concern about him. he is somebody that i think is universally respected inside yemen but because they objected to the process that led to his appointment. but we think that he is someone who is acceptable to all of the elements of society. we don't think that it would undermine the legitimacy of president hadi's government. in fact it accomplishes something that president hadi had been encouraged to do for a period of time. >> do you see him with the resolution of this conflict do you see president hadi coming back and running that country? >> i think both the united states and more broadly the international community see that the legitimacy -- >> see him as a legitimate president. >> what exactly the format might be that would bring him back to sanaa is negotiable. >> all right. >> if there's some other format that would be acceptable to the

yemenese, it would be acceptable to us. >> we have known the iranian influence with the houthis has been there a long time. have you seen their interference in this conflict more prevalent than it has been in the past? >> yes. >> you have seen a step up. >> yes. >> do you have any feeling that there's increase of that activity due to the iranian nuclear negotiations that we are going through, have they been embolden more? >> we believe that there are a number of factors that are feeding into iran's sense that it has the upper hand because of its engagement elsewhere in the region, because of the weakness or disarray within the sunni community, the iranians may be involved. i think our sense is that the iranian nuclear negotiations would not be a factor. >> i find it interesting that the iranians stepped up their

involvement and have taken over four capitals, we see a big influence of them in venezuela. all this time when they have been under sanctions are supposedly struggling internally, yet we see more influence. in fact just purchased that missile defense system from russia for $800 million. doesn't look like a country that's in financial constraints or having difficulties making this presence. i think for them to step forward, show this kind of leadership in that region certainly not the kind of leadership would i want to see, i would think the influence we have with saudi arabia would be stronger. what are your thoughts on that? >> certainly i think that what we would like to do is see, you know we have the nuclear agreement now. i think our view is that potentially that could contribute to regional security and stability. certainly the support that we are providing to saudi arabia and the saudi coalition and

operation decisive storm is an important element important opportunity for us to demonstrate to our friends in the region that despite the nuclear negotiations and framework agreement our commitment to their security and stability is not effected and that we will continue to confront and challenge iranian activity where we see it playing a negative role in the region. >> ambassador feierstein i appreciate your time. i yield back. >> thank you, dr. yoho. miss meng of new york. >> ambassador, i thought when the campaign started, the saudis were smart to brand this as a panarab effort. with the rising of civilian casualties, can you give us a sense of the perspective of this on the arab street today? >> it varies and i do believe

that broadly on the arab street i think there's a great deal of support for what the coalition is trying to accomplish in the sense that it is appropriate for the saudis to take a leadership position in confronting iranian malign intent. within yemen of course the situation is a little bit different and the concerns about some of the civilian casualties is obviously and understandably much higher. one of the things we are trying to accomplish in providing support to the international coalition is precisely to help them avoid those kinds of civilian casualties and make sure when they're going after a

particular target that they're doing everything possible to make sure there's no collateral damage. >> my last question. appears that turkey and pakistan backed off their initial support for this operation. can you speak about that and do you foresee the new found arab coalition working effectively together beyond yemen? >> i think for turkey and pakistan the issue is more complicated. i can speak a little bit, more familiar with the situation in pakistan than in turkey. in pakistan you have of course a long border with iran an important relationship between pakistan and iran as well as an important and long-standing relationship with saudi arabia and so for the pakistanis this was probably a situation where they didn't see frankly that

there was a good way forward for them to participate. they had been very clear in saying they would be absolutely committed to supporting saudi arabia if there were any kind of threat to saudi arabia specifically, but in the case of yemen a little bit more complicated for them and probably something that politically inside of pakistan would have been extremely difficult. >> thank you very much miss meng. >> mr. desantis my colleague from florida. >> thank you, madam chairman. i think it -- this is important topic, i am going to get to this, but we just got news over the wire that the president is planning on removing cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. now, this is something that is although outrageous for us, something that i think we expected, i think it was baked in the cake, but i think it is

