us who work for the national park service. many of us have done many events eyu$e 150th. and i have to say,)l at the number of people here. we thank you for much for being here. it's time as this meeting in the house wound down between 2:30 and 3:00 to take through maybe a larger lens. now, we are honored today to welcome dr. ed aires. some of you met ed before. if you're in the sweltering heat at manassas on july 21st 2011, if you can remember back that far, he gave the keynote address at manassas on that day. it seems a very, very long time

ago ago. just outstanding events in richmond, last weekend commemorating the fall of richmond. dr. ed aires is one of america's preeminent civil war historians and i don't say that lightly. he's one committed not just to impeccable scholarship, but to reaching people beyond academia. he roots out stories, untold stories, he amplifies voices unheard. and he constantly challenges us to see events in new ways. always with a sense of historical justice for those who are there. perhaps more than any historian working in the field he helps us accord meaning to events that were almost always far more complex and far reaching than we imagined them to be. he's retiring from his position at the university of richmond this summer. while it's a great loss for the university to be sure a prospect of dr. aires devoting

his immense energies once again, to history is good news for the rest of us. it's my pleasure to introduce to you dr. ed aires. >> thank you. >> there are, indeed, very many of you. and it's convenient that all of you come labeled. i can see where everybody's from by the baseball caps. and so i see everything from boston to mississippi here a few rows apart. it seems very fitting. and i'm going to take just a few moments for all of us to think about what it has meant to this country to have a national park service step up throughout the success sesquescentennial sesquescentennial. available to us, comprehensible to us, welcoming to us it's true, i was at manassas, and it was approximately 800 degrees is my memory. also had the good fortune of

being at ft. sumter on the evening before the firing. i happened to be at gettysburg where it was also hot. and as john mentioned, last weekend in richmond, we had thousands of people come to commemorate what it was like when the confederates fled that city and the united states troops and abraham lincoln came into it. it was one of the more powerful moments of my life to see americans coming together and remember all of our history. the drums building in the background here. it's been a long war. i think people in the national park service. and i'm actually going to say i would like to take this moment to thank the folks on the national park service for the remarkable work.

>> all right. >> i thought it was very characteristic i turned around to look john in the eye and thank him for working again. patrick, you'll have to convey the standing ovation. some people volunteering to stand, others already standing to do this. so i have to admit i feel a great sense of responsibility at this moment. what could i possibly say? the meaning of these events that we just remembered seem very firmly embedded in our national story. there's a reason all of you came here today. you came here to see the story that you know. and in our national understanding, appomattox is america at its best. the gentlemenly drama on this landscape showed americans to be

principled, generous and fundamentally decent. the shaking of hands the refusal of the sword, the unpretentious setting, the role of eli parker the humility of general grant and general lee. all of those things tell us that the blood letting of the previous four years in which the equivalent of 8 million people today died and then an anomaly. the paired stories of confederate soldiers permitted to keep their horses and guns and of them then melting away suddenly civilians back to their homes has reassured generations of americans that americans are different from other nations. we are fundamentally unwar like, we tell ourselves. fundamentally unified. this is a story in our textbooks textbooks. this is a story we teach our children. story of our best sellers. and we like it because it shows

us our best selves. it elevates soldiers into men of discipline, principle, restraint and courage. it allows everyone to be a hero. even an icon. now, general grant himself did much to create this version of the story. here's what he wrote in his great memoirs 20 years later dying in upstate new york, desperate to tell the story of the civil war as he lived in. he recalled of this day that he ordered no firing or salutes or other what he called unnecessary humiliation of confederates. they were, quote, now our prisoners, andj to exalt over their downfall. indeed, as you've heard from patrick, grant's own feelings,

quote, which had been quite jubilant at the receipt of lee's letter were sad and depressed. i felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who fought so long and value cent valiant valiantly. and he completes that same sentence. though that cause was, i believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought and one for which there was the least excuse. so in one sentence grant is saying that he felt sad and depressed. and he admired a foe who fought long and valiantly and suffered so much. but the cause was the worst for which a people ever fought. that's the feelings that all americans have to wrestle with from that day on. that's a remarkable sentence. and it's self-contradictory.

to find the understanding of the event ever since. the cause could not have been worse, and there was no excuse for that fight, and yet, the man who led the fight had fought long and valiantly. now, the cause, of course, that grant identified was the dismantling of the united states. the world's most hopeful democracy to create a new nation that would be explicitly based on slavery. it was that severing of the cause and of the fight that established the bargain that the white north and the white south would hold on to for generations. despite the terrible cause, grant continued, quote i do not question the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us. sincerity. indeed, who could've doubted the sincerity of the confederacy who

had bled itself to death in pursuit of that cause. the confederacy was profoundly sincere. the soldiers were sincere in their longing to leave the united states. sincere in their hatred in what they saw as an invading army. sincere in their hatred of the abolitionist and the black republicans that they blame for starting the war. sincere in their belief they had the best army and the best generals. they were never shaken in those beliefs all the way up to appomattox and beyond for generations. so general grant was right not to doubt their sincerity. now, general grant's portrayal of appomattox gave the white south what it most wanted and thought it had certainly earned. respect. the soldiers were not fooled into fighting, they said.

we were not traitors, they said but were sincere believers that we upheld the same ideals that other americans upheld. our own freedom, our own independence, our own rights. they used exactly the same words as the northern counterparts and meant the same thing. as a result, the fighting in the confederates' eyes could be and was divorced from the worst cause for which a people ever fought. they would say that 3/4 of them were not slave holders but that all were citizens and soldiers. and, indeed, the root cause that all knew somehow the cause of the war was buried deeply during most of the time during the war. the conrged into battle shouting about slavery. their generals never exhorted

them to fight over slavery. the fact that the nation they fought to create was based on slavery was not the rallying cry, but it was the reality underneath. while grant and lee and their comrades met right behind us slavery was dying elsewhere. it had been medical reportly wounded across the south during the war itself, dissolving everywhere it could dissolve. everywhere the united states army went. everywhere the slave holders fled. now, it was dying in the legislative halls in washington where the 13th amendment passed the u.s. senate the day before grant and lee met here. if grant's worst cause was not slavery but rather the destruction of the united states, that, too, had been decided by the time people met here. the confederacy's purpose had

already disappeared with richmond fallen, jefferson davis fleeing into the southern night, with sherman marchingd8 near the southern spring, with the confederate army scattered and powerless. and despite later fantasies of guerrilla fighting, that could not be a desperate and undisciplined tactic that lee would support. he knew the war was over here. the confederacy was over here. all the other confederate generals followed his example. though the war slavery and the confederacy ended in the spring of 1865, no one could claim to know what would come next. everything was up in the air when the events that we are commemorating today unfolded. the historian elizabeth varen has helped us to understand what happened here. quote, for grant, the union victory was one of right over wrong. he believed that his magnanimity

magnanimity, no less than his victory, vindicated free society and the union's way of war. his generosityth$jt spirit, he intended to say this is what the north is actually like. this is the spirit of generosity that we bring. she continues. grant's eyes were on the future, a future in which southerners chasened and repentant. was one of might over right. and if you listen to the orders that you just heard, it is that we have succumbed to superior numbers and resources. it does not say that we have succumbed to a better purpose. in his view southerners had nothing to repent of and had survived the war with their

honor and principles intact. he was intent on restoration, on turning the clock back as much #!. virginia led the nation and before sexual extremism alienated the north from the south. he believed he was on the high moral ground. they were believing that they were on differentlp high, moral ground. for supporters of lincoln and the republicans, including abolitionists black and white, grant's generosity of spirit proved their moral as well as their material superiority. they were giving the south a chance to acknowledge that it was wrong as well as defeated. for supporters of the confederacy and for the many northern enemies of lincoln and his party, on the other hand, lee's dignity provedw3 that the south could be restored to its place in the nation and that whatever slavery became would change the racial order as little as possible.

