inspector general for tax administration. i'd like to talk to you a minute about their powers not with the irs but in general. i'd like to compare the powers of t with the fbi the inspector general is going to do an investigation. that is probably a good thing. there are many who don't believe it's enough but you and i having a discussion on a comparative just of authority and powers perhaps can let other people decide whether or not that's sufficient investigation or whether additional investigation is going to be undertaken. let's just talk about the inspector again and the fbi. the inspector general's mission statement is that they were established under the irs restructuring and reform act that promote the economy and effectiveness of the administration of the internal revenue laws committed to the

protection of the fraud and abuse within the irs. pretty big distinction. so let go down with some of those poiwers because the fbi i involved in criminal investigations and the inspector general is involved in internal investigations. the inspector general does not have the act to compel people to testify outside the irs is that correct. >> i believe that's correct. >> the fbi does, correct? >> yes. >> yes. so when the inspector general undertakes an investigation of the irs, they are only going to be able to interview the people who are there. if there's somebody outside the irs who may have been involved or have information, the inspector general falls short. they can't even do that with

vo inspector general. the ig doesn't have the ability to arrest people. >> i wasn't to be helpself. >> ms. o'connor you know the basic things. the five things i ask you will be simple. the ig cannot go arrest someone, right? >> trust what you're say bug i haven't reviewed the ig act. >> we both know the fbi can, correct. >> yes. >> excellent. warrants. the ig does not have an ability to execute a warrant. the fbi does. the difference here is the fbi can go seize things where the inspector general has to request them like we do and ask things to be delivered to them so the fbi can actually to in and take hard drives and materials that could lead them to an investigation, the ig is a response and questioning mode. the subpoena power.

the ig has that but only of treasury ememployees. the fib can subpoena anybody revel aent levant to the invest right. >> yes. >> the issue we have here is when people say we are doing an investigation, the ig is doing an investigation, you and i can agree it's not the same type of investigation the fbi would do. the fbi's mission is enforcing the criminal laws the united states. as you know and as mr. lynch was saying, the concern people have is perhaps a law was broken. now if you're going to do a criminal investigation, wouldn't you agree the fbi should do a criminal investigation versus the ig just come with me on the issue in general. do you assign that an inspector general or the fbi. >> my understanding of the

situation. >> no, i'm saying if there's a criminal matter and you're assigning it. do you assign it to the ig or fbi. you can give me this one. you would give it to the fbi, right. >> i recall when i was at the irs the ig had a number of deputies, one of whom was the deputy for investigations. they seemed to be very hard working. >> i'm sure they are competent but by law they are limited in their investigative powers and their scope of their mission is not the shame as we give to the fbi. wouldn't you agree if there was a criminal matter you would choose the fbi. >> if the matter was about a laptop. >> the ig has very limited powers. they should not be the sole source of this investigative authority. thank you. >> thank. mr. davis is recognized for five. >> thank you very much mr.

chairman. ms. o'connor, let me continue with the focus of your work, doing your tenure at the irs because supposedly that's the reason you were subpoenaed to testify here today. when were you hired by the internal revenue service. >> may 30th, 2013. it is my understanding that you had a role in complying with the numerous investigations in irs e employees for tax exempt status. >> according to a 2013 letter to this committee -- this would be back when he were still there, the internal revenue service went to extraordinary length to

cooperate with congress. the letter explains that the irs quote, protects the taxpayers specific information in them as required by law. is that correct and if so, did you have a role in setting up that process? >> i had a role in advising and helping the people who were engaged in that process. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i would ask unanimous consent to enter this august 2nd, 2013 letter into the record. >> that objection, so recorded. >> when the irs set up the process, what was the goal? the goal was to get as much

informi information as much as the four different committees -- to get them what they needed in order to get them to conduct their investigations and do it with care and as quickly as we could. >> there appeared to be a lot of confusion about why the irs does d not discover the lost e-mails earlier. let's see if we can clear that up. it is my understanding that it was congress, not the internal revenue service that prioritized what documents you search more and congress, not the irs that provided the search terms. is that correct. >> yes, that's correct. >> in atigs to using congress's search terms, what did the irs

do to further facilitate the production of documents, among the things the irs did was to ask lawyers and other staff people who were dedicated to m pleamenting the tax law and enforcing them and put aside their jobs. the irs increased the it resources to the effort in order to stabilize a very large system. we also -- i personally and mr. wharfel as well met with the staff of the investigative committees to in addition to saying who's employees materials they wanted and search terms. they also had specific requests for different types of documents. we worked hard to satisfy those

sort the one off well as well as getting to everybody, the large body of material that was sought. more than 400,000 pages of material to be produced. i have read the irs has produced nearly 3 quarters of a million pages of material. it's a had the of material. i think it reflects a very se serious effort. >> let me ask you how you respond to allegations from republican members of congress that you were part of some irs plot to obstruct congress? >> well it's not at all true. i think the record of the irs while i was there reflects very hard work and providing the materials that the investigative committees were seeking to them. >> my time is up so i thank you

very much. i yield back. >> we know go to twyoming for five minutes, thank you mr. chairman. some of our other colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said that we are getting off base with the attention that we're focusing on this investigation. i'd like to focus back on some of my concerns about the failure of lois lerner to testify. her failure to testify truthfully about whether she broke no laws or violated no rules and whether she did nothing wrong. if someone can come before this committee and say that and then

insert their second amendment right about incrimination and then find that their own e-mails refute the fact that she did nothing wrong and violated no laws, that we should be agreysing in trying to find those e-mails. we already have some of them. some of those e-mails suggest that he was very actively involved in violating laws. we know that she gave confident taxpayer information to another agency and that that violates the law. we know that she specifically saying that it was row gauge in cincinnati who was involved in this was actively involved herself in looking at cross

roads gps which is a carl rove organization. carl rove being one of the agitators that the political left most dislikes. here as the wall street journal editorial board rights. >> irs general counsel claimed 80 times that he couldn't recall events. subsequently it goes onto explain that the most doubling documents was that ms. lerner actively corresponded with a liberal which had asked the irs to investigate if conservative groups including cross roads gps were violating their tax exempt status. ms. lerner asked why cross roads

had not been audited. i believe ms. lerner was held appropriately in contempt in front of congress. i believe she should be tried because of her violations. she should be held up to federal employees who violate the rights of americans in their role and capacity as public serve ants. that is why i'm interested in knowing why her e-mails -- why not all of her e-mails are not availab available. that's why i want to know just now that her e-mail crashed. so i believe that this investigation is tont right track. it's perfectly legitimate. i'm of the opinion that this

inquiry is well placed. you know, every sing the right, the un faks up every e-mail for the entire state of wyoming and every night backs up ef e-mail for the university of wie oexing. so they not only have a back up system, they back up each other so there's a redundant back um system for all of the e-mails in the wie oyoming state governmend the university of wyoming. why that kind of thing isn't happening in an agency like the irs where people are relying on the veracity of what's going on there to get guidance to taxpayers, and fair treatment of the people of this country is beyond me. here is my question.

ms. o'connor, during your time, so far in the white house, have you been aware of any instances of the white house reviewing documents requested by congress under the guise of white house equities? >> as i explained earlier -- i'm not sure if you were here yet, i came today to be able to answer questions about my time in the irs, the six months that i was there which is what the chairman's letter to me said this hearing would be about so i'm not prepared to talk about my other experienced today. >> if we were to subpoena you and ask to talk about whether you were aware of any instances of the house reviewing documents requested by congress under the guise of white house equities come back and answer that specific questions.