really, really troubling when cuba hasn't done anything have given no concessions haven't done anything on behalf of their people, they're arresting more people repressing more people since this change. they have harbored somebody on the fbi list of most wanted terrorists. nothing is being done. this is just a pure unadulterated concession with absolutely no basis or grounding in facts. and i was happy to lead a special order on the floor last night with some of the post 9/11 veterans who are in congress and the two countries that we seem to have better relationships with now iran and cuba. the question is what have we received in return for that, mostly it is us giving concessions to these countries and i think foreign policy based on the idea that we're going to be dancing with dictators is not a foreign policy that is going

to succeed and i think it is really alienating us from a lot of our allies and tragically i think is leaving people who are fighting for freedom in places like cuba completely in the lurch. this is not the last we talk about this, i know, but it is really, really disappointing. sorry about that, ambassador. i know that's not your cup of tea, but something that we work on on this committee and i know that the chair woman especially has done it for a long time. did the state department approve president obama's remarks in september when he announced the campaign against isis and cited yemen as a success? >> i'm not entirely sure. >> do you know -- i know there's a lot of discussion back when bush was president about approving the wmd passages. is it standard that that goes

through state when president makes a major speech about foreign policy or is it just kind of state has to respond to what the white house said? i am not clear about how the process normally works. >> i think as a matter of principle it is up to the president to decide how he wants to prepare his speeches. >> once the statement was made and yemen was cited as an example of success, were there concerns in the state department that were raised about that given the actual reality on the ground in yemen at the time? >> i would say that the record of our activities in yemen from 2011, 2012 until quite recently in terms of the effectiveness of

our unilateral actions against aqap as well as the cooperation and the ability of the united states to partner effectively with counterparts in side of yemen was positive. and as a result of what we were able to accomplish together we saw a number of positive developments. in terms of taking some leadership elements of aqap off the table and also forcing aqap to change its strategy when the political crisis came in yemen in 2011 aqap was able to take advantage of that and increase its territorial control to the extent they were actually

declaring areas of the country to be an islamic caliphate not unlike what we see with iraq and syria these days, and because of our cooperation primarily our cooperation with yemeni security forces, we were able to defeat that at significant loss of life for aqap. as a result of that, they changed their tactics, they went back to being a more traditional terrorist organization. they were able to attack locations inside of sanaa and elsewhere, but the fact of the matter is that we were achieving progress and our ability to pleasure them and to keep them on the defensive as opposed to giving them lots of time. and remember in 2009, in 2010 we saw aqap mount a fairly serious effort, the underwear

bomber and also the cassette tape effort to attack the united states. after 2010, they were not able to do that, despite the fact that their intent was still as clear and strong as it was before. so while aqap was by no means defeated and continued to be a major threat to security here in the united states as well as in yemen and elsewhere around the world, nevertheless i think that it was legitimate to say we had achieved some success in the quite against aqap. unfortunately what we are seeing now because of the change in the situation again inside of yemen is that we are losing some of the gains we were able to make during that period of 2012 to 2014 and that's why it is so important that we have the

ability to get the political negotiations started again so that we can re-establish legitimate government inside of sanaa that will cooperate with us once again in this fight against violent extremist organizations. >> great. my time is expired. i appreciate that. there was a lot there. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. desantis. i look forward to watching the video of your remarks along with our other vets last night. congratulations. i wanted to ask an additional question so the members can as well. because of its gee graphicographic location, yemen is close a short boat ride away from africa. very unstable. we have got -- do you worry about the -- were the movement to take place that the houthi

rebels, isil, whatever faction of terrorist organization could very well move their troops a little boat ride away and be yet in another area where they can control that land and destabilize an already troubled region? >> we certainly worried a lot about linkages between particularly the aqap in yemen and shabab in somalia. we know that shabab was sending people to yemen to receive training. as you say quite correctly, the distances are very short. we are talking about from yemen to gentleman bud ee, maybe 20 miles by sea. so it is very close by. and it is something that would be of concern to us and again as

part of our efforts against both aqap and al shabab, it is something that we were trying to monitor and defeat aggressively. >> well, i do worry about it and we have a lot of american personnel, embassies, consulates, we have a presence throughout that region so that is a worry some future development perhaps. thank you, mr. ambassador. mr. deutsch? >> one more question also. with the coalition focused as it is on the houthis, and since we lost at least for now our counter terrorism partner in the yemeni government and military, is there -- what pressure is there, to the extent there is any, on al qaeda and isis as well? >> we of course to the extent we