throughout the war lincoln's enemies in the north had called for the union as it was. and when lee was surrendering here he believed that's what he was helping to restore. the union as it was. both republicans and the democrats, the north and the south claimed victory in the ceremony claimed vindication for their cause, even though they claimed different things. now, it was no accident that lee and grant grew farther and farther apart as the months and years passed after this day. the powerful moment we commemorate today, which seemed to stand outside of the war and outside of politics became ever more entangled in the messy politics that followed. and, in fact, appomattox became ever more elevated in our national imagination but not because it resolved what would

follow, but because everyone could see in it what they wanted.xt%÷ they could see here their highest aspirations. the white south envisioned nothing like the reconstruction that would follow. they thought that the honorable surrender here meant, we fought, we lost we're back in the united states. they did not imagine that the united states army would press on with reconstruction. they could not imagine that more would be asked or demanded of them. they saw appomattox as the end, as a resolution, not as the beginning of a more profound revolution in american life. they could not have imagined that the same army that was gathered here would in two years help oversee the men who were held in slavery for 250 years up to this day would then become voting men in the south and

america. they could not imagine that the enslaved people all around them here in virginia would be insisted upon being full citizens in the 13th and 14th amendments. that is not what they thought they were surrendering. and they did not believe that they were undergoing a revolution in which the north would call the shots and american politics and public life for generation after generation to follow. now, many people in the north by contrast saw appomattox as a secession of armed hostilities but not a culmination of all the war had been. merely ending the legality of slavery did not end its spirit. that the freed people would have to be given a chance to make lives for themselves with law with education, with an opportunity to gain property, with a right to the ballot box. and enemies of the south determined that it would not be

permitted. an honored place in the white house, in congress, and the supreme court that it had enjoyed since the founding of the nation. the american south had controlled much of american history up until the civil war. white north says no longer. we won the war, we will now run the nation. grant's generosity of spirit was the generosity not only of a general but of a man who thought he stood for the future. a future in which the south had sacrificed its place of authority in the united states. now, lee and grant privately expressed their profound disappointment in each other over the next few years. that was one reason that grant became more devoted to black rights as president in 1868 than he had been on this day in 1865. he thought that the white south had not fulfilled the spirit of a surrender he struck here. when he saw the black codes being written within months of this time.

the riots in memphis and new orleans, saw the ku klux klan rise up, he said that is not the spirit of appomattox, that's the spirit of revenge. that's a spirit of retaliation. it's a spirit to the contrary of what we agreed upon. lee, for his part burned with resentment that even though he had surrendered in good faith bringing the war and its purposes to an end grant and the north continued to press for more and more in the five years after appomattox. lee was appalled when grant was elected president of the united states. he wrote a cousin, our boasted self-government is fast becoming the jeer and laughing stock of the world. that's not very long after these days. but those are years that were filled with a profound reimagining of what this country might mean. what would it mean not only if slavery were gone? what would it mean not only if the north and the south were

unified? what would it mean if black americans, 4 million of them, actually had chances to be full americans. so from lee's perspective, reconstruction was a violation of the bargain violation of the bargain struck here. a bargain that would have restored things to as close as they would have been in 1861 as possible. that's one reason that the memory of this place has not been stable. people did not immediately flock to this as a kind of shrine that it is today. african-americans celebrated this place first because of the role of the united states colored troops here. the white southerners were much more ambivalent. this was not a place that white southerners flocked to. that's one reason that appomattox did not become a national park site until 1950. so it takes a long time for people to decide that what this place means, and it may not be an accident that it's the wake

of world war ii. it takes them that long to decide, yes this is the place that we want to remember the best that america is. this is a place where we want to remember where america became reunited. so the debates have never stopped. you may not be surprised to know that historians still argue about these things and that's because people see in these events both testimony to american shared greatness and testimony to promises unfulfilled. both of those things are real let me be clear, it mattered enormously that the death and the suffering and the chaos ended here as it ended here. it did matter that the union army was gracious. it did matter that the confederates went home peacefully. most civil wars as you can see on our television sets every day do not end this way. most civil wars end with rampant

bloodshed and while american politics were forever changed after this. outright war did not resume though many people worried that it would. we should be grateful for the accomplishments that happened here. on the other hand it did matter that fundamental issues of freedom, of rights and of power could not be settled here. generations of struggle followed and still follow to fulfill those rights for all americans. i think that's why we all come here is that it comes here to remind us of how much sacrifice there was, toy kroo eight a foundation on which we can build. that's why today is important. it's not nearly a celebration but a commemoration, a remembering of just what was at stake here and what was at stake here was nothing less than the future of the united states and all the people who live in it. appomattox was not an ending,

but bea beginning of a long journey and which the best days of the united states lie not behind us, but before us. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you dr. ayers. the clock ticks toward 3:00 p.m. as the meeting between lee and grant neared its conclusion, the armies waited under flags of truce sprawled for miles around you. it's likely that after 10:30 that morning not a shot echoed across this landscape. even before official word of the surrender came out confederates realized what the silence portended. they had risked everything in their quest for independence and any chance for recompense beyond

pride was gone. a south carolinian wrote, the emotion can only be imagined. i cannot describe it. we looked into each other's faces where blank and fathomless despair was written. neither said one word. our hearts were too full for language. we could only murmur stupidly and meaninglessly the word surrendered and it sounded like damnation. an artilleryman remembered men sobbing like children recovering from convulsions of grief after a severe whipping he said. another said simply, it was the saddest day of my life. not surpriseingsurprisingly, more than a few union soldiers called it the happiest day of their life and virtually all struggled to find words to describe the moment. a chaplain from a pennsylvania regiment said wrote oh it was grand to be there. the patient endurance and the victories and defeats and mismanagements and all of the very gloom and sunshine of the four years' history of the army

and the potomac crowded upon my mind and now it had its reward. its work is done and well done. one soldier offered a simple synopsis to his wife at home. my dear i can say now that the war is over, and i am still living. . the march of death. as war neared its end and grief competed for men continued to die. at precisely the same time that lee and grant were meeting at the mclane house that afternoon, bells tolled in engine number 20 in philadelphia while mourners gathered at the home of a soldier and firefighter william hoover for his funeral. hoover had been a member of the 99th pennsylvania of the army of

the potomac and captured in battle. from the philadelphia inquirer the deceased died from exposure while a prisoner in salisbury, north carolina. he was a member of the steam fire engine company number 20. his funeral was largely attended. the members of the independent engine company in a body with their ambulance followed the remains to their last resting place. the old bell and the engine house told the sad news of the death of one of its members. the fall of richmond and the eminent surrender of lee's army while soldiers still toiled and died engendered an uncomfortable mix of joy and sadness amongoy?q northerners. from the milwaukee sentinel our

foes are falling, but our friends are falling. it is a shame not to rejoice, but it is a sin not to weep. it is unjust not to greet the living who live to see their victories, but it is cruel not to mourn the dead who died in the site of what they died for. whether we have their names or not, we shall have the deeds. the deeds of these dead on these field. all around the rebellious regions for all time to come, there will be -- there will this girdle of graves of the republic sacrificial sons.ñlc they will remain without marble mausoleums and elaborate epitaph, but they will be sacred, and in future ages will draw as many reverent feet as

mecca or the pyramids of egypt. >> at the mantle clocks around appomattox courthouse ticked toward 3:00 p.m. that sunday afternoon a meeting between lee and grant and mclane's parlor came to an end. the two generals rose and they shook hands. lee bowed to the other officers present and charles marshall walked out the front door. when lee crossed a threshold back on to the porch and into mclane's yard he walked into a landscape awash with both jubilation and sadness for union soldiers, jubilation, joy for the redemption of their four years of effort and their sacrifice. joy for the union joy for the promise of home and safety. for slaves, jubilation at the prospect of freedom and the road ahead seemed uncertain indeed.