>> well, i'll been here for a along time today but what i would say about with the issue of it work with staff and accommodate and provide some information. i'm happy to provide that assistance to support legitimate oversight inquiries. >> thank you ms. o'connor. i field back. mr. couplings, do you have anything further. >> i'm going to close. you can close first. >> let me ask you something mr.s o'connor. i was going back to mr. doubty's requests and i was sitting here trying to figure this out. you said the search terms were given to you by the committees, is that right? >> yes. so he made a big deal that maybe you shouldn't have used search terms, you should have just said

from and to, assume -- correct me if i was wrong, what you were trying to do is get all the relevant documents out no other words because you had 61.03 issues you had to go through the documents. how did it come about that you got the committees to give you search terms. do you follow what i'm saying. >> i do. the follow of material -- what i recall was that there were 82 or 83 employees. the way the irs went about kreking material was to pull all e-mails on whatever computer they had. because of 6103 which require them to protect taxpayer

information. all of that would have to be proviewed before it is produced. that would take a very long time. in order to make it much more efficient and to get you the documents about the subjects at issue, the tax exempt, the organizations and the screening process of how they are processed, we should to the committee we will zooero in on e information. the staff was very cooperative. >> the staff knew what was going on there. you were trying to get the information as fast as you could that the committees wanted. is that right? >> yes. so let's say for example, you use the search terms. you call search term e-mails. what happens with the one to

thes the left. you might have ones that have information that the committee might be interested in. a lot has been made of making sure that we got all the e-mails. what happen? do you go back and look at those? >> so when i left the irs we were still producing the rolling production of documents that had been called through the search term process. i don't know than what they did after i left but my understanding was that they pulled mrs. lerner's from the initial set that hadn't hit the search terms in order to provide them to the committee. do you know if that was a plan to go back and pick up the ones that you might have gotten at the beginning -- after the

initial search. >> a lot of the commissions were being made day to day but the intent was to continue to supply with the subpoena. >> thank you. m this whole thing of 2000 computers crashing, we're in trouble aren't we? 2,000 this year. as i said the state of technology in the federal government is not where it should be. that's a lightweight description. it sounds like we're in the dark ages. if you've got computers crashing and we're only half a year done and there was something that was entered gnat record not long ago about services for repairs of

computers -- the services not being needed, apparently they said something about not delivered. there's one thing to have the money. it's another thing to spend the money effectively and efficiently. i mean from what you've seen, are we spending the money efficiencies in those various agencies including the irs so do we have to do something different. >> we have engaged the industry in developing tools to help the industries do their work more efficiently. we are on the right track. what i just heard about your support for increased funding for i.t. that makes me very optimistic. >> i want to thank you all for

being here. >> thank you. i now want to correct the record as best i can. i know mr. lynch will not agree with this but he sited a number of reports august 19th, 2013 and a follow-up report. i want to make it clear april staff report of april 17th, debunking the myth the irs targeted conservative groups. it comes after these questions. i know none of you are here for the core question. it's my time. for the core questions of who was targeted. we're going to lead that aside and let the report speak for myself. >> i actually asked the witness though, mr. chairman -- i derived that information from

the witness using the documents there. i had independent reassurance from the witness what the document indicated. that's why i used it. >> mr. ms. o'connor. >> yes. >> somebody who had absolutely nothing to do with the underlying investigation. >> she was actually there when the witnesses from the irs had come 94ed a come forward and targeted conservative groups. >> ms. o'connor, what is your independent knowledge that progressive groups were targeted and treated unfairly by the people in cincinnati, lois lerner or washington? >> you now can't remember the exact question but the spread sheets had terms that protects progressive organizations. >> isn't it true that they had a

couple of charms that might have done it in another section. acorn was a business this went out of business because it was found to have committed krieps. i will ask you the question, what treext are you aware of, think about progressive group that gave them any questions on what an has been specified for what conservative groups went there. what is your knowledge of that. >> to my knowledge is limited. >> what is your first hand knowledge of any of that. >> my only first hand knowledge of it is the fact that i did see some of the e-mails and not all of them that were produced in the period of time when i was at

the irs and e-mail production was not complete obviously. i didn't conduct an -- >> so you have no personal knowledge of abuse of progressive groups or liberal group at home. studies have shown that a number of names came up that weren't patriot groups. the two years or more of winl holding their approval. do you have any knowledge of that treatment or mistreatment occurring to any progressive left leaning group? >> to my knowledge is not direct from being there. i saw some of the e-mails i saw for example -- >> i want to make sure i understand your answer is no. >> mr. chairman, the title of the report -- >> wait a second. this is my time does the gentleman have a question a point of order. >> yeah. >> what's the title of your report? it says debunking the myth of progressives being targeted?

>> i just stopped the clock to let him go as long as he wants. anything else, steve? sir, my line of questioning was to counter the assertion in your report and the title of your report that progrifss were not targeted. that's the simple point i was trying to make. i think it's relevant and admissible. steve, i appreciate that. as you know, there were additional names added sort of after the jig was up that brought additional names, progressive names in but no evident has been found of there being unfairly treated which is different than a search term. >> they are targeted though. >> targeting -- >> it is relevant in both cases of the. >> irs's intent, lois learn's

intent has been well demonstrated in a multitude of reports. her intent to was to reject citizens united we have the president shaking her fist at citizen's up ited and her saying in public statements that they want to yous to do it. mrs. o'connor, you have no first hand knowledge of seeing mistreatment of conservative groups. >> written records and the records of the witnesses that you've spoken with, yes. >> now, we called you here because in fact, you were at the irv d irr in which a vast knowledge of documents were delivered

pursuant to search terms. is that correct! i think you called be here during that time. >> during that time in august because, in fact, we were getting volume inous amounts of documents not of our choosing but everybody's choosing. we were not getting the church -- and they were being prioritized. we were getting progressive stuff first and we new that lois lerner was beginning to emerge as a key figure. i issued a subpoena. did you have any question but that i was saying at least as to this committee -- both sides, bomb boarding us with documents that are your organization would