can, it is more limited now, to the extent that we can we will continue to engage aqap unilaterally in order to try to disrupt or defeat any threats against us. when secretary was in the region, it was an issue we raised with the saudis in particular and urged them as part of their effort to go after aqap targets as well as other targets so we can continue the pressure. >> can you tell us how that was received? >> they agree because aqap is a direct threat to their security too. >> have we seen that happen? >> i can't say for certain, a, whether we have given any targets to go after, whether they have been effective in

servicing those. >> thank you. >> thank you so much mr. deutsch. dr. yoho. >> thank you madam chair. just kind of a follow-up question. with the administration coming out, saying it is a success over there back in september still touting that as of march 24 or 25, how can we be that far off. you explained the counter terrorism portion, but to have a country taken over while we are sitting there, it feels like overnight, the marines have to take the weapons with them. i don't understand how that happens, how we can be that disconnected? what are your thoughts on that? is it just denial or is it -- i don't know what it is. i am confused because before you answer it its counter intuitive

claim, says it enrages republicans, i am sure it enrages a lot of people. i am kind of baffled. >> it was very frustrating. we again i think that if you go back to where we were a year ago successful conclusion of the national dialogue conference, which was really the last major hurdle in completion of the gcc initiative, houthis participated in that participated in constitutional drafting exercise which was completed successfully, and we were in the process of moving through all of the requirements of the gcc initiative that would allow us to complete successfully the political transition. i think there were a combination of things. one, that there was a view on the part of the houthis that they were not getting everything

they wanted. they were provoked by saleh, who never stopped plotting on the first day of the gcc initiative never stopped trying to block the political transition, and there was to be frank, there was a weakness in the government an inability on the part of the government to really build the kind of alliances and coalition that would allow them to sustain popular support and to bring this to successful conclusion. so i think that all through this period there was a sense that we were moving forward and that we believed we could succeed in implementing this peaceful transition, yet always knew on the margins there were threats

and risks. unfortunately we got to a point where the houthis and saleh, where they reached the last moment to interrupt the peaceful transition it was bad for them, it would mean they wouldn't get everything they wanted they saw that time was running out for them and decided to act and unfortunately the government was unable to stop them. >> i appreciate it. it just concerns me extremely a lot that we are calling this a success and missed the mark, way past the mark. if we're missing this, what else are we missing in our foreign policies. can i ask one other thing? we've invested $900 million since 2011 roughly. it doesn't seem like we've gotten the bang for our buck in foreign policy.

in your opinion how would you direct foreign policy in a country like yemen to where we get the results we want? >> that's a good question. what i would say, in a place like yemen we have to recognize what the limitations are in those societies and accept the fact that if we are going to make a difference it is going to be a very long term investment on our part. it is unfortunate that yemen has taken a turn that it has taken. i don't think that the situation is irretrievable. i think with some effort on our part, part of the rest of the international community we can get back on track. i would hope that we would then stay with it and help the yemeni people achieve a good outcome.

they're good people. they're, you know, they're people who probably deserve a lot better than they've gotten, it would be good if we could be part of that success. >> ambassador, appreciate your time. madam chair thanks for the indulgence. >> thank you, dr. yoho, mr. ambassador yemen is a quickly moving terrain. we would appreciate if you can keep the subcommittee abreast of developments. we don't have to have a formal hearing, we can have a meeting in one of the meeting rooms. thank you for being accessible. lots of moving parts. we would like to be abreast of every development. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. your testimony was excellent. with that, the subcommittee is adjourned.

on the next washington journal, congressman jim mcdermott of washington, lead democrat on the ways and means subcommittee on health discusses repeal of medicare payment formula known as the dock fix, and challenges to the president's health care law. then congressman james renacci of ohio discusses bills on the house floor, including prospects for tax overhaul. after that, our spotlight on magazines features justin whirlen on his reporting of the shooting of a man in south carolina and the relationship between police departments and communities of color. washington journal is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. you can join the conversation with your calls and comments on facebook and twitter. this weekend, cspan cities

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