for confederates, despair at a cause lost. the reality that they would leave appomattox with no more than pride after four years of toil and sacrifice. they would return to communities and towns often ravaged by war to the empty beds and chairs of lost brothers, sons and fathers. few places have ever embodied so many emotions at odds as did appomattox 150 years ago this moment, but when robert e. lee crossed that threshold on to mcclain's porch with a copy of the surrender terms written by eli parker in his pocket he did more than confront a place of deep emotion. he entered a new world, one in which the southern confederacy

was no longer a possibility. the end of slavery was real and an empowered united states confronted the immense challenges of reconstruction, reconciliation and justice. though few could see it that day, lee's ride from the mcclain front yard through appomattox through the throes of his defeated army was not an end but a beginning the first act in a long, national journey that continues still.jf ♪ ♪ñ

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we will conclude our program here today with the ringing of this bell. on the morning of april 10, 186 5shgs 5, the day after at mat ox, she was eating her breakfast in new york, suddenly, she recorded our church bell commenced to ring and then the methodist bell and now all the bells in town are ringing. mr. noah clark ran by all excitement and i don't believe he knows who he is or where he is. i saw captain aldridge passing, so i rushed to the window and he waved his hat and i raised the window and i asked them what was the matter and he almost shook my hand off the war is over. we have lee's surrender with his own name signed.

five days later caroline richards looked out the same window and saw a group of men gathered around someone reading the morning paper. i feared from their silent, motionless interest that something dreadful had happened. that afternoon, just days after the bells of canondegua had rung in the aftermath of appomattox the bells rang again to mark the death of america's president. bells have always been a powerful form of public expression. they mark our celebrations and our joys, our triumphs and our tragedies. today in america bells will toll again. at 3:15, the liberty bell will be struck and bells across minnesota and in downtown chicago and in richmond, at the state capital in delaware california kentucky, in georgia

and many more, at ebenezer baptist church in atlanta bells will ring. and in churches across our land and schools and courthouses and streetcorners and in national parks. they will ring for four minutes one minute for each year of the war, a grand, collective gesture in remembrance of the war's end. it is up to us here at appomattox that they're bells across the land. we will ring this bell brought to us by the family of mrs. mccoy who will ring it first today. her ancestors, her great-grandmother were once slaves and her great-great grandmother were once slaves and they acquired this bell after the civil war. we will ring this bell and from here the bells will reverberate across our land. for the first year of the war

ending in spring of 1862, the year of manassas and shiloh and the realization that this war would be long and hard i call forth mrs. aura mccoy whose family provided this bell and john griffiths, the great-great grandson of general ulysses s. grant. [ bell ringing ] [ bell ringing ]

the second year of the war ending in the spring of 1863 the year of an teet up and fredericksburg and the emancipation proclamation i call forth ted campbell of the sons of union veterans, the commander and dennis bigelow, the great great grandson of lieutenant colonel charles marshall who was here at appomattox. [ bell ringing ]lieutenant colonel charles marshall who was here at appomattox. [ bell ringing ]grandson of lieutenant colonel charles marshall who was here at appomattox. [ bell ringing ]lieutenant colonel charles

marshall who was here at appomattox. [ bell ringing ]grandson of lieutenant colonel charles marshall who was here at appomattox. [ bell ringing ]eat grandson of lieutenant colonel charles marshall who was here at appomattox. [ bell ringing ] [ bell ringing ] >> the third year of the war

ending in the spring of 1864 the year of gettysburg, vicksburg and the overland campaign. i call forward cadet warren jackson of the virginia military institute who saw so many serve here and alvin parker the great-great grand nephew of lieutenant colonel eli s. parker. [ bell ringing ]

[ bell ringing ] >> the fourth year of the war ending in the spring of 1865, sherman's march, the toils of petersburg richmond fallen the war's end, relief, grief and rejoicing. i call forth sergeant clark b. hall great-great-grandson of charles h. hall of the 13th mississippi infantry. a u.s. marine corps veteran of

vietnam and 1st lieutenant samuel mosley, a korean war veteran and winner of a silver star and a purple heart. [ bell ringing ] [ bell ringing ]

>> and now at precisely 3:15 on the afternoon of april 9, 2015, bells will ring across america. [ applause ]

you can watch today's ceremony tonight along with other programs looking at the surrender at at mat ox and its legacy. it's coming up at 8:00 p.m.

eastern here on c-span3. each night this week at 9:00 p.m. eastern conversations with a few new members of congress. >> and as a result i try to stay disciplined in my message in a football sense i try to stay within the hash marks. i understand that i represent everyone in montana, in montana there's one congressman and i represent not only the republican side, but i represent the democrat side, the independent side the tea party side and the union side. i represent everyone in montana and i think if we take that value set forward congress represents america, and to articulate the values and the needs and the desires of yourú district, but the purpose is to make america better. >> five newest members of congress talk about their careers and personal lives and share insight about how things work on capitol hill.

join us for all their conversations each night at 9:00 eastern on c-span.r >> a discussion on violence in yemen, it's hosted by the national council of u.s.-arab relations. >> ladies and gentlemen, if we can come to order, please. the president of the national council on u.s.-arab relations. >> thank you, dave. good morning, everyone and thank you for coming. this shows that the topic itself is timely. it's relevant and to some of the participants it's, indeed urgent. we're talking about a region that is hardly marginal and hardly beyond the back of the beyond. we're speaking about a region that has two kinds of oil, turmoil and that other kind with

implications to no end of people's interest and involvement and their concerns and their key foreign approximately see objectives and all of these relate to issues of security and stability and without security and stability you have no orderly effective, peaceful development. without security you have no stability. without the two, you have no foreign, direct investment. without a foreign, direct investment as pervasively poor as yemen and the future looks more than bleak. indeed if it onlyf"f looked bleak that perhaps would be an improvement and now we have a number of resource specialists some of them have devoted their life time to yemen and its implications regionally globally nationally, locally sub regionally and these two on my right and three americans --

two on my left including myself and we will do our best to confine ourselves to ten minutes each. we will have a discussion question and you have cards on your chair. please write a question as opposed to a comment, a speech, a val diktry address so that we can have a cerebral massage here. in terms of yemen, i'll just very quickly let you know something about the context and indeed complicated and complex this country is but before doing so we thank the media for being here. if you look around you'll have a little whiplash there on the next side, we have ten of the global international, national and regional media filming this filming it live. we appreciate especially c spann-span and cnn, and all the others to capture this on record for posterity. if the gentleman with the camera

there on my left will step aside for a minute and i hope my voice carries. we're talking about eight yemens, if you will, just to underscore the complexity. think of yemen as louisiana in the shape of an american state or boot in terms of a short boot, this being the ankle and this being the heel and this being the ball of the foot and these being the toes. you have at least two factors and forces in northern yemen that are at odds with one another and to me that is a commonality of interest. you have, in the northernmost part of yemen the base of the houthis who were not a household name ten years ago. people didn't know if they were animal vegetable or mineral, but they are indeed a recognizable forceful force.