constantly say we've given you 64,000, 64 million. what we wanted was ms. lerner's e-mails. you never looked for them. we asked for her e-mailed because she was the person of interest for being the center of the investigation. we issued a subpoena. that subpoena was very clear. we wanted all of her e-mails while the irs continued to slowly go through these search terms and delivered other documents first. you've testified to that before. -- even after our subpoena was issued. >> your subpoena asked for a number of things. >> we made it very clear in testimony and kmaun indicationment indication

ment communication that we wanted all of her e-mails. >> i understand that. all of the material the irs continued to produce was responsive to your subpoena as well as the other committees. i know it's frustrating that there were many committees that were investigating but there were. >> right. i'm just going to cloiz with something that i want to make sure -- i want to make sure one thing. you said four committees. there's really two committees times two congress. there's us and our our senate comartyrs. the ways and mean and senate finance. they have the ability to see all documents un-redacted. if you in fact when get a print out just send it to them in bulk? >> no. >> so you applied manufacture of that $10 million worth of time and effort going through and selecting what to give. you never gave those documents

in bulk. had you given all of lois learn erp's e-mails and given them to the senate finance, then you would have known there were substantial amounts missing much sooner, wouldn't you. >> the reason that even the committees that can receive the 6103 information didn't get massive quantities of anybody's e-mails is because from the beginning of the investigation their request letters were specific. they wanted certain kinds of materials. they wanted bolo lists and e-mails to and from this person. there were a lot of spisivic material i don't believe it should only give us the first one first. that said, i did hear you say that you had a priority on her

e-mail. the irs tried to balance all of that. it was really a challenge. i think at the end of the day a lot of vaeg has been providing and i completely understand that you haven't gotten the stuff that you wanted but i will say there's a lot of material to do a lot of requesters. >> mr. dare is? >> then i will close with no further questions other than a short comment, i've spent almost 30 years in business. i've gone from nonnetworks to pc networks to novel networks to microsoft networks. i've gone through lotus notes and exchange servers. today all of my companies are run on an amazon cloud.

it backs up everyday. i can go back as far as i want to go the date and they can restore a functional copy so i search it. the tool existed at my former company which is not a large company, a few hundred million dollars. they were able to back up millions of i mails and invoices and the like and do so compliant with federal rules of discovery because in fact, the federal rules of discovery do not tolerate you saying here is paper, sort through it or our dog ate it or we destroy everything we simply not backing it up every sim months. so is this committee including mr. couplings looks at holding

the federal government's own rules and what we hold the private sector for. i think there's no question that if we held ouringselvselves to e level we hold corporate america for and the irs holds them accountable for, we would get a very different result. the irs insists under drebt transparency when they are doing an audit as to information. that's expected. in fact price water coopers also existed in that. we've gone too long with scluss. we further after 90 days. we allow laptops to down load 6103 information and go home. not too many years ago we had one of the great scandals.

millions of social security numbers of our veterans that had a laptop that leave. reforms were put out at that time to try to protect informing. no one knows who was on her laptop as i understand it or any of these others. the protection should do. >> the ftc holds the private sector responsible if there's a loss of information. so i'm delighted that you accept our subpoena. mr. f m wewster i'm even more delighted that you are trying to bring accountability to the federal government to maintain records that the american people have a right to. i look forward to follow-up investigations and follow-up

questioning so we can in fact bring up the standards of the federal government in accountability because the american right now do not believe or trust that in fact, we're getting the honest answer from the irs. much of it is not getting prompt aeptss to questions but much of it is based on the systematic failure to return are documents for a period of time that the american people assume will always be kept at. i want to thank you. i believe this panel was unique in that it really had people that you wouldn't oredarily see people next to each other deem with a problem that we will deal with for many years. >> first of all, i thank you all for being here and thank you mr. chairman. i will be very brief. ms. koi conner, i know the irs

employees are watching this. i want them to know i appreciate their efforts. when i listen to the four committee and what you have to do, these emmoi eployees are wo very hard. want to thank you thex. they are working very long hours trying to deal with with various priorities. getting all kinds of information from staff. trying to balance all of that. i'm sure many of them have come under criticism but i just want them to know on behalf of our nation, we appreciate them. >> thank you. there's always one more thing that arrives at the end of the hearing that gets into a record. this is from mr. couplings, hr 1234 has a score by the congressional budget office of

only $15 million for the entire government which says very clearly if fact the $10 million claimed last night by the commissioner would seem to be an excess cost compared to cbo's wide spread score in order to meet mr. kummings initiative. i look forward to working with him and we will find the $15 million. with that we stand in recess. funding for the export, import bank which helps finance u.s. exports with government backed loan guarantees expires in september. the financial services committee will hear opposing views on whether to reauthorize the bank. live coverage continues at 10:00

a.m. eastern on cspan 3. later today a panel will look at the influx of unaccompanied children coming across the u.s./mexico border. that gets started at 2:00 eastern on cspan 3. it's live from the house judiciary committee. next a former adviser discussed the escalating violence in iraq. the american task force on palestine hosted this two hour event. >> greeting to the national audience of cspan and other stations. when we started preparing pour this subject, we had no idea how accelerated on the ground.

i thought at left i will tell you about the events of the last 24 hours where kerry was in baghdad was we speak after visiting cairo. the iraqi forces have lost control over several border checkpoints with syria and one with jordan. the american general reported that the iraqi army is in shambles and cannot to face the more formidab iidable isis.

the rebels in syria and iraq have gathered together under the name of isis. they have crossed the border more recently and in no time at all they rolled over major cities including most of the second largest city in iraq. they have become an unstoppable force. nothing could stop them and needless to say this has generated a great deal of interest in iraq and the united states. this president who is so averse to military intervention has found it impossible to avoid iraq again after he was so happy to leave it. that's why you have mr. kerry there. that's why you have forces --

actual forces as experts in iraq to see how to mount what the president thinks is the major new threat to stability not in iraq but one that would spill over into the region, including jordan. something needs to be done. it has become clear that the government in iraq has failed on so many levels to hold together its own people pause of the sectarian policy that has become intolerable and has been opposed by a fractions of shyites who are in favor but not in favor of sfrp a po such a policy. iraq is important for just not just what happened in iraq. it is important for the impact it has in the region and the

superpower that has been in charge for the region for a long time and now has been trying to engage obviously with a great deal of challenge. should we be able to put iraq together, then the region will avoid one of the major catastrophes that are in the wading in a confrontation between sectarian and religious factors across the middle east and sauvignon. it will last for deck's fwr. they have started in other places like syria iraq but this will become a refiner for decades if it is not challenged.

