed that the next nuclear reduction agreement between the united states and russian federations should include strategic, nonstrategic and nondeployed nuclear weapons. of course, no previous arms control agreement has limited or monitored these last two categories. so the next negotiations will be breaking some new ground in important ways. we are going to need new, more demanding approaches to verification and monitoring, but i am confident we can find ways to respond to such challenges. beyond responsibly reducing the number of nuclear weapons, this administration has been committed to re committing their role in our national security strategy as well. we are not developing new nuclear weapons. we are not pursuing new nuclear

missions. we are working toward creating the conditions to make deterring nuclear use the sole purpose of our nuclear weapons. we have clearly stated this is in our interest, and in the interest of all other states, that the more than 65-year record of nuclear nonuse be extended forever. recently we worked through the nuclear policy issues that are important and relevant to our nato allies. at the nato summit in chicago a few weeks ago, the allies approved the deterrence and defense posture of the appropriate mix of convention al, nuclear and missile defenses forces that nato will need to defend against future threats to the alliance. focusing on the elements, the allies reaffirmed their commitment to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, while remaining a nuclear alliance for as long

as nuclear weapons exist. the review found that the alliance's posture meets the criteria for an effective deterrent and also defense posture, and that the circumstances in which any use of nuclear weapons may be contemplated are extremely, extremely remote. the alliance acknowledged the independent and unilateral british and french negative security assurances have in discouraging nuclear proliferation. looking to the future, allies reiterated that nato is prepared to consider further reducing its requirement for nonstrategic nuclear weapons assigned to the alliance in the context of reciprocal steps by the russian federation. leaders agreed that the mac should issue two task conditions, two committees. first, to develop concepts for ensuring the broadest possible burden sharing, including in the event nato decides to further reduce its reliance on

nonstrategic nuclear weapons based in europe. and second, to further consider what nato would expect to see in the way of reciprocal russian actions to allow for significant reductions in nonstrategic nuclear weapons assigned to nato. nato expressed its support for continued mutual efforts by the united states and russia to promote stability and enhance transparency and further reduce their nuclear weapons. the allies reiterated their interest in developing and exchanging transparency and confidence building ideas with russia, with the goal of developing detailed proposals on and increased mutual understanding of nato's and russia's nonstrategic nuclear weapons deployed in europe. now, let me turn to conventional arms control, which in my view has not received adequate attention in recent years. we're spending a lot of time focused on the future of conventional arms control, and its role in enhancing european security.

there are three conventional arms control regimes that play key roles in european security. the open skies treaty, the vienna document 2011 and the conventional armed forces in europe treaty, or the cfe treaty. each regime is important and contributes to the security and stability in a unique way. when they work in harmony, it's greater confidence for all of yrp. europe. today i must tell you the conventional arms regime in europe is facing challenges. russia sees implementation of its obligations in december of 2007, refusing to accept inspections or provide information to other cfe parties on its military forces as required by the treaty. after trying for several years to overcome the obstacles and encourage russia to resume implementation, we concluded we can no longer implement the

treaty with russia. in late 2011, the united states joined by the 21 nato allies who are party to the treaty, as well as by georgia and mal dovea, ceased carrying out the obligations with the cfe treaty with regard to russia. i want to emphasize, however, that the treaty remains in force according to its terms and is being implemented at 29. the cessation of implementation of cfe with regard to russia by 24 of 30 states parties gives us an opportunity to consider the current security architecture our future needs and the types of arms control measures that will help achieve our security goals. in other words, i see this period now as a period of true opportunity, to consider what we truly need for 21st century conventional arms control in europe. our nato allies have reaffirmed at the chicago summit in its declaration our determination to preserve, strengthen and modernize the conventional arms

control regime in europe based on key principles and commitments, and we will continue to explore ideas to this end. we must modernize conventional arms control to take account of current security concerns. i've been meeting with my european counterparts, soliciting their views on key objectives and basic principles for the way ahead, with the goal of inform are or own review of these issues currently ongoing here in washington. moving forward together, we can arrive at solutions that will best serve the security of the united states, our nato allies and partners, and also the russian fed rapgs. now, i'd like to turn to multi-lateral treaties, the comprehensive test ban, which daryl already mentioned. it remains a top priority for the prague agenda. as we continue laying the groundwork for u.s. ratification, we remain optimistic about the prospects for the ctbt's entry into force,

albeit mindful that achieving that goal will require considerable effort from every single one of us. and effectively verified ctbt is central to leading toward a world of diminished reliance on nuclear weapons and reduced nuclear competition. as such, the united states remains committed to the completion of the treaty's monitoring regime, the so-called ims system, which is now more than 85% complete and once completed, will provide global coverage to detect and identify nuclear explosive tests conducted in violation of the treaty. development of the on-site component is a priority test of the treaty organization, and we will be assessing the progress of on-site inspection efforts during the 2014 integrated field exercise. very useful upcoming activity. since 2011, in addition to our annual assessment, our extra

budgetary contributions to the have totaled over $40 million. given the tough budget environment here in washington, those contributions clearly demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the cdbt and vital importance the united states attaches to completing the verification regime for the treaty. now, let me turn next to 9 cutoff treaty. we are also continuing our fight, and i will gladly characterize it a fight, to launch the negotiation of a cutoff treaty, and such a treaty is considered to be by the majority of the international community the next step in the process of multi-lateral nuclear disarmament. we have worked closely with a number of countries to achieve the start of fmct conference on disarmament. creative and insightful ideas have been employed in geneva to no avail. we are very disappointed in the

results so far. the current blockage over fmct is a formidable one. each attempt to overcome the impasse makes this clear. certain countries must engage substantively, constructively and frequently on fmct. without that, no progress, be it in the cd, on its margins or outside of it can make real progress. this is a leadership issue for this community, as well as a practical matter. countries most affected by an fmct is the countries needing to be most active in any effort to achieve such a regime. although we are continuing our efforts in the conference on disarmament, we're continuing to consult among the key stakeholders on the ways forward. our most recent meeting in this p-5-plus effort was in london in