south of that area, which is the capital has been led since the end of the civil war revolution from september 22, 1962 to march 14 1970. saudi arabia back with the northern monarchist and egypt and others back to the southern sunni tribes but these divisions of shia-sunni are not as pronounced as they are in other places. there's intermarriage between the two and a softness and commonality between the two and it's not what the outside media makes it to be and these are to the north and just to the east of the capital call where part of the country's mineral wealth is are all with cash reserves. coming down to the south, what used to be the border between the north and the south, it

would be the second largest city in the north and the furthest one to the south, and south of tius is another world and this used to be known as a protector at and it is into this area that the houthis have advanced in the last two weeks and posing a challenge and a threat to aden. aden itself. aden was a proud colony with queen victoria, singapore and hong kong and these were the diamonds in the tiara of queen victoria's necklace so to speak. aden, up until the end of the 1950s, believe it or not, was the world's fifth largest port in terms of terminal and ships calling. you could have more ships at the harbor at the same time than you had in jemaah than assad and

djibouti twice over into the 1960s, but just as egypt has been the gift of the nile so too, has modern aden been the gift of the suez canal. when the suez canal was shut down in 1967 for the second time in the arab-israeli war it became that and it was in this atmosphere when that moment was propicious that aden lurched, if you will, to the left and further to the left to become a marxist government and i was the only american allowed to do research there then and there's been no marxist government in the middle east and the islamic world like that was in aden based on the privilege and the best deed and the communists of aden in terms of international trade. to the east of aden, this area here and athena and these states, these are small villages

there with the typical yemeni architecture and they are quite different from what drives them than those that i mentioned and immediately to the east of them is the hydromelt. the hydromelt through the tides and through the pairings has produced around 10 million yemenis in indonesia within the last 20 years of the indonesian, and minister of education and the minister of interior and all from yemen. this part of yemen. this is the roots of the osama bin laden's father. quite a large number of yemeni merchants who live in these areas of the region and the mantra state and m-a-h-r-a. they did not have a single paved road until the last 15 years and it is quite different. it is from this state here that we're talking about the island

of sipotra which the navesoviet union had its eyes on for some time. and this is why oman until now is not in the coalition with the houthis because we're talking about a state here in and oman's policy will be driven by its neighborliness and the numbers fluctuate up and down and at times there's been as many as a million and if you include kuwait and bahrain with saudi arabia and elsewhere yemenis are all over the world and probably on the moon as some say. they were the first arabs to work in response to henry ford's $5 a day for an honest day's work and to the united autoworker's, and the treasury

of yemeni in that particular union, the largest of the uaw. this is just to paint a brush stroke of the context here. now we will go to jeremy shaw who is with the congressional research service. he is the person who does the research writing analytical written work for the members of the united states congress. their bios are on the materials that you picked up coming in on the seat. i asked that you write a question on the 3x 5 cards and pass them to national council staff who will bring them forward and i'll use them in the q & a. the ambassador is due here around 11:00. he called yesterday to say i'll be there, and so we're looking for an operational logistical feat because he's been in the kingdom in the last 72 hours and went and is now coming back and this particular event is highest

on his agenda. jeremy shaw? >> thank you, john. [ applause ] >> i wish i could do that. just go to a map and give a country's history in broad brush strokes. thank you to the national council and u.s.-arab relations for hosting this event today and a welcome not just to the media, but outside guests and a special thanks to citcrs congressional clients for coming here today and i'm legally obliged to note that the remarks here this morning are my own and do not represent those of the congressional research service. i would also like to thank john for moderating this morning. i can tell you firsthand that john can hike the yemeni mountains better than most men half his age, and i know that because i sort of panted from behind watching him sort of traverse the yemeni highlands like a little gazelle. don't be fooled. john is quite nimble.

so thank you for moderating today. pleasantries aside this is a particularly unpleasant time for most yemenis. i am always humbled by the fact that i cover yemen from a seat here on capitol hill and i'm mindful of the fact that perhaps some of our panelists and perhaps some of you in the audience have friends or extended family members who aren during quite an ordeal of suffering right now. and suffering that may endure the longer this conflict persists. so i'm constantly mindful of that fact. because i am situated here in washington, i wanted to gear my remarks toward u.s. policy and what are the implications for operation decisive storm on u.s. policy toward yemen and the region at large. so i'm going to make a few policy remarks and then analyze where this is going in the weeks and months ahead.

so number one the obvious point to start with is that there is a serious, political imperative in washington to demonstrate support for saudi arabia at this time, both in the administration and congress. whatever you may think of saudi arabia's historic involvement in yemen for better or for worse, the reality is that u.s. policy in yemen which is foremost designed to counterterrorism is highly dependent on saudi arabia and not just for counterterrorism, but for politically supporting a yemeni central government. this is especially true since the post-solid transition that began in late 2011 culminating in early 2012. because the south yhouthi-salah alliance has expanded far beyond most of us thought just a few weeks and months ago, there has been a lot of signal sending by the administration that we understand that a red line has been crossed in saudi arabia's

mind and that we support their action. this is particularly pertinent amidst the wider regional environment of international environment of the iran nuclear negotiation and the sensitivity to sunni-arab perceptions of a regionally emboldened iran. a few remarks on iran for a second. for iran who is definitely supporting the houthis, materially and financially, what a great investment yemen is for iran. it's a high return low-risk investment and iran is certainly supporting them and the level of support doesn't mirror what's being done in syria and it doesn't mirror what's being done in iraq and what's being done in lebanon, in the media any time it mentions iran and yellen is basically doing iran's work for them inflating this prospect. it's definitely a concern and support could increase in the years ahead, but we have to keep that in mind that we have to sort of measure what is exactly

going there. now, u.s. support for saudi arabia back to that one named u.s. official told "the washington post" that we've shown that when it comes to the security of the persian gulf countries we have their back providing the most unique abilities to defend their actions. u.s. support is not just political. there's certainly a material ement to it. in the back of the room is my colleague chris blanchard and covers u.s.-saudi relations and chris' report on saudi arabia has cataloged and documented pentagon and defense department notifications to congress that since 2010 there has been planned arm sales to saudi arabia and something like over $90 billion. so when you think about that number for a second when saudi arabia goes to war in yemen there's a definite u.s. element that's working behind the scenes. if you sell an f-15 to saudi

arabia, and there is a saudi arabian plane and there's u.s. work being done on the maintenance of it and there's u.s. refuelling and rearmament and u.s. training of the pilot. when saudi pilots went down just a few days ago there was a u.s. search and rescue operation to assist. so there's a lot that we're doing behind the scenes and the administration is not hiding this fact. the white house issued a statement on the day that operation decisive storm began blaming the houthis for causing the crisis ingz#ç yemen and recognizing president hadi's legitimate leader of yemen and president obama authorized the provision, quote of logistical support of military-led operations and the administration claimed that while u.s. forces are not taking direct military action in yemen in support of this effort we are establishing a joint station with saudi arabia to coordinate