it is the challenge to act responsibly and put together a government that acts for fair and addressed everyone in society. we have put together for this group an excellent group of experts on this subject. we will be introducing them one at a time. we've been he lucky to avoid themself for us. i think i would start with with john o trk tttoman. john is the virginski chair at the middle east at csis. he has served in government at the state department in the past. has been a very ktive member of

the think tank community for the past decade at least. in regard to the middle east, he was participated in policy making, as well as a commission, the hamilton/baker bra e er ope averies problssess problems in . we are very proud to have you here. john, the way we structured this is that we will have every speaker have ten minutes of presentation and will be asked a question after that and then after we go around, we will open it to questions and answers by the audience. we expect a lively conversation and i'm sure everybody is ready

for tough questions. i will first invite you to make your remarks. >> thank you. thank you very much for that warm introduction. the thing you forgot was the friend piece. he is a friend piece. he is the genuine national treasure. the only thing i can say is that i'm sorry my parents weren't here because mip mother involve believed it and. i remember my colleague died yesterday. we disagreed about a lot of other things prap nothing more than iraq r but disagreed for his strengths for his beliefs and intellect which was never in question for those who disagreed with them.

it is perhaps, especially fitting to talk about iraq today. actually, i think in my thinking was starting to converge with him which is a sense that i am getting smarter or he was coming around. i think americans are strange in the world in we have two national characteristics in the way we look at foreign policy. one is we're optimizers. we always look for the best option. i think this sort of the deep cultural side of our optimizing tendency is the popularity of consumer reports. we love ratings. we love to see what is the best? i think we have approached iraq consistently looking for the best outcomes. we look for the optimum outcomed you work to get a solution.

there are a lot of possible solutions. you look for the best solution and you move on. what strikes as we look it the it what is happening in iraq is that everything has a solution. we are very different from the other countries in the region because what we've seen in the last couple of weeks is virt yully all the neighbors and the continued struggle with isis. i think it's more obvious for syria where assad would love to show it is fighting an existential battle not against syrian citizens looking for self governance but instead against a bunch of blood thirsty

jihadists. they love changing the topic but not as syria. >> the iranians see it was a way to take pressure off syria. b, to make the government nor reliant on iran than already it. and c. iran having some solution that they can offer the world. the fact that there's a struggle actually helps the iranians. the gcc states actually think it's helpful to curve the successes or them in iraq and having under pressure get the sunnis a place at the cable. the kurds are happy to have the central government preoccupied

with other parts of the country so they can consoledate control. it he maliki himself is a guy who is not afraid to fight. if you remember his 2006 campaign america thought he was nuts. he thought it was good. now that is a part of iraq which is most firmly under his centralized control. so he's not shying away from a fight. it seems to me that if you're looking at this problem which we call consider a serious problem, we have to consider the fact that virtually every surrounding state, jordan being, i think, a notable exception, but all of these people surrounding the conflict actually think the conflict is helpful in some

ways. nobody wants him to win which is interesting. a lot of people want dash to fight. i think this is an especially difficult prob lex because if you're looking at it from an american diplomatic perspective. if what you're looking for is fix the problem of iraq then you start focusing on the need for iraq is an ecluesive government and you need to give sunnis a place at the table. i think it gives you into all the combat eants have a positio. the time to be in those negotiations is off the fight has gone fonon for a while. it seems to me where american diplomacy hassing to from the

deployment of it rather than the politics of it. it seems to me that the internal politics in irrauk are not right for a solution. rememberiki after the last election took nine months to come up with a new government. i think what secretary kerry is doing now is working with all of the antagonists and external sponsors persuading them that it is not in anybody's interest. that the problem of foreign fighters not only arab fiegers but coming into the region are not in favor with them. the u.s. has staked that will

protect itself. i think that is the important thing that people want to do is b. let's get a political solution. it seems to me that both of those things put the cart before the horse. what we have to do is we have to build a broader consensus for what it is we're trying to do. i see from pete's notes. it's unfair of me to look over the notes. he is going to talk a little bit about the durability of dash and what happens. everybody is making a bet. i think it's a dangerous bet because even if they can't win embedding them in that is actually an enduring threat to not only the neighbors but all the iraqis as well. it seems to me the diplomatic task is to persuade people

partly through attraction and coercion that we have to arrive at a different set of ambitions. we have to sequence in the right way. what we have to do in the longer term is get some sort of political settlement in iraq that addresses people's concerns. we have to line-up external sponsors of dash and lines of conflict to diminish that. question deal with that insurgency as we deal with the longer term problems of iraq. >> thank you john. we have a situation where this conflict is really part of an already exiting largerer conflict between iran and the shiite and the iraq state, the significant arab state and the conflict in syria.

dash is actually part syrian. suppose you're carry. what do you tell the iranys to get this message across. can you bring them together on all of this. >> first those are very different conversations to have with the saudis and iranians are waiting to be acted. they go around the world, as first, second, and third on their priority list with things to address. they are looking for ways to increase their relative leverage and one consquenequence of that think is that they are willing to endure things that hurt them

tactically because they think strategically holding the keys to a solution helps them in the long term. their strategic interest has them deal with the mastic visa vie, the united states. i think in term of the iranians, you don't want them to show up with a lot of things on their desk. i think the key is highlighting the common interests but not making it seem like a concession but things we are doing it in their interest and we are doing something. i would be careful not to get into a head to head negotiation. i think with the saudis it is about reassuring them with our attentions in the region. reassuring them about the bottom line of protecting sun yip

interests and other things and also having a technical conversation with the foreign fighter problem and reasonable things. woer working with the saudied on this and one of the things the saudis have is an incredible database of active muslims. they have been forthcoming on trying to get us analytically on the same page to help us. i think part of this is deepening that technical cooperation because ultimately there's a huge overlap between saudi interests and american interests. already more of that work is

going on. i think it needs to continue. >> thank you. allow me to introduce our next speaker. mr. peter monsul. he is a retired army colonel. the last one executive officer to general petraeus. peter is now a professor at military history at the ohio state university. he has authorized two books on the iraq war. my journey have general david petraeus and the iraqi war. he went to west point and graduated top of his class. secondly he is part of the most

67ing wshed award presented by atfb a couple of months ago. peter. >> thank you all for being here. i appreciate the attendance. we have a lot to talk about. you know, dr. zeod and i were talking about breakfast and we were saying it's amazing how many iraq experts there are that had has become news again. i do consider myself bonne r won having spent half of my life out. some of you may not agree on what ip have to say. in my position from transitioning into the military to an academic i realize that it no longer matter if i'm right

because i have tenure. i will use the as you laislamicy do i use that name. they have goals that expand beyond syria. they don't call themself the islamic state of iraq and syria. they call themthemselves the isc state of all of them. this is a group with broad ambitions. they have recently started to obtain them. what is isil. it has a veneer of jihadists from around the world. it has a core of ex-army oft officer you can read all about that in my book serge.