intelligent support. we can speculate that we're in support of what's going on and there's a lot of concern, perhaps that the longer that this persists the greater the chance for terrorists on the ground to become empowered. i'm glad that i woke up at 5:00 a.m. to prepare for this today because had i not i wouldn't have checked the news cycle and seen that there was actually a major operation and mccalla last night where aqap terrorists in what seems like a major operation attacked certain facilities and then while one group is attacking the facilities another group attacked a jail and broke it open and several hundred aqaps escaped including a high level regional commander and we know from history and from yemen's history that the central security forces dissipate and

take sides and abandon their post that that leaves a vacuum for aqap for whomever to take route ask there's concern that this is happening and it may happen continually if the conflictb. drags on. now, there's also sort of the immediate concern of how does the u.s. conduct ct operations counterterrorism operations in yemen as this conflict persists? and the administration has released several statements trying to reassure the american public that we will take action if there is an immediate risk to u.s. homeland security. that we have assets in the region, offshore assets and assets in djibouti and saudi arabia that we will employ if there's a terrorist threat at the same time logicfá would dictate that our embassy operations arex8 we've pulled out a certain level

of military personnel that that's going to certainly impact our on the ground knowledge of what's going on and now, that's an obvious point, but there's also something else that's out there and since 2006 as part of the strategy, we've had a train and equip program and one concern that has aren't been expressed in the various pieces on yemen yet is that if this conflict persists and we've made a lot of investments in the yemeni military and if there's damage done to those investments both material and human that's going to be a lot harder to reconstitute our program in the years ahead and so there's a lot of concern that that doesn't take place either and finally, the fourth part of the u.s. policy in this conflict is that the u.s. has really tried to get its own personnel out of harm's way. as i mentioned, we've suspended

embassy operation and moved our diplomats to the consulate in jeddah, and like i mentioned before we moved some of our -- all of our special forces trainers and military personnel out of an air base which was near a nearby town that was attacked by aqap militants just a day before we evacuated our personnel. now where is this all going? we talked about some aspects of u.s. policy, but it's obviously going to be, a lot will be dictated by u.s. conflict in the days and weeks and months ahead and an oversimplified way of looking at things is to take two tracks and one is that this is a military conflict that the saudi-led coalition either by ground, air, was there a bbc report just a few hours ago that maybe there were land forces in aden i have no idea and some may know better than others if you're on the phone tweeting or

whatever. there is a military dimension where the coalition pushes everyone back and push it back from aden and pushes the houthis back to taz and perhaps to the capital and perhaps beyond, but i also think force is being used in another way in state craft and i think that's something that we need to look at and that is perhaps force is being used to break apart the houthi-salah marriage of convenience. i think if you look at what's been put out in some of the pan-arab media lately there have been a lot of reports of leaks between former president salah and the international community claiming that he wants to negotiate a deal for himself and preserve his immunity in yemen and lift u.n. sanctions against him in exchange for turning on the houthis. there's a quote, i don't know if it was him directly, but he said let's go to dialogue and

elections and i promise you that i neither all of my relatives will run for the presidency and a houthi spokesman retorted saying, he's doing this to keep his relationship with sawed and i the gulf states friendly because he wants more than anything else to protect his personal interests and i don't know exactly what the play here is, but trying to break up this marriage seems like a pretty rational strategy whether it's by force or by psychological operations and whatever, using the media because look, at its core salah is a rational actor who is concerned with its own preservation and the preservation of his family his son, his place in yemen and he's the consummate negotiator. i don't know if any of you saw this but the u.n. sanctions committee put out a report estimating something that's unbelievable that salah has pilfered somewhere between $30 to $60 billion over the time in

power. that's like forbes list. that puts him toward the top if he hasn't spent it all supporting patronage in yemen in his rule. look, i think that's something to look at, to carefully analyze analyze. what is the deal, if there is any and what does it mean for president hadi especially as we've said that he's the legitimate ruler of yemen and that the saudis are doing this on his behalf, if there is one day of negotiation what is it going to look like in terms of his status. i'll leave it to the rest of you, thank you very much and good luck. [ applause ] >> thank you, jeremy opinion colonel david? >> thank you very much, dr. anthony. it's an honor to be on a panel with such distinguished members. i feel look the forgotten member of the 1970 super group crosby stills, nash and liebowitz. [ inaudible ]

>> okay. my remarks also do not reflect of you the national defense university of department of defense or the united states government. jeremy's taken a lot of my thunder. it's always awkward when you're in violent agreement with members of the podium, but i would like to address a few aspecs of the national crisis focusing on implications on emwhien and its neighbors. i won't get too wonky, but you can ask me questions if you want to ask me about precision-guided munitions or tanks. first background. it's clear to us now and clearer to the saudis that it was a mistake to leave ali abdullah salah in yemen. the calculous to remain as head of his government would prove in bloodshed, with hindsight considerable hindsight that was misguided. it is now clear that salah retained or purchased the loyalty of significant parts of

the yemeni armed forces most notably, the guard. it was brought into question with this summer's rapid houthi advance into the cap it will. there was a tense period of confrontation in the capital when ended with hadi's house arrest and the political system. the lack of opposition to the houthi expansion southward toward aden can only partly be explained by inefficiency and the fighting problems of the patronage-based army and there was treachery involved as well and there was some turning of units and the houthis are misunderstood, as well. this is important. it is not well known here that in part of the country the houthis are seen as the vanguard of the general opposition of the established political order in yemen and that is, they are not a unified fighting force and their support may be transactional and shallow in parts of the country that we and the saudis consider as conquered. at the end of the day all

politics in yemen are tribal and armies generally do not do well in areas occupied by hostile tribes. let me talk about the air campaign, my bias and my career has been spent in the ground forces, but you know it's important to look at this since that's what we're doing here. the saudis for their part have seemed to be concluded that both the yemeni air force and the surface to surface missile brigade are under de facto houthi control and have made a point of targeting those capabilities early in the bombing campaign and they hit the surface to surface missile depots twice to mack sure the rebel bounced once it was destroyed. it is interesting to note that with the mig-21s they attacked hangars, but not the aircraft itself. so there seems to be an idea that the saudis feel that eventually the yemeni state will reconstitute itself and will still have the mig-29s, but so long as the runway's cratered they can't fly. the spectacular series of explosions in sanaa on tuesday

night were proof of the determination of the coalition to prevent retaliation against saudi soil. indeed, there have been reports that the saudis also moved patriot batteries and they've upgraded to pac 3 to the southern border in order to prevent an attack and a few saudis have stated that the fear of yemeni scuds drove the military action and it is impressive and saudi arabia which provides the overwhelming bulk has shown that it learned from and the unimpressive%mox conduct of the border war with the houthis in 2009. most specifically in 2009 a general criticism and you'll hear it from everybody was that the saudi air force relied too heavily on precision-guided munitions or pgms. the result was a poorly coordinated bombing campaign which did little damage to serious military targets and stirred up considerable international condemnation for hitting civilians. reportedly there were also as many as 1,000 saudi casualties in moroccan and jordani forces