they've been gathering strength in sanctuaries in syria, aided by the civil war ongoing there. most recently they've been joined by sunni tribes man from alonbar province and other places in iraq. tribes man who once had a very firm alliance with the united states in their battles with al qaeda and arrest and now have turned against the iraqi government for the very ektary an and foreign policies. achievt

alliance breaks down. so we have to ask ourselves, why was the takeover of mosul and about one third of iraqi territory in the northern and western portions of the country, why was that so easy? of have to go to the impact prime minister nouri al-maliki's very authoritarian governing style. he has succeeded in fracturing the alliance that we had created with the iraqie tribes, the sunni tribes. the narrative back in the surge that we created is that everyone against al qaeda. they became everyone's number one enemy. that alliance work. al-maliki, when u.s. forces departed iraq at the end of 2011 thomas felt that the war won. he saw fit to alienate large swaths of the iraq he people by

attacking their politicians come a by agglomerated more power to attacking their protest camps, by marginalizing all of their elites, and by not giving them a fair share of the power and resources of iraq. this succeeded in alienating most of the sunni community and most of the kurdish community as well. maliki did one other thing, he turned the iraq he security forces, the police and the army and the courts as well into his personal militia. he got rid of a lot of the competent army commanders, a lot of the sunnis, marginalized a lot of the kurdish leaders and packed the military forces with leaders who are beholden to him politically. he created exactly what he wanted, a very politically reliable military force, but

also one that cannot fight effectively. invaded the northern and western portions of iraq, it they didn't receive a lot of pushback from the local inhabitants, who welcomed them for the most part or at least acquiesced and stood aside while they took over the cities, and the iraq he army party much dust justlved. -- pretty much dissolved and retreated because they were fighting for sunni areas, and most of the commanders were shia. the soldiers were fighting for these commanders really are fairly corrupt. we don't care for them, and if you are a soldier, you have a choice between saving yourself and withdrawing from the battlefield are fighting for a corrupt commander who is only in it because of the political gains, you are not going to fight. is taken over much of the

sunni triangle that we have heard about so much back in the early days of the war and they have reached as far as smara and falluja. that is about 40 miles away from seems like a juggernaut right now, on the march, but they are hardly an unstoppable force. there's probably fewer than 10,000 committed fighters in their ranks. this not an overly large number. they have to now and troll the territory they have taken and that's going to take forces, so they cannot put all those fighters on the front lines. i think it is very unlikely they could take advantage, a city of 7 million inhabitants, tens of thousands of armed shia militia men on the streets, and an iraqi army down there at least with more competent units and more

incentive to fight for the city. i was in baghdad. i had a brigade combat team of 3500 soldiers. baghdad swallows up armies, and it would swallow up isl as well. i agree with john, we have time to get the diplomacy and eventually the politics right. we should not provide some sort of knee-jerk reaction thinking that baghdad is going to fall to a jihadist offensive. i have to disagree on one thing. doesn't mean that isl cannot win. they can win by consolidating this state that they have now seized spanning the syrian and iraqi border. that will give them a base from which to destabilize the region, from which to launch attacks against europe and the united states if they wish, and to expand their own territory.

they are now extremely well financed. by all accounts they have seized about a half alien dollars in assets from the moles will bank nk.from the mosul ba is now the strongest and richest terrorist group in the world and one that controls territory. iraq hetion is can the security forces retake the ground lost, and the answer is, not without a lot of help. i was there when nouri al-maliki called general petraeus and ambassador rice crocker to his office. that was on a thursday evening. they show what the next day and he said i'm heading down to basra with four brigades on saturday. no coordination, because he didn't want us to tell him that that was a bad idea. the charge of the nine succeeded. maliki succeeded in clearing out .asra and then sadr city

it only succeeded because we supported it. it was on the verge of failure. logistically it was failing. they had no fire support and they were on the verge of failing. that would have been disastrous for maliki. he would easily have suffered a vote of no-confidence in the council representatives. he went down there to bosworth and realizes -- he went down to basra and moved his headquarters and commanded and controlled the way only an iraqi could, with four cell phones in front of him. laid onpetraeus advisers, air, attack helicopters, drones, and airborne infantry battalion, logistics. it was that push from the multinational force that allowed the charge of the knights to succeed. maliki is doing sort of the same thing. he has moved his headquarters up to samara.

domedme of the golden mosque. he is to defend it. he doesn't have multinational force iraq to back him up anymore, so it's going to be a very dicey affair. 25% army by recent reports is combat ineffective. , thes no trouble support way we had trouble support -- he has no tribal support the way we had it in 2007-2008. first, i agree with john, we shouldn't do anything about it till it terribly until there is a diplomatic and political solution. u.s. air power, which everyone in this town seems to talk about as some sort of strategic panacea to everything, will not succeed without significant help to regenerate combat power in

the iraq he army. forcesnot destroy these because they are integrated among the populations of the cities with airpower alone. you're not even going to be able to target them effectively without killing a lot of civilians along the way and thereby alienating the very people you need to bring over to your side to win this conflict. so i believe that what needs to happen is we need to get the diplomacy right and the politics right. that means an iraqi government that's more inclusive are legitimate and has the support of all ethnicities and factions in the country. then you can reknit that alliance that was so successful in defeating al qaeda in iraq the first time around during the surge of 2007-2008. if you can do that, in defeating isl becomes a much easier

prospect, albeit one that will require a lot of bloody ground combat. i will in their. x thank you very much, peter. -- i will end theire. it was a comprehensive , a multifaceted program. a fundamental part of that was encouraging the tribes and tribal leaders and the sunnis to be part of the struggle against the terrorists. having described now in the incapable present situation to deal with this, do you see a role or something similar both on the sunni and on the shiite side to kind of be part of the

participation against the fight against isis? >> this is exactly the way ahead. if you can get a government that the sunni tribes and the shiite canes, as you noted, support, then you can reknit this alliance that was so successful during the search. intoan bring them back accord with baghdad and with the government and then defeating dis inneer of foreign jiha the ranks becomes a much easier task. and i might add that it would be a good time for the iraq he government to think about reconciliation with the baptist portion -- the bathist portion of isl. if you could maybe think of a way of having them buy into the government in baghdad, perhaps some sort of federal structure for the sunni areas of northern

and western iraq, but within a broader iraqi state. general petraeus used to say that you cannot kill your way to victory in these kind of conflict. you want to reduce your list of enemies so you fight as few people as possible. what you want to end up with is what we had during the surge. what you want to end up with now, everyone against the foreign jihadists. that is the element that is truly dangerous to u.s. and worldwide security in this situation. >> thank you. our third speaker is the chairman of a bag -- baghdad-based economic think tank and adviser to the iraq national congress. between 2005-2007 served as economic advisor to the prime minister's office, prior to that

he was an active member of the iraq he pro-democracy movement since 1992. he lives in baghdad and happens to be visiting, to our good fortune. he has managed several corporations in iraq and california, including motorola in baghdad. he holds a bachelors agree in electronic engineering and an mba. welcome. >> thank you very much. be actually very honored to with such fine gentleman on the same panel. with the passing of a friend of mine, we are closer politically as he is another member of the pro-democracy movement in the middle east. we worked together 15-20 years ago. may god bless his soul. just for the national rest club, i wish to inform you that almost 58 years ago, my late father,

who was a diplomat here in washington, he was the first iraq he diplomat in the world that came out in support of change in iraq in 1958. on july 14, 1958, he was in this club announcing his support to the change in baghdad. to follow in his footsteps as maybe being the second member of the family in the national press club. i kept my notes in my mind here. there are a lot of things to talk about in the middle east and especially iraq. there's a huge amount of press coverage, including c-span, including satellite channels from the middle east as well as the national iraq he channel over here also. i'm glad there is interest, and unfortunately there is continuous interest in iraq in a

negative manner. i wish there were be interested in economic ruin -- economic growth and unfortunately it always comes to the agenda and it comes up to a higher priority when it comes to death and killing. we have organizations that keep changing names. palma the iraq use iraq these,st, the we cannot even agree on the terms. kuwait,lls went up in , so alarmall it isik bells are everywhere in the middle east because this organization is obviously not there to provide prosperity for the people. i'm not a military person. i am an economist and an engineer and a businessman. i cannot really comment on what is going on.