had to bolster saudi forces on the ground. the contrast with now is extremely impressive. the saudis play the groundwork for international coalition which sent a decisive message to both the houthis and iranians. most importantly as jeremy mentioned perhaps as a quid pro quo for acquiescence and the iran deal and the saudis secured the active cooperation of the united states and the u.s. agreed to provide intelligence and logistic support and presumably this means that the help in identifying and picking targets and then assessing of the target after each strike which is exactly what was lacking in 2009. this could also mean rapid resupply of f-15 parts as well as a precision-guided munitions and the scarce arset et assets will not used effectively because of enhanced targeting and they'll be replaced rapidly and they extended sunday to the rescue of two saudi pilots who were downed at sea and that is extremely important. as the air campaign grinds on,

however, its effectiveness will decrease not arithmetically, but exponentially. high payoff targets such as scud missile depots are already destroyed. other targets will be dispersed among civilians and mountain valleys where they can be defended by anti-aircraft artillery traps. as we saw with the kosovo campaign or with korea or with vietnam or with world war ii in europe, if you try to achieve a military victory just from the air you eventually redefine not only your target set which expands, but also your redefined victory. air forces cannot seize and hold terrain. let me say that again. air forces cannot seize and hold terrain. in kosovo, the target set expanded as they grew frustrated with the lack of political success. the same would happen with this coalition if the military effort was not accompanied by an effective, political initiative that offers the houthi something other than surrender. it's important to discuss what

victory means here. the houthis may not be who we think they are and they have been a broad group of seminis in the post-salah era which appears to have not ended. as air strikes hardened opinion in yemen this opposition would become more of a broadly based group and it continues outside the context of an overall political settlement yemeni opposition to the coalition will harden not just among the houthis. saudi arabia and their partners may find what they thought was a proxy war what with iran will transfer into a war with yemen. ground operations by non-yemeni forces other than perhaps a limited covering operation aimed at defending the approaches to aden if the enemy force and if the houthi forces could be ejected from aden and it is a saudi, armored brigade that switched size. the egyptian army lost over 25,000 soldiers in north yemen in 1960s. the terrain is mountainous and

the infrastructure is rudimentary and an assault from sanaa from the red sea would have a potentially endless series of therm oplies. the yemeni army should, if it wants to, be capable of ousting houthis on their own. the question is who does the army answer to? it appears at the moment to be more salah and less hadi, but loyalties are transient things in yemen and hopefully saudi influence and money could force a shift back to the yemeni government, if the bombing campaign continues and the inevitable civilian casualties mount, however, this happy (mcome becomes more expensive and less likely. now a word on aqap as jeremy foreshadowed. aqap remains an important security concern for america. boko haram and da'esh get all of the press at the moment and they show the intent and capability to mount attacks on the american homeland and indeed on the saudi deputy crown koprince. aqap is a shared concern. yemen has been a vital, but

vacillating power in the campaign against aqap and we saw that in this morning's jail break. salah was a smart fellow he is a smart fellow. heaqap were defeated decisively instead of being treated as an american partner in the global war on terror he would be put in the same box as other international pariahs. it a i pierce that there were selected local truces with aqap. the challenge for policymakers in the united states, in the west and in the gulf has always been to discern where the line is between treachery tribal politics and local government and a central government lack of capacity. the houthis and aqap have fought. there have been bombings and attacks carried out by one side on the other but it would be foolhardy to suppose these two forces will cancel each other out. the fighting with the houthis who are of regional concern has detractsed from the fight against aqap who is of global concern. finally a word on iran. iran did not give birth to the

houthis. but the support of the houthis is not vital to their success. they have exploited the opportunity to stick their thumb in the eye of the saudis and it is possible the saudis may let their dislike for iran cloud their judgment. let me close by saying there is no military solution to the current political problems of yemen and i welcome your questions. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, david. we now have mr. abbas moussawa a yemeni journalist who's also served in diplomatic situations in abu dhabi as well as beirut. he is an editor of a widely well received respected journal. and translating simultaneously for him will bet( dr. ahmad.

[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] ok ñ

>> good morning, everybody. greetings toxd b.everyone. i will translated and he cited a verse from a yemeni poet. basically the idea is there is a real tragedy going on in yemen since the arab spring and many,lp many factors coalesce basically a weak state, al qaeda and yemen and daesh.é@ and now al qaeda seemsmy to be getting strongxd erer. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] áñ

[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: there are many groups in yemen and now apparently there is the remnants of whatever is left of the yemeni state that are being destroyed by coalition of arab

american and european forces. i many a not a houthi lover. they actually have attacked my family, my people and they have basically carried arms against the central state. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: the houthis have actually used the libyan example. they have used arms against everybody else but they have expelled the president from the -- the legitimate president. they have basically attacked the state. the problem is that the current conflagration, the current war, is actually assisting the houthis. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> translator: both saudi arabia and iran have their own agendas. they are basically using yemen, libya, iraq, syria to basically eke it out with each other. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: iran supports its own groups statement saudi arabiat2 arabia has its own groups. united states has made grievous mistakes in afghanistan, iraq and libya and the problem is you get rid of somebody else but you don't build something instead. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: yemen basically has 2,000-kilometer border with saudi arabia. there's 1,800 borders on the sea. it has become really grounds for a lot of groups that are doing harm. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: the state is

weak. president saleh's republican guard lass helped the houthis do what they want to do. the republican guard has actually helped the houthis gain whatever ground they have been able to gain. the houthis are not necessarily state builders. i myself hate a war. war is only for destruction. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: it's said that this war is a war of necessity. i really don't think so. there have been many opportunities for a political solution but it's said that saudi arabia does not have a choice. it does have a choice. all parties have a choice for a peace ifful resolution of the problem. basically the idea is that this war is really helping the houthis do whatever they want to do instead of weakening them. my apologies. i missed out on one thing. he did mention something about there are probably at least 15

million pieces -- weapons among the people in yemen. >> thank you, mr. almosawi and thank you, dr. huff. our last resource specialist is miss al hamdani. any of you students of genealogy and ethnic groups travel groups historical dynamics in arabia know that the al hamdani have strong roots. impeccable roots. she's an analyst for al jazeera english in arabic, bbc, npr and cnn's analyst on yemen. >> i'm very happy to be here and to see so many people in the

audience who care about yemen. to the yemenis here and to our brothers and sisters, thank you for coming. i'm actually going to do something different here that i don't do at my other talks. rather than focusing on politics, i want to say when i came here i came to study at university and i never thought i would stay in this country. my hope was to go back. this has gotten less and less of a reality. the situation in yemen has gotten worse every year. recently a friend of mine sent me a photo of a drawing done by a child who's 6 years old of planes dropping bombs on them and i realized how bad the situation has gotten. i myself was in yemen in 1994 during the civil war and i participated in children draw further rights program, but i never thought i would draw a plane with things falling on my head. having said that, i would like to represent the voice of yemeni

people considering i speak to so many people on the ground in the north and south of yemen. i want to begin with aden. that is really suffering today. so many people have died. people are talking about bodies piling up on the ground without being able to pull it away. the fighting in aden is a result of houthi fighting with elements of aqap and the locals. the shootings are random and have targeted everyone. in one area alone there are 63,000 internally displaced people. people from saana have pledzfled into villages and at the moment a lot of people can't go anywhere because of the shifting of movements. the air strikes won't stop. rather than talking about corruptions and politicians and having the blame game when we talk about iran and saudi arabia fighting each other, we forget that there are 26 million people stuck between these names that we talk about. everything that we see today,

it's important to note is a result of having a weak government, having a weak leader. the government had an opportunity from 2011 to 2014 to deliver services to the people to do anything which left a vacuum for the houthis to step up and take the plate. yemen at the moment is surrounded. our territorial water and our airspace is considered a no-fly zone. nothing can go-cy in or out. a lot of yemen's population is dependent on humanitarian aid. having said that besides the humanitarian aid we actually import a lot of our oil. about 80% of our gasoline is imported from the outside and our revenues can only last for up to three weeks. right before this war started we were expecting another shipment that we did not receive. that means that there is inflation oil prices are going up. the dollar is really, really up. it's impossible to find it in the market. and there are laws now restricting people on how to find gasoline. of course in yemen we depend on gas for more than just cars.

we need it for electricity. if we -- we don't have electricity. the country is running out of water. at the moment a lot of countries participating in this coalition are claiming they are there to save yemen. however, 4,900 people -- more than that actually. it is increasing every day. are stuck at airports worldwide because no country would grant them visas. yemenis have been -- don't have the opportunity to get visas to enter anywhere. the a the moment the only country accepting yemenis as refugees is somalia. in yemen we have 2,400 refugees on the ground. yemen has worked as a home and opened its doors up to these refugees. no other countries are opening their doors for our refugees or immigrants. and that is very tragic. since we are technically in a siege, we don't have medical supplies for those who are wounded. we don't have enough doctors.

we don't have enough medication. and the situation in aden and saata is getting really, really bad. this could expand. talking about this air strike i constantly think how can you curb an ideology by launching air strikes against the people. we've learned before through it the drone strikes or through other experiences that you cannot fight an ideology by dropping bombs. you need a proper government infrastructure. you need a better education. you need a development plan. you need to employ people in order to shift them from fighting with militias in to participating in good governance. moreover, a lot of the air strikes have targeted military sites and military bases, meaning if there is a leader that's going to go back to yemen and the president goes back to yemen, he will not have a military to lead. they will have to start everything from zero. they have to build that infrastructure from nothing. everybody here on this panel has

talked about the role of al qaeda in the iranian peninsula in yemen. just yesterday they freed 300t( prisoners from a prison-9 and are taking advantage of this opportunity to expand on the ground. the problem with this war is that the only group that was capable of defeating and fighting al qaeda in the iranian peninsula was in fact the houthis. and what's worse is that the houthis took these air strikes to go to the south and commit atrocities and they're blaming everything on the president from escaping claiming that he dragdz the war there. of course our southern brothers and sisters are suffering from the consequences of these politicians. at the same time aqap, al qaeda in the iranian looted saana's&ñ central bank. and we still are not sure how much money they took. what's worse than that, we have on the ground, if we talk about the scenario of having on-the-ground troops, it is going to be really hard to distinguish who's whor considering that the military going in is not going to know

the geography of yemen very well and who will not be able to distinguish who they are shooting at just by looking at them. i call on the ethics and rules of just war theory. i request that the saudi government reveal the tarts that they've attacked and i actually asked them to be transparent about who they're attacking and t%,r give people notice of the areas that they're going to target. just a few days ago in sanaa, they attacked a weapons depot that was in the heart of sanaa and this weapons depot was targeted -- or blew up all the weapons in there self-imploded and missiles came out of that mountain in every direction. that was in a heavily populated area. all of the areas where these air strikes are taking place are in taz, sanaa, hideda and they are the most heavily populated areas. so far we have no international ngo workers in yemen. we can't get the right statistics. however, within the last 24

hours we had several ngos come up with rough drafts of the number of deaths that are happening there. considering that there are no journalists on the ground, and it is very hard to tell what's happening and who's killing who, i personally depend on the saudi government to provide us with their targets to know what's going on. besides the effects on human beings whether psychological or physical, i want to pay attention what's happening to the biodiversity of yemen. a lot of these weapons are going to cause environmental damage and probably are going to affect people's health long term if we don't know what weapons they're using and who they are targeting. the repercussions of this could be very great. we already have smuggling in yemen and illegal markets. for me personally as a woman, i wonder what that pleens to mymeans to my sisters back home in yemen. are they going to be part of a smuggling operation? would they be trafficked as wives? would they be -- i just don't know what's going to happen and i idea itself terrifies me.

looking at what's happening in aden at the moment and this chaos, i'm very worried about other minorities in yemen as well. this is the time to launch attacks on them and we have to look at other minorities and protect them. i guess this is me stepping out of my professional realm and i do request that the humanitarian law is implemented in yemen. unfortunately, yemenis now are stuck between fire coming in and between fire from within. a lot of the people have not been -- have not had the chance to make plans to evacuate. there are no flights coming in or out of yemen. for instance, yemen has many many yemeni-americans. roughly there are 40,000 american citizens in yemen trapped in this fire. and so every other country has citizens there that they can no the evacuate. i think that it is very necessary for the government of saudi arabia that is leading the coalition -- of course, it is

not the only country responsible for this, but to reveal what political agenda they have in the future for yemen, what is their plan. and i also urge them to have a plan -- another back-up plan because everything that is happening in yemen now is a result of having only one plan in yemen which was yemen's national dialogue conference which i have to say failed miserably. having said all of these things, i think that we need to pay attention to the governance of the areas wrm aith a lot of turmoil in the future. talking about the military moving forward i really urge the u.s., saudi and other countries the nine other countries participating, to pay attention and learn lessons of the nato and libya, of the dcc in syria, of the u.s. in iraq. it's very important moving forward of paying attention to how we restructure the military. everything that we're talking about today, analysts like myself have warned of long time

ago. we've learned about the failure of yemen's national dialogue. we've warned about the expansion of the houthis into the capital. we've warned and warned and warned and unfortunately, i feel that our voices are not heard. and here i am today, i'm warning about the repercussions of this war continuing. it is going to be -- yemen is going to be a disaster and al qaeda in the iranian peninsula is expanding. isis declared a state and has carried out an operation in saana. so this is an opportunity for me to warn that if this war continues without a clear plan, without an opportunity to save people it is just going to recruit more people in the fight against -- into the houthi side or into al qaeda side but it definitely is going to move all yemenis against the side of saudi arabia and the u.s. therefore, i urge all the analysts to request a humanitarian cease-fire for the people to make plans of

evacuation to find places to move. a lot of people are trapped in their own houses and our resources are about to go down. i also ask for the allowance of shipments of aid and so on to enter the country for the return of some ngos in for allowing doctors without borders to come in to treat the patients. otherwise, a lot of those who are wounded would die out of not getting the proper health care. and at this point i'd like to end my conversation but i'd like to point out that tim's also very well versed in yemeni politics and in the saudi war, so if you'd like to ask questions on that, thank you. >> thank you, miss al hamdani. i commend all of the speakers for confining themselves to the assigned ten-minute period. now we have the time for discussion and questions. we've asked individuals to write

their questions on 3x5 cards. bring them forward so that we have real questions as opposed to statements and valedictorian addresses. several have been asked to me. while i'm standing i'll answer them as quickly as i can. one is hasn't too much been made of the sunni/shia divide here? i made it my opening warnings yes, in the case of yemen because the divisions between the sunnis and shia there are rather soft. historically they've cooperated. there's intermarriage. there's nothing nearly as pronounced as you find to the northern part of the iranian peninsula. although it does exist. it is true that egypt came and had 70,000 to 80,000 troops in support of the so-called sunnis from '62 to '67. and it's true that saudi arabia plus iran -- i pause there -- plus iran -- backed those in