i'm hearing almost this thing thing i heard back in 2003 -- the same thing i heard back in 2003, that the government tactically withdrew today from the borders with syria and jordan. orody would tactically abandon their posts with their neighbors. isis is the neighbor where is coming in and out. poor and very bad strategy to allow even more members to come into iraq and .ore military hardware we are very grateful for the united states to have helped us with all this military hardware, to make its way back to syria. so to open these channels of fighters and weaponry out is not the right tactical strategy that the iraqi government should be doing. going back to the economy, i looked at things from an economic standpoint. of course everybody is reporting

this as being a sunni-shiite and iranian, saudi, it makes sense looking at it from washington or from london, it makes sense that we could easily say there is black and white. i look at it from a different way. the maliki government was a friend of the west. the change in iraq was assisted by the west. view as not in my sunni-shiite challenge. change init as the the economic strategy of the iraqi government that took place in 2010. yes, maliki did not win the election in 2006. he was assisted by our friends in the united states to become the prime minister in 2006. in 2010 he managed to stay in power by winning not the most number of seats, but 89 seats as

opposed to 91 seats, and he still managed to stay in power. change inas a major the iraq he strategy. 2003, and i was a participant in that as an , i even advisor assisted the deputy prime minister and the head of the economic committee within the prime minister's office. what we were doing was changing y into aral economi free-market economy. that actually worked on the with the formation of the tbi bank, iraq was actually issuing letters of credit which were honored by western banks. iraq was gradually going away from what actually happened in 1958, what my father actually

demised of, the biggest in the iraq economy was in 1958 when we change from free economy to a very centralized economy, which continued until 2003. we managed to change it into a free economy, but in 2010, this is the big setback, the government started going back into the central economy. it'sof you actually know much easier to manage the population when you have a central economy, because the central government will issue -- will give job. they can hand out pieces of land, they can give you a contract. is.power is where the buck this is where the power is. when you have a central government, central prime minister or the president becomes authority within that area.

maliki is taking us back to the central economy. that is really the core of the problem. itther you want to call sunni-shiite, whether you want to call it arab-kurds. my iraq is happened to be iraq he brothers who happen to be kurds and they happen to be arabic. in northern iraq they succeeded by implementing the free-market economy. me and she was with witnessed how successful that country was, that part of the country. so iraq can be successful and we have models for success. there are provinces in southern semi-hat have almost

autonomous. we had an honest and ethical governor who succeeded in turning his province into a success. -- problem with the economy is with the economy, not with the sunni and shia. the gulf states of kuwait and saudi arabia are not against shia, as most people would like to think. they are against the central economy that maliki has put together, and he is handing out jobs, he is handing out financial assistance to some tribes but not giving it to other tribes. nobody is sanctioning iran because they are shia. the oil and gas, the hydrocarbon block, had maliki approved and worked with the -- and she isis and sunnis, we would not have a problem with exporting oil out

of the port in turkey. now there are tankers that are filling up with iraq he oil exported from the regional government. the cause was not approving the hydrocarbons. again, it is an economic problem. r were barred anba from major jobs that they used to have in the past. why were they? whether it was deep bath ction,ation -- debathifa why would you be barred from a job? that is the underlying cause that brought us to this problem today. what happened is obviously the wanted some assistance to help them fight for their rights. stick -- distinguish between the needs of the iraq he

people, and the problems they are facing today. call it economic problems because we have 6 million people under the property line while we have a handful of people who are not millionaires, they are billionaires. the gap between the rich and poor is widening. terms, we have to ask our friends the united states and in iran and in the isis oro help us fight whatever they want to call them. the problem is economic. this is what i would like to underline. therefore, no matter what we do militarily, with continuation of the current government in baghdad and the central economic policies they have, we will never fix the problem. i say we in the pro-democracy movement, before 2003 we called for the federalization of iraq. today, iraq is the only country

in the world that has three provinces that are federal and 15 provinces that are central. there is no government -- no country in the world, the u.s. is 100% federal. all 50 states are federal. other countries are central. why would iraq be the only country that has three provinces federal and 15 central? as we federalize the entire basra would have been a province. we will not have the problems we are fighting today. everything you look at today has an economic underlying problem that we could at fixed four or five years ago. >> thank you very much. countryy in this understands the argument, so i think there is resonance here. i would like for you to explain to us, that is not what is used

to encourage the people to fight, to kill, to get killed and to sacrifice and start wars. we have an actual sectarian divide on the ground amongst the people. would you like to give us a sense of how many people within the sunni community or the shia community are really committed to an antagonistic program, whether it's on the rise or the way in our people see through it, or is it going to be useful to any demagogue to use it and keep the struggle going? >> economist make very poor generals and they cannot provide the motivation for soldiers. economists can give numbers on and that's pretty much all we can do. politicians can use the economist numbers and turn it into a political gain. the sunni community, i prefer to call them the iraqi community.

they are suffering. the she is are suffering -- the shias and kurds are suffering. the advantage of geographically being close to syria where the key events of the civil war going on over there has been used to assist them to make a change. i have a lot of friends in mosul and i talk to them very regularly. believe it or not, in the first few days of the occupation of isis, they were very happy because they did not like to be part of the maliki government, which is a sectarian government. thought they came to liberate them.

they used the word liberation. a few days later, i received different reports saying they are banning them from their thats, so they realize that does not mean they will go back to malik he and say -- go , i amo malaki and say sorry. they are there to take them back 1400 years. up to kuwait, back 1400 years. they are the enemies of progress. it is not a sunni-shia thing. there are some that support going back 1400 years, and i do

not want to name names, but some parts of the eastern provinces of the united states would go back some 2000 years ago, so the idea of going back that number of years is not a sunni thing or a shia thing. i am sure there are some jewish people who would like to go back. >> ok, thank you. >> this point you make is important, but i think the distinction between politics and economics is a little bit troubling. it seems to me that politics is ultimately about the distribution of resources at its core. byt politics is economics other means -- i think this is fairly universal, that anybody trying to build a political network tries to build networks and rewarding the people who support you at the expense of

people who do not support you, and the fact that this is seen, that loyalty is seen, in sectarian terms is not unique to iraq. it can be seen in tribal -- if you go to the middle east, it seems to me this problem of government seeking to use the economics to solidify political iraq,l goes far beyond and attacking that is not in iraq-specific problem but a broader problem of governance in the middle east, which extends from morocco in the west to iran in the east and probably continues, but my responsibility ends with iran, and everybody else has their own problems, but it does seem that there is something much more universal about the use of economics as a political tool that we should not lose sight of when we are talking about iraq. it does not make iraq distinct.

it actually makes iraq more similar to other places. peter. i have a question that touches on this. is it possible to isolate a country in the middle east and solve its problem alone? or the syria arab-israeli issue? or dealing with border crossing , border crossing issues like terrorism and corruption ?nd poor governance solved as a reasonable -- regional issue and part of a comprehensive strategy, like the surge, to deal with these things, where every country sits in a future middle east when you have more rational policy -- anyone can. >> i will take a swing at that, and then i will dovetail to what

has just been said. this has to be a regional strategy that the obama administration comes up with. you cannot deal with iraq alone, syria alone, lebanon alone, palestine alone. what happens in one part of the region affects the other part, as we have recently seen. we cannot contain what is going on in serious to serious, -- in syria to syria. i just want to make one point .bout the iraqi people what this is all about. this is, in my opinion, all about political elites using religion and fear to maintain control over the iraqi people, and we have people who say that iraq is not a real nation

anyway. it has always been three it should bets and divided up. i did not hear a single iraqi that said it should be divided up into three separate states. they all believe that they are iraqis. sunni-shiaom mixed marriages. politicians using it for their own purposes, many who have spent their years under expatriates,n as plotting their revenge, and this is what has got to stop, and this is why there needs to be a new political compound in baghdad, one that takes the common iraqis into account and not just the folks at the top of the spectrum of power and resources, so i would stop there and that my comrades have a shot at it.

me that while most countries in the middle east have some international aspect to their domestic rule, the interesting question is why iraq is so susceptible to the -- it hasof outside something to do with the fact that they are in economic player in the region. it has something to do with the of the states, both towards iraq, especially with regard to kuwait, but also this need for a buffer with iran, iran's desire to get influence over iraq as a way to meet its own regional ambitions. there is something particularly international about iraq, which i think is both illuminating about the situation in iraq but

also helps us think more strategically about how a solution to iraq, as pete suggests, has to fundamentally have a regional diplomatic component in addition to a political component. >> again, going back to looking at the matter from an economic standpoint, and let's picture this. let's picture this in 2000 three. iraq has opened up itself to the entire region. toned itself up to iran, turkey, to saudi arabia, to qatar, to kuwait. , weout this openness --bably would have witnessed come to anbar. they could have built facilities in anbar.

with the saudi companies, they probably could have built a huge ul.nt in most so -- in mos turkey could have done, and they have done -- so as we open ourselves up economically, they would have been working. they would have had jobs. they would have been working in factories. they would have improved themselves, and we would have built the middle class again. iraq does not have a middle class. andhave the ed -- elite, they are not millionaires anymore. the iraqi elite are billionaires. this is what we have. it is a major economic problem. and they are not shia. sunnis, and kur ds. >> thank you very much.

well, this is the time to open andp to you, the audience, i will please ask you to identify yourselves and ask questions. comments are really attractive and sexy, but there really is no time for comments. yes. [laughter] >> good morning. i am with the voice of america. i have no comments, but i have a general question. everybody is talking about wooding pressure on mansoor to .- putting pressure on malaki to have kurds and sunnis to have say in the future government -- and also, i was wondering about the kurds. what is their ambition?

mosul was captured .-going back to that thank you. >> a have seized a city which they believe -- they have seized which they will not give up. it will be kurdish for the foreseeable future. the. thank you. kurds have a lot of votes. any government who wants to form with their votes is going to haveto give them turco -- to give them kirkuk. a kurdish state, that remains to be seen. i far as pressure on malaki,

personally do not believe a viable iraqi government can develop under him. sects toxic to a lot of and parties and factions within the country. he is seen as a central part of the problem, so for me, it would be difficult to imagine a government that is inclusive and in from all of those groups with him in charge, but what can the united states do about it? who toot tell the iraqis select as their next prime minister. all we can do is control and encourage and work as an intermediary -- all we can do is and encourage and work as an intermediary. there was a piece written in the washington post that basically said the iraqi parties find it

difficult to compromise because compromise is seen as weakness, and weakness is seen as a defeat, and defeat is seen as death, because that is the case under saddam, and the only way they can see this is they could offer things to us, which we could then take to another party and work some sort of deal. intermediary of u.s. diplomacy has been missing from iraq since 2011. i am sure the obama administration would disagree with me, but there is no way we have had so much influence as we had when ryan crocker was in baghdad and was working these issues, calling iraqi leaders obama,y, versus barack who has called the iraqi literally the number of fingers i have on a hand. this is a very difficult

problem. i think there needs to be a change in baghdad. perhaps, the diplomacy needs to get right first, but i do not see how we can do it without serious u.s. diplomatic and political involvement in the issue. >> can i? standpoint, i would prefer to have kirkuk under control of the iraqi army, and when a division of the iraqi army comes to save us from isil is saving a city, not occupying a city. i know they are saying this about the kurds. i am very extremely disappointed iraqis didaq he -- not fire one bullet to save mos ul.

>> although, it is worth pointing out with the outlook -- with thes current opinion polls -- >> when we talk about the shia, we talk about it as one, and i find that hard to believe. are there divisions in that community? thank you. >> yes. i am not the spokesman of the shia community. i am an iraqi who happens to be a shia. of course, are all of the

catholics in the united states democrats, or all they all republicans? of course not. seculare extremists and shia. oft friday, just a couple days ago, during the friday prayer, the spokesman of the high cleric had stated very, very clearly that it is time to form a new, and the keyword is new, to form a new government in iraq that will represent all iraqis. and when sistani and others say this, they are very moderate. -- there is shia

another sect of islam which is not shia. they are another sect. in the west, it is easy to lump them together and say there is nothing else. different with leaders with different interests and different strategies going forward. malaki has been able to portray himself as the leader of the shia community, and in doing so, and this goes to pete's point, it serves his interest, because defecting,shia from and i think what we would all like to see in iraq is an is lessent where there sectarian solidarity. one of the things i got very alarmed by under the bush 2004 andation, about

the bush itnk ministration wanted a unified shia bloc and a unified kurdish bloc. the problem i have been concerned with is you cannot make a mosaic with three pieces, and you cannot make a coalition when 95% of the people are in the government and five percent of the people are in opposition. what you really want is a dynamic environment where people this government, but i can be in the next one. where people bounce in and out. it seems that politically in iraq, you are in an environment where you say, if i am not in now, then my children and grandchildren will never have access to anything, and that increases people's willingness to fight, increases violence, and it seems to me that what

your question gets at is precisely the weakness of the way the bush administration approach to this, by trying to promote shia solidarity. it --theyy made sunnis feel have felt on and off that there is no place. no way to make this work going forward. >> yes, sir. in the back, yes. >> good morning. us are against -- all of the people. my question -- my question. iraq and part of

hasn't the u.s. tried furiously to establish an alliance between syria, iraq, u.s. against -- your name, please? >> my name is -- second, we know the kind of terrorists of september 11. the people, september 11, was caused by a saudi arabian citizen. saudi arabia, qatar -- terrorist

organization. when will the u.s. start to stop breed terrorists? we will reach to a stable germany and the middle east. germany in the middle east is and this is different from countries which surround iraq and their interests. interests to achieve stability in iraq, but countries surround iraq. they do not want to reach this goal. >> thank you. so can i address the first part of your question? because i think it is an important issue. no, i know, but now i will talk.

you talked about why the u.s. does not create an alliance with syria and other countries against terrorism, and one of the things i have done in my ramblings around the world is i have spoken to government leaders. i raised this question to bashar al-assad. because there was an effort reverse thetry to hostile relationships between the u.s. and serious, and it seemed to me there was ample common ground. as you probably know, bashar al-assad used to facilitate jihad ease --as you probably ji. they thought this was a way to enhance their leverage vis-à-vis the united states, because it made the u.s. need something

from syria, and syria, like i said about iran, it was concerned about being weak vis-à-vis the united states, so i asked bashar al-assad directly whether there might be an reverse histo hostile relations with the united states, not by waiting for the united states to ask for things and then to bargain about you do this, and we will do this, and we will stop the buses -- but to offer as a free will gesture. so syria was not just syria was partt of the solution, and one of its friends. said syriafriends can be a solution provider, and i put this to him that one of his friends said syria can be a solution provider, what do you --nk of that, and his civil response was to be totally transactional and said if we

were to give something to the united states, that would be conceding something. we do not have extra things to concede, and therefore, we will only give if we get, and we will know we -- give if we will get in advance, and that is the only way this will go. that was my experience with the president of syria trying to take that approach. are commont there interests in the region fighting terrorists. i also agree there are differing afinitions about who is terrorist, and there are people who think, well, it is not that we are really supporting them. we are turning away while other people are supporting them. we are not as aggressive. in many cases, not official support, but unofficial acceptance that there will be some leakage, and that fits the strategic interest. thatnk one of the things

is important, and i tried to make this clear in earlier comments, is that we have to be successful diplomatically moving countries away from the idea that political terrorism helps their strategic interests, because i do not think that a little bit of terrorism helps anybody's strategic interests. one of the lessons you can draw from syria is that a little bit -- those who used those are the same networks which have flowed back the other way and created this ongoing insurgency in syria, which has been taking syria and ives, and that may be a way to persuade governments to work with us to try to starve these institutions of funding the logistical support and to get to a point where they are -- there are negotiations, peaceful negotiations, between governments in rooms and not a attto terrorize -- and not

acks to terrorize the civilian population. >> i am sorry. we are not done. no, no. john -- jon's comments, almost 100% of what i was going to say, but i will say that from my time in iraq with general petraeus, he created an inter-agency within the government effort to reach out intoop the jihadi flow iraq, and with varying degrees of success, but it is interesting how these countries that spohn -- spawn think it will come back to haunt them. wasnumber one source

eastern libya near the city of .enghazi the idea that various states can somehow encourage these folks to go and wage war against the west and that it will not hurt them is one that they need to come to entire region the will go up in flames, and as to why we do not form alliances with these nations to combat terrorism, i recall general stateus' trip once to a that will remain nameless, and it is very close to iraq, and he was having dinner with some very high level people, and he said, can you help me stop the flow of suicide bombers into iraq, and they said, well, first, you need to apologize, the united states needs to apologize for innovating iraq in the first

place, and he said, i apologize. now, what do we do? [laughter] silence on the other side of the table. >> very good. yes, sir. is would you not agree that the problem with iraq is not religious, is not economics, that rather is terrorists? the united states, britain, and such asthe most -- israel, saudi arabia, and qatar have been financing and training that were sent to the balkans, to libya, to syria, and now, they are backing iraq. they had death squads back around 2005, and they, at the time, started recruiting their , andommandos and militias

we are now reaping what we have saying,d everyone is get the hell out of iraq. ,e want to bomb more countries more that we do not like. >> pete, i think you a good candidate for the answer. >> well, i would add to that st -- a really wonderful piece who was an assistant during the surge, and he says, who do you want to bomb? and he has a menu of all of the various groups in iraq who were fighting, and there were plenty of those that you mentioned, and then there were plenty of shia militias, as well, and he listed all of their various crimes and various terrorist proclivities,

as well. is filleds that iraq with people who want to do each other harm, and it is not just on one side of the conflict, and the only way to solve this is to empower the people of iraq who are suffering so much, with a government worthy of their support, and, therefore, a government worthy of our support, and then we can fight terrorism from whatever source it comes from, whether it is from saudi arabia or iran or from wherever else in the world. you like to answer the question or the implication that the united states created terrorism? me recount a story. department intate october 2001. guy who atng with a that time was working at the

state department, one of the people who -- he thought of himself as a real conceptional thinker. he had a whole approach with dealing with 9/11. that was we had made a mistake in all of our intelligence analysis because what we had done, we kept relying on the prepond rans of evidence connecting things and people. what we needed to do was reorient the way we did intelligence, the way we thought about things, is there a plausible connection between individuals and groups. therefore, you don't have to talk about proving that things are connected, you just have to show that somebody from here met somebody from there and somebody from there and then from that becauses he argued the stakes are so high, you can

impute drivers to things without proving there are drivers. i don't disagree that the u.s. and other countries have been involved supporting bad guys for tactical reasons and that ates back to the cold war as you suggest. this behind the idea of jihad, i don't think you could argue the u.s. is the principal driver behind the idea of jihad. the u.s. has supported groups that were involved in furthering the idea of jihad in afternoon in the 198 -- afghanistan in the 1980's as a whole host of others. that whole thing had something of the h the mixing muslim brotherhood with clerics in saudi arabia in the 1950's nd 1960's.

it was a reaction to the british occupation of egypt created in 1928 that the british were somehow involved in the jihad. we can go back and back and back. it seems to me the fundamental problem as pete has suggested, you have a country with lots of people who don't need outside encouragement to want to find other people in their own country in a battle for control, influence, and resources and the answer is not that outsiders can sosh this problem, but that outsiders need to create the conditions under which people on the inside of iraq can solve the problems. one of the things i find sort of wonderfully ironic about the complaints i heard from egyptians about policy to egypt offense the years, they're too interventionlingist in