northern yemen who were the monarchists, as such. now that itself is a window for one. secondly, in terms of people saying that saudi arabia is adamantly anti-shia, ponder the following. throughout the '60s and the '70s, saudi arabia cooperatedfáxd÷ñfrj0aéáhp &hc% most closely geopolitically, geostrategically with iran whose head of state was shia. in terms of the yemen government over the years, who has saudi arabia supported most? a shia head of state. and indeed, saudi arabia's aid to northern yemen and southern yemen has been greater than that of the world bank, the imf, the united states, great britain, the netherlands combined. aspects of it have per tapedtained also to lebanon and the accord

in 1989. it was saudi arabia that pushed for a recon figurefiguration of lebanon. and gave the shia a greater percentage of power authority and influence in position than they had before. these are four cases there. and one can add with regard to syria syria. saudi arabia's long-standing relationship with syria has had recent troubles. so these are four examples of reaching out beyond ethnicity beyond religion, beyond sectarian dynamics and divides to cooperate on interest and strategic commonalityies and identicalty. with regard to a situation with

an individual who feels that he was ditched, or not supported when the arab spring came about. and does not -- did not want to see yemen devolve into what happened in iraq when you got rid of a strong person but did not replace the strong person with another strong person. and the same thing in libya. that situation is in shambles. one has to ask with regard to syria what after bashar al assad assad? it is most of the 17 christian sects in syria happen to be beholden to the al asadsad family. that doesn't come out in the media. in terms of getting rid of a strong man in yemen, here we have ali abdullah sali, over 30

years in power. no one in yemen knows the ethnic groups, the geographic groups municipalities more than that individual. he's still there. yemen yearns for stability and security. to completely rule him out on grounds of dislike, of corruption of misrule all understandable. but what about the implications of doing that given what we've seen where other strong people have been removed there. and this aspect with regard to the united states goes back to the '90s when yemen held the chair of the united nations security council and did not go along with the consensus to use force to restore kuwait's national sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity. yemen xaid a big price for that and ali abdullah saleh was the one who droefs those policies. so so the country did indeed suffer

from that aspect of his leadership. but when people talk about dictatorial, okay. authoritarian, okay. strong-person rule? okay. backwardness? yes and no. backwardness development wise economic wise, but not necessarily in terms of a civil society. having been the observer from '93's election '97's 2000's and 2006, it was just 1 of 33. but the consensus was these elections were as fair free open and transparent as anyone would find among the 130 developing countries. do not overlook that. and in 1998, secretary of state madelyn albright chose yemen, of all countries in the world, to host an emerging democratcyies forum. so these windows on yemen that must not be overlooked and the development in the south.

aden was an overdeveloped city in comparison to the other cities of arabia up until independence in 1967. so we're talking about the waste of a lot of talent with regard to the yemeni people who are extraordinarily hard workers and productive and contributive. this, part too seems to be lost in the account. and then lastly with regard to the south, it's not unanalogous to south sudan and khartoum. south sudan is but one parts of sudan. it demanded 50% of the current's oil revenues leaving out darfur in the west, leaving out the north in nibia, leaving out the east. and one wonders why you had a reaction of violence in the other regions. with the unity in 1990, south yemen played a hard hand and ended up with 50% of the power.

50% of the cabinet posts. and the other 50% the deputy ministers. when the percentage of the population was only one-seventh hnone/7, or 1/15. you can see why the south wanted to regain their powers but many in the north thought the south took too much, didn't deserve as much. jeremy sharp on the questions of the united states' relationship with yemen what are all the implications of this. is this likely to result in an increase, depth and breadth of anti-americanism? hatred towards the united states? the longer that this conflict >> sorry.

i feel like i should give my opening remarks all over again because i was sitting down and not at the podium. look, one side of me is -- thinks that on any given day, even when there's not a major international operation in yemen, it's never a good situation, as my panelist described. this is a country with incredibly low socioeconomic indicators in terms of human development. now on the u.s. side, i mean we have a history now of u.s. operations in yemen. we've talked about publicly in our own discourse here in washington where mistakes have been made. civilians have been killed. that obviously engenders a great deal of discord directed against the united states. certainly, like my panelists said if there were more air strikes that hit dairy factories or weapons depots in civilian

areas, i mean that's also going to sow a lot of discord. in terms of u.s. operations, maybe not necessarily saudi, you're getting into sort of broader questions about how we conduct counterterrorism operations, not just in yemen but in pakistan and afghanistan and iraq and syria. these are questions that are unresolved and sort of open for big debate. how do we protect our own homeland security without creating new breeds and generations of terrorists. and it's being tested in yemen and it is going to be tested elsewhere. i don't have the answer to that debate but it is worth revisiting certainly. >> colonel deroche how long will the logistics the operational assets on the ground

in yemen, likely last including munitions, ammunition? and what are the implications for u.s./yemeni defense cooperation that's now on hold, paralyzed, idling at the intersection. how do you assess this situation? what is your estimate prognosis? >> thank you, sir. well, the saudi military spokesman has said that the saudi targets are depots, missiles installations, then vehicles, and then rebel lines of communication. and unfortunately, a rebel line of communication is what you and i would call a road. so the target set is already fairly broad. what you'll's see happen is some forms of precision guided munitions will run out relatively quickly because there's just not a lot of stocks of them and they're difficult to replace. we don't know for sure what's

been used, but based on what they've bought i assume paveway and brimstone which are both british produced and only used by britain and saudi arabia. so if those -- the production lines are relatively small, it is incapable of surging. they'll probably run out of that very quickly and what you'll see is typhoon and tornado will have to move back up to the north. the jdams, the snap-ones to dumb bombs that are allowed to be gps guided, those are very cleep, there is a lots of them and they're easy to move around. those will probably become the target. the paradox is the saudi stocks of pgms will probably decline at the same time the targets become harder to find so you have fewer precision guided munitions at the time when your targets require more precision guided munitions and your political frustration increases which leads to a sense of doing something. which is why i think it is time to put away the stick and show

the carrot. you have to have a political solution here because we're not going to be able to make it happen. the second question about the u.s. military support to yemen, right now there is a lot of -- i would imagine there is a lot of consternation within u.s. circumstance circles because a lot of things we've again to yemenis, such as night vision goggles we simply can't account for. these are things we try to track closely, that we inventory on a monthly basis. i actually inventoried it the yemeni parachute brigades. night vision goggles. i got to inspect it several years ago. it was immaculate. we don't know where those are. unless we can establish where they are we're not going to send more things of that nature. so there will be cooperation if there is an entity we can cooperate with particularly against a common enemy like the guys who just busted out. we will be very very low-tech

until we can be re-assured that the things like night vision goggles are accounted for. thank you. >> two more for jeremy sharp. and then panelist on my right, your left. can you talk about the implications, potential for this ten-state arab coalition to be engaged in the challenges pertaining to syria? and possibly against isis or to try to restore somewhat security and stability in iraq. jeremy sharp. >> is there an egypt question? >> and then if one could analyze egypt's position, egypt's role.

we've read in recent days that the united states has lifted its ban or sanctions or hold on munitions and armaments to egypt, and that egypt is to be the location of a 35,000-arab ground force for this united/arab joint defense command for which there is an air component which is much smaller -- just a few thousand -- and a naval component to perhaps double that. but those two combined multiplied by seven would be the ground forces. now who's paying for this? largely saudi arabia and the other gcc countries. but not all. and who else is involved in this? morocco is. jordan is. you may recall in